Ashley's Million-dollar chess tourney - but bring your own clocks

To the critics, how has MC caused damage to chess. Imagine if MC chess never happened, would chess be in a different place today? I have followed this thread and the critics have stated their stance on their beliefs many times or should I say many many many many.... times. The critics have some valid points but to spew them out every few posts considering this thread has over 2700 posts seems like a sad way to live your life. I hope some of you get over the fact that no matter how many times you state your opinion that you are not going to convert the non believers of your arguments. The way I see it, it seems that some of you are on some sort of religious crusade that non believers must convert to your way of thinking or otherwise they are ignorant and of low intelligence. Move on and spend your time and energy into making chess popular with the masses, launch that free entry free, accomodation, free everything utopia chess project and made it successful then many of the unbelievers will convert to your way of thinking.

^this.

>Listen to the two of you ranting, man. <

I'ts not about us. Typical weakie approach is to divert the topic, which is the validity of MC chess, to its detractors. It's only been done about a thousand times on this thread already. Try something else. 

>Even if it's just an anonymous account<

At least I'm only using one. How many do YOU need, bluesclues/siddyg/etc?

>The way I see it, it seems that some of you are on some sort of religious crusade<

Earth to Rubik - there are about four detractors on this board, compared to the dozens of yea-rah MC lovers. So who is on the crusade?

Interesting how the opinions of such a small minority can get you to write a long paragraph of hectoring nonsense that has nothing to do with MC, but everything to do with your own desire to moralize. 

I'm not sure I've seen anybody actually state or imply that that type of thing is their way of thinking...

Athiest to maskedbishop, you just proved my point. Have you got an alarm that wakes you up whenever a new post appears on you beloved topic.

Please answer the main question on why MC is bad for chess, do a thought experiment and imagine if MC did not exist, how chess would be better?

Let me stretch my imagination in the other direction.  MC is extremely successful.  All other organizers emulate them.  Prizes and , more importantly, entry fees soar.  I am priced out of the market and relegated to playing only on-line chess forever.

I don't anticipate this happening, but it would be bad for those of us on limited incomes.  Most tournament entrants go home with nothing but the experience, so large prize funds don't offset the increased entry fees.

In all seriousness, MC may have a chance at success by appealing to a small group of affluent players together with players who save for a few years to play in an MC Open once in a lifetime.  MC just needs to figure out how to structure and market the tournaments.

You do realize that a little notification shows up on your home page whenever there's new posts in threads you're tracking (by default you track any thread you've posted in), yes?

I'm pretty sure this thread is gonna go down as the most commented on / viewed thread in Chess.com History! Amazing!

Thanks everyone for the honest opinions and feedback! And thanks for keeping it "on topic" and away from personal attacks...

Looks like a member started a new thread for Millionaire 2 here:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/millionaire-chess-2

I'm going to lock this thread and urge further discussion that way...

Thanks everyone!