OTB tournaments on the decline ?

I know this is a very subjective topic depending on where you live.  Some countries, such as India and China, Chess seems to be booming, so I imagine the trend is in the opposite direction, but where I am from, Ontario, Canada, OTB tournaments seems to be on the endangered list.

I looked at Canadian Chess Federations website for upcoming tournaments for the year 2013 and it was quite depressing.  Only a handful planned.  Not only that, but the amount of chess-clubs that are active in major cities is anemic to say the least.

Bear in mind that as far as I know, Chess in Canada receives no govermnent support at all.  We barely can scrape together the funds to field an olympiad team.  A competing organization "Chess n' Math" has taken over from the official organization in the school system, further dividing the pool of organized chess. 

Apart from these unique challenges though, most tournament organizers will tell you, the reason for the decline is the Internet.  Its hard to compete with the ability to play with all the comforts at home against who you want at what time control etc.  Then compare the committment required to play your typical weekend swiss.  The big one is time.  It will cost you the whole weekend (byes excluded) as at standard time controls, 3 and 4 hours games are not unusual.  The second is cost.  Most tournament players compete for the love of the game.  Few do it for financial rewards.  The average player competing in most weekend tournaments might make a few hundred dollars compared to a few thousand in costs associated with travel, food, accomodations etc, unless most of the tournaments you compete in are local.

I would be interested in what other players experience is.  I know I paint a rather dismal picture, which is a shame, because I really do miss playing OTB, the competition, meeting new people etc.  but the trend lines has been there for all to see for some time now.

After I'll have prepared a decent opening repertoire I'll be so happy to travel to go to a chess tournament. You mention the cost, but I'm sure 99% of players go there for the experience...it's like a holiday that instead of playing beach volley you play chess.

Having said that I'm glad I live in Europe, where I believe distances are smaller than in America and tournaments are held in places you'd love to go to anyway. Beautiful cities, and I even know a tournament in a beautiful town in the Alps.

And the experience of OTB chess is what that counts.

Playing only on the internet is just sad, there are much more entertaining videogames out there.

@JamesSneller - We have a monthly OTB tournament every 3rd Saturday of the month in Buffalo, NY and information regarding it can be found on our blog at :  http://buffalochess.blogspot.com. This past month we had over 50+ players and we often get participants from Ontario, Canada so you are more than welcome to join us.

--Vic.

I have been playing OTB tournaments for 5 years and I understand partly why it is declining.
you invest your time in a tournament on a e.g. 7 Tuesdays instead of in the weekend. So you have your work and you can barely eat something before you go. but you have said yes so you are in for a penny and in for a pound.
you play 4 hours on a weekday and you get not enough sleep. you have to drive 1 hour or more to get to the place.
the rooms are often cold or too hot. the table are small and you have to sit 4 people at one table.  the clocks are so close that some player hit your clock.
not to mention all the prearranged draws that are done in front of the tournament leader.
after 5 years of tournaments. 

I have decided only to play on chess.com -I can eat and sleep whenever I want.

I play duplicate bridge and even ran a club once. To play- people often had to travel 30 minutes to more than an hour and then when the game was over--travel back home.  A game used to be about 12-14 hands of bridge.

Now, I can play a similar game on the internet in 40 minutes time and do not have to do the travel or pay a large fee.  Now, I often play several games a day. Before I played once a week at the most. 

I am sure the duplicate bridge clubs are also having big declines.

Thank-you for the response.  Quick question.  I presently have an active CFC membership,  but my USCF memership expired a long time ago, and was only based on a rapid tournaments played online.  These were the days of US Chess live, before they merged with ICC.  What would be required to participate ?

@JamesSneller - James, let me find out from the Tournament Director and I'll send along a message after I hear back. If a USCF membership is required, getting one on-line is reasonably affordable. As said, it's a nice community of players, ranging from beginners/Scholastics,  and up through the ranks to National Masters and, on occassion, an International Master or two. As I said, we have had and continue to get several Ontario, Canada players come down and participate. There's also a yearly tournament in Rochester, NY known as the Marchand - a 2-day event, that usually has 4-6 GM's and  a smattering of IMs playing as well as the usual folks from 1000-2200+ in their respective divisions. That will be held March 23/24th, this coming year.

 --Vic.

You should come down to Edmonton, Alberta.  We are very good with our chess.  We get Casino funding to the tune of around 70,000 per year (thats per club, Calgary gets it as well.)  Also the Alberta Chess Association gets around the same amount of casion funding.  Every Thursday in Edmonton we hold a month long accelerated swiss tournament using CFC ratings.  Two weeks ago we just finished our annual team tourament in which we had 12 teams participate.  Our largest tournament of the year will be the Northern Alberta Open which was at times pulled up to 60 people to play as it is a qualifier for the Alberta Closed.  Here is our website if you are interested.  http://www.albertachess.org/

James,

  I am going to contact the tournament director again regarding what you need to do,if anything, to play in our Buffalo USCF tournaments. Will get back to you very shortly. There's a tournament on Jan. 19th at the Main Place Mall. There is free, garage parking and the venue is very good for playing.

 --Vic.

@James,

  You can contact the TD (Michael) at :  arcangel8chess@yahoo.com. He tells me a USCF membership is required (you can get that on-line as I did) and if you play, he'll need to know your CFC membership number and rating which would be used for pairings in the tournament. Hope that this helps and if you have addtional questions, please feel free to ask. Again, it's a fairly vibrant chess group that I think you would enjoy participating in and I am sure our group would enjoy it as well.

 --Vic.

OTB has declined and internet chess has thrived. This has created a few problems for players wishing to improve...

1) You get better by playing long games and actually thinking about your moves.

2) Blitz and bullet is all the rage, and this leads to bad habits and impulsive play. I don't care how good you get at blitz or bullet, you hurt your chess development. GM's play it to test openings, etc. We don't have to do as they do....

 3) The internet is less expensive than playing OTB Chess and has attractd a new breed that prefers to play for free. Well, this is fine, but unless you invest money in OTB play, books, etc, you won't develop your talent to its full potential.

4) The old guard, who only played OTB, is and will die off, and the new breed, the exclusive internet player will be the majority, if they aren't already.