Friday 20 July 2007

The Cats out of the Bag

Over the last couple of weeks there have been plenty of rumors of prospective bids for the 2007-08 Australian Chess Championships. Apart from the publicly announced Box Hill CC bid, there was talk of a bid from the Parramatta CC, as well as the Melbourne CC.
As today is the deadline for bids to be submitted to the ACF, it seems that the various bids (real or imagined) have stuck their heads above the trenches.
It seems that the MCC bid was a non-starter, probably being more talk than action. This will please the current ACF President Gary Wastell, who expressed a worry to me that if the ACF decided not to hold the Australian Championship this year that "the Melbourne chess club would organise some tournament after Xmas and call it the Australian Championship anyway".
The Parramatta CC bid is also short on detail, but this may be because they have chosen not to publicise the details of their bid, instead submitting to the NSWCA/ACF.
But the real surprise is the Chess Discount Sales (Peter Parr) bid, which he has announced here. Peter had proposed a format for the Australian Championship earlier this year, without actually committing to a bid himself. Now he has actually bitten the bullet and put together a complete bid, including all the things a good bid needs (Budget, Prize list, entry fees, format). While the bid is contingent upon venue availability (no longer Bondi Beach or UTS), it seems to meet the requirements for a championship chess tournament.

So does this flood of competing bids mean that the Australian tournament scene is flourishing? In my opinion, not really. I think the major driver for bids was the lowered expectation and requirements expected of this years championship. With 6 months to go, pretty much any bid that involved the provision of chess sets and clocks would be considered. And frankly I would consider this a much more realistic state of affairs. Having been involved in every Australian Open since 2000, there seems to be an expectation that every Open/Championship needs to be held in a 4 or 5 star hotel, with full conference facilities, high class but cheap accommodation, and 24 hour transport to and from the venue. But even when these requirements are met, the number of players who turn up to these events fall way below expectations. Put simply, there are not enough paying chess players to meet these demands.
Instead what I think we are seeing this year is a return to the cheap and cheerful events held prior to the mid 80's. The Australian Open in 82/83 was held in a big hall, and still managed to attract a bigger field than any of the Australian Opens since 2000. In fact most of the Championship events of the 70's seemed to involve trestle tables, sets and clocks, and a whole bunch of players who just wanted to turn up and play chess. As that group of players has got smaller over the year, realistically we have to accept that the financial base of such tournaments will shrink as well.

4 comments:

DeNovoMeme said...

Wrong title, Shaun. Should be the "Dog is Out of the Yard."

Could someone spay the mongrel before it pisses on every post in the whole BB world.

WHile I hope that the ACF makes a wise choice of the bids, I fear that the NSWCA will arm wrestle the ACF toward the Parramatta bid. If does not matter which bid is the best, as long as the best is picked. How can there be any trust that the ACF will choose unbiasedly while Bill Gletsos is behind:
the ACF and
the NSWCA and
the Parramatta bid.

Get real, people. Bill Gletsos must go.

Anonymous said...

Play the ball Matt not the man!
Maybe Parramatta is the better bid!
Brian

Anonymous said...

No bids moves to (at least) 3 bids.

I think it's obvious the chess community wants to see the event being run but why are there now people willing to run it?

Is it - oops - disorganised chess people just working out they need to pull their finger out or it might just not happen? (Advance planning/promotion is obviously sooo overrated ...)

Is it the ACF's preparedness to underwrite a loss up to $2000 so a smaller scale (realistic) event becomes less risky?

Or is it the offer to keep 100% of the profit? And does that apply just for 2008 or is that the new norm?

If it is the new norm it will be interesting if it becomes possible (again) to run events at a profit.

DeNovoMeme said...

Brian,
This is me "playing the ball." --> As I said honestly before, I have no problem with a Parramatta venue, or the club involved. Nor do I have a problem with the CDS bid. Which ever is best, is A-OK with me.

This is me playing the man. --> Bill Gletsos should not be allowed to be both:
1. The NSWCA President and Tournament Committeeman for a bidding group, and
2. Anywhere near, or privy to, the bid selection process. ie ACF D.President.

The problem I see is that even if the Parra bid is best and wins, most people will say it won *because* Bill Gletsos used his clout. There is a clear COI. He must quit one or the other body - NSWCA or ACF.