What needs to change in US chess

what do you guys think needs to change in the states with chess for it to gain greater popularity.

I have my personal opinion but would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

I totally agree with your personal opinion.

When I started playing chess in the US ( 1973 ) it was rare that I entered an event that the entry fee was more than $20.  Now, its very rare to find an event that has an entry fee this low ! I think it has become too expensive for most people who love chess to actually play in weekend tournaments in the US. When you  include the expenses of staying in a hotel 1 or 2 nights, the travel, and eating out to bloated entry fees its just not very attractive to most chess players. The ratio of prize money to entry fee is also terrible in the US compared to Europe. Its extremely discouraging to spend a weekend and $200. for a weekend swiss , win first prize, and ONLY break even !  I have had this happen more than once over the decades. To highlight a huge difference : I recently played an 8 round rapid chess ( G/20 ) event here in Portugal. I paid $10. entry fee and this fee included my lunch ! The first place prize was 300 euros ! It also was guranteed, I have never been to a "based on entries" type event here. I didnt win first but got 7th and even for 7th I got 20 euros , which gave me twice my entry fee back. I played 8 games of chess in one day ( first round at 11 am )  and didnt have to spend any time in a hotel and didnt have to pay for any meals out... it will be very difficult for me to go back to the typical weekend swisses in the US when I move back .....

I think the biggest catch to this scenario has to do with the amount of tournaments there are available in the US. this should influence the fee... I wouldnt be surprised if a 20 tournament would be 50 just because of the exclusiveness and the lack of events there are.

Europe is know to have support from different organizations for chess tournaments. I hear citites have budgets for certain events... nothing special but if the city promotes it, it is a monumental step in convincing other organizations to get involved.

Well, I can't speak for the USA, but I can tell you how we increased membership of a slowly dying club in South Africa from fewer than 10 to over 60 members:

Monthly 25/25 5 round Swiss Tournaments, on Sunday afternoons. Start at 12 noon, and everybody is home in time for dinner.

Entry fee R50.00, (about $7.00). Open to everybody, does not have to be registerd with any formal body, and the complete entry fee goes to to prize money for the top 5 finishers. Of course you need a TD who is willing to run this for the love of it, without getting paid (that usually ended up being me), but because it is informal, and not rated, he does not have to be qualified.

Just put out a few flyers in the area, the response might surprise you.

It really depends on how we measure chess popularity. Tournament chess does seem to get more and more expensive. I myself don't really play that much tournament chess just based on availability. There is a nice monthly quickchess tournament near where I live, but I really don't enjoy 15min chess. The internet and my chess program is enough for me to test my chess skill against, so the need to go to tournaments is really low for me. When I reach a high standard, I will probably frequent chess tournaments just long enough to get a NM rating, but that is about it for my interest in competitive chess. I am much happier playing a nice relaxing game at a coffeeshop.

Adding to your point, I wouldn't know where a tournament is located within a 100 miles of where I live.  It's funny how Americans consensusly respect and admire the game, but it seems most are intimidated by the game and don't care to learn.

It's a perception, maybe not a reality.

In order for it to gain greater popularity it must have incentives. Corporate, Federal and individual sponsors must step up to the plate and shell out prize money that will get the coffee shop dude from outta their and into the tournament Hallslike the marshall chess club. I used to play tourneys their when it was say a reasonable entry fee like 20-30 dollars now its 40+ dollars with modest prize payouts;not to mention the amount of money on lessons thats more money,  masters can be relatively steep now adays in addition to the fees at weekend tourneys thats in the hundreds with hotel  travel and food expenses.   Those people who belong to a club such as I thats more dues, equipment, software, books, paying to play at places like the chess coffe shops. No wonder why Maurice Ashley held a tournament a few years back in Minneapolis with a prizefund of 310,000 dollars or more. That got people in the USA chess circuit buzzing.

There needs to be bigger prize funds, less petty returns on local and weekend tourneys, and please keep the fees to chess clubs affordably  low.

Chess can be a very time consuming hobby/sport so much it is a  there have been guys in NewYorkCity who literally play and teach  chess as a full/Part time hustle its a crumb snatching hustle but these guys can make on an average 30 to 100 or more on any given day  if they find the right fish.  If these guys were to come out of the park hustling and go to the tourney halls playing with a $1,000 on the line for chess a game to be placed for a prize on a local tourney it  would make a world of difference. Thats why I am in favor of sponsored matches by  individuals and all the other side activity of wagering that goes on.

Oh and one last thing those who put too much emphasis into glory leagues like

commercial and Bank chess leagues in N.Y.C USA that dont pay out when teams win but give u a trophy and a dinner it could very much be a waste of time in a recession. These leagues need to issue out money to the top winning team who gave there time and energy on week nights  and came out #1. When money is on the line it makes a big difference.  There is so much more .......

I have a question for the original poster. Are you just referring to USCF tournament turnout as the measure of chess popularity? If so, then the answers we have seen so far as money issues would seem to be the answer. If you are looking to expand chess popularity in a more general sense, then here are a few ideas for any part of the country. The internet is a wonderful resource. As we can see from chess.com, there is a large worldwide interest in chess. The internet can also be used to advertise chess clubs, tournaments, or just meet up spots. I actually found out about the aformentioned 15min tournament on the Indiana state chess site, as well as a breakfast restuarant meet-up that a gentleman Vic has. There are more traditional ways to get word out there too. Often in the US, there are community bulliten boards (grocers, libraries, universities) that can be used to advertise clubs. Sometimes it is also possible to work with schools to set up after school programs, and if your skill level is high enough, perhaps even offering adult education classes at community colleges (a National Master I knew in Colorado did this). There are many different avenues that we can make chess more popular, but unfortunately I think the potential for tournament chess to become more popular is fairly limited unless there is a purse for every participant. I myself found that I was only playing in tournaments to improve my chess, so paying to play in a tournament wasn't worth it when I could find adequate opponents online and through programs such as Fritz. The only real draw for me is the ability to have a nationally recognized rating, but that really doesn't do much to go through all the trouble of saving for tournaments and losing days of work. I choose to enjoy chess in a more mellow setting.

mayde if the schools would have something for chess like they do for the other sports,maybe then chess might improve.

chsskrazy: that is the longterm investment plan. it will yield all the results.

rooperi: the 25/25 tournament idea is phenomenal. the concept in general is something I had put thought into before. low entry, and availability for everyone. the biggest challenge in my location, for what I would like to shoot for is a location.

As Tony said ( from Scarface) " with the right woman, I go straight to the top"... in this case, with the right tournament location :) thank you for this.

Chessroshi:  I could understand how based on your availability you would choose to not participate  on many events.

In regards to your second post,  my intentions when choosing a title for the forum was to name it "Problems in Chess", but then I thought the negativity would be too much for such a "holy" place like chess.com :)

Popularity as a whole I mean, in general... completely.

if there were a closed door sit down with 100 meaningful people in chess ( I would be outside the door) and they made a list of the most important things in chess in terms for the future, chess.com would more than likely rank top 10. the community resources are valuable and will be a platform for the future popularity of the game.

Teaching chess in schools is quite an easily attainable thing to do, but adult level education... I would be highly interested in attempting to do that.. if anyone can elaborate on how to go about, I would more than likely follow and report my progress with everyone ;)

As far as tournament chess, I would have to disagree with the thought that it will have limited success. I will share my thoughts... It has to do with that quote from the movie "blow" "you failed because you had the wrong dream george".

I think the reason why most chess businesses or ideas, specially tournaments fail is because the people running them only cater to chessplayers. If we take the time to promote the  game to the larger population, I think chess, and chess tournaments as a whole would make it.

tournaments need to be run for different people. there is the billy blanks from the park, the charlesgalofre aspiring chess professional, the real donald's, and the counting the stars businessmen who are always too busy :) --  and then the rest.

we should bring in the money from the larger population, put the press money and cameras on the aspiring and donalds, and celebrate the billy blanks, businessmen-- and then the rest..

I believe to have more people playing in tournaments the most important thing that must be done/changed is that the cost of playing in a rated event must be reduced. However, I dont think this will happen because in my 35 years in chess I have only seen prices increase, they NEVER go down. I recall when I first started playing than entry fees were very low because there were no cash prizes, the prizes were trophies usually. I dont know about others but I would be perfectly willing to go back to playing for trophies , or books/sets/clocks , as prizes if this would significantly reduce entry fees for all. Would you ? What do most tournament players play for anyway ? I think most of them play to improve their game and to increase their rating. Most never have a realistic shot at the top prizes but they pay bloated entry fees so there can be those "top prizes " for the very few that do have a shot at those prizes.

A real stumbling block for tournament chess that I see is an overall mindset that I've noticed by players. It is an understandable, but unfortunate thing that many players play to take home a prize. A lot of the grumbling I hear is about how little the payout is. I actually tied for first in a Utah Open in the under 1800 section and was fortunate enough to win some money. The thing is, I was actually willing to part with my 'stake' and just take the trophy for the under 1600 category, due to the fact that I had the best placing of the under 1600 rated players. Instead, they split the money for the 1800 section, and did a playoff for the 1800 trophy. I would have been much happier with something that represented my accomplishment than money. Perhaps if they found a way to find tournament sponsors, such as companies wishing to advertise their products, then we could guarantee a purse that would draw 'stake' players. The current set-up doesn't seem to offer much to the player who just goes to play, as the expense far exceeds the benefit. If I have a choice to play people around the world for leisure games, and can get a world class game on my home computer, it is hard to motivate my feet to move me to a tourny.

I would love to play in more tournaments, like the upcomming NC Open but at the moment I work every saturday morning. So to do any OTB stuff I have to stick to clubs. Although there is one club I go to every Wednesday night that does one G/75 (USCF rated) a night and at the end of the month the tournament is over and another one starts next week.  I guess in the end I get to be in one 4 or 5 round tournament a month.

I've also been pushing a club I go to friday nights to start a 20-30 min unrated club tournament once a month, they seem very interested so hopefully that gets off the ground soon.

The June Issue of Chess Life had an article about how the Fresno Chess Club increased its membership from 15 to 216 in a year and a half.  They did it by advertising their club, accomodating members (affordable dues, convenient meeting place, convenient meeting time, etc.), and putting in a lot of time and effort.

The USCF (United States Chess Federation) needs to drop their overpriced fees. They have no discounts to entice new adult members to play. Even if you wave your option to get a monthly magazine they still charge about $30 instead of $42 online to be a member for a year. That's a bit greedy to me. Then even in this computer age era where rating a game probably costs them next to nothing, they have jacked up the amount of money it costs to rate one game to 25 cents per game. That adds up to a lot if you're a TD trying to rate a lot of player's games.

I'm not really into OTB play, so I can't really speak to the tournament scene in the US. I like correspondence chess. I'm not saying it's better, it's just my personal preference. And when it comes to correspondence chess, the USCF sucks. If I want to play online correspondence chess with the USCF, I can play a round robin quad with a time control of 10 moves in 50 days. If I can't play a bigger tournament or a different time control. That's it. And it costs $7 on top of my USCF membership for each tournament.

I come here to play, and I have choices of time controls, choice of group size, I don't have to pay extra fees to play in tournaments, I can play individual games or matches against particular people, I can play Fischer Random, I get other services on top of chess playing, and so on. And I can go over to other sites and get Fischer time controls and other variants. Why would I ever want to be with the USCF?

The only thing that the USCF has going for it is that it's "official." But to me that's meaningless. All it means is that FIDE recognizes the games and the ratings. What do I care what FIDE thinks of me?

I want to say a word about prize money.  In order to grow Chess, you have to get people to their first tournament.  That means they aren't going to win.  So, prize money is useless, and in fact, counterproductive.  Anyone with a clue can see that the prize money comes out of entrance fees, so the newcomer is giving his money away to the high ranked players.

If you walked into a pool hall, and saw someone run the table, and then he turned around and said, "Who wants to play for money?" would you play?  I think not.  Why, then, would someone pay a 25 dollar entry fee to play in a cash prize Chess tournament.

I think the key is to hold tournaments with low costs and no memberships required.  I'm looking to hold my second tournament this spring.  It will have rated and unrated play, for kids and adults, and a fee of 10 dollars.    (I would rather do 5 dollars, but I can't find a free site, and I can't attract enough people to pay for the bigger sites that would have a lower per-person break even point.  If anyone knows a good site in the Detroit area, drop me a line.)

By the way, if you agree with many comments about cost in this thread, be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.  Hold a tournament.  It's really easy.

Interesting ! because alot of those who got the chess fever in the U.S.A were those who followed Fischer's rise to the world stage. There is chess in the schools but since most kids prefer XBox and Playstation there is no need for them to pick up the game is not has fun.

I play in the park during the summer and i see 5 to 6 kids just looking at the game and movement of the pieces and they sit down and place the pieces in the correct order but when it comes to learning the movements they loose interest. And many times if i find a stranger from the U.S. who knows how to play chess they have not played in years . I play against a stranger from India, China, Latin America or Asia they usually have not played in months...

I belonged to the Manhattan Chess Club and that is no longer around and they did have alot of kids come in and play. No i guess that generation either plays on line or against a computer if they still have any interest.

If you see the players now in N.Y.C they are either from a foreign country . It could be also that N.Y.C is more diverse in cultures.

It  would greatly increase chess popularity in the U.S. if there was another flamboyant American World Champion like Bobby Fischer.