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

what is a numbnut?

reply and quote works so much better.     so i am honor-bound to turn this post into something semi-intelligent.   anyways, playing at MC as is all else, a question of opportunity cost.

I agree completely, Petrosianic. 

This is a simple case of whether the entrepreneurs have judged the market correctly. If they are wrong, they will lose money. If they are right, they will earn money. 

The venom with which some people have attacked the organizers is completely beyond my understanding.

>what is a numbnut?<

Someone who misreads the tone of a post because they were too busy ice-fishing, and the chill went right to their head...

>The venom with which some people have attacked the organizers is completely beyond my understanding.<

I'm sure that's not all that has escaped you. Stick around, young Padawan, you'll soon lose the pie-eyes.

>playing at MC as is all else, a question of opportunity cost.<

It's certainly not a question of chess...

if this event is not going to be successful

i am glad they are playing for Maurice Ashley's money

http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/numb-nut

I think that rdecredico is misreading or misinterpreting maskedbishop's comment.  maskedbishop is not saying that the topic or subject matter is "beyond [his] grasp."  Rather, he is saying that he does not understand the "venom with which some people have attacked the organizers."  I echo his sentiment.  Even if all the "haters" are correct and the tournament ultimately is a financial failure, why are so many posters so emotional about the topic?  I also don't understand why so many want to convince others not to play in the tournament.  If you think that the entry fee is too high, then don't play.  If someone else wants to spend his or her own money to enter the  tournament, why does that bother some people so much that they have to resort to insults and vitriolic comments?

That is why we need a starker, more agressive diction for the Brave New World of this Ashley Chess Fest -- a Newspeak, as it were.

>I also don't understand why so many want to convince others not to play in the tournament. <

I don't believe there are any direct exhortations to NOT enter the tournament in this extremely long thread.  Most of the naysaysers, of which I am one, have chiefly discussed the dim financial prospects and the likelihood of its failure. 

I personally have posted often about my own concerns on how chess is being marketed here, and what I perceive as "bad values" being applied by the organizers. That has very rarely been discussed or debated...I've yet to see anyone defend what I have frequently called a gauche and materialistic presentation by the promoters of this event...nor has anyone discussed if we really want to see chess marketed as a form of gambling to our next young generation of players.

I for one do not, and I find the entire MC enterprise to be wrong-headed in that regard. I think the money is being put up by a person who doesn't understand our game's culture, the needs of the many kids and adults who might be interested in playing, and who has never (to my knowledge) been involved in the promotion or playing of tournament chess before.  

They can take their checkbook somewhere else...they may need MC as something to do, but chess doesn't need MC. We were doing just fine before it, and we'll do just fine after it's long gone. 

Big money tournaments, if they became more common, would only promote chess, and so their success only spawns many smaller affordable tournaments.  It's not gambling at all.

Sure the business side of it couldn't care less, but as mutual parasites it's a win - win.

>Big money tournaments, if they became more common, would only promote chess<

Not in this format, which requires a $1000 entry fee from players. You can "promote" that all you want but you''ll never get big numbers to sign up at that cost. 

this tournament is going to be like the us open for tennis

That's it. I am out of here. Extrapolation of the proportion of personal abuse vs. relevant comments is not looking too bright.

Time for "steeltiger" to kick their butts I say?

No. With losers like rdecredico, the worst punishment you can give them is to allow them to live out their lonely little lives. They have punished themselves far worse than anyone else could.

Does this entry fee include any trips to the buffet?

Include a one time only trip to the "Vip Room", where you can stuff yourself with all the chocolate that you can eat.

So seriously, are they going to make a big show out of this tournament?  Scantily clad cigarette girls walking around?  

Gimmie a break.  For all his faults, he doesn't have any problem "coping with people using assertive or active language."

Your psychobabble is more tiring than his smugness.