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

Magnus Carlsen should join and just win

lol now all the haters are quiet, epic FAIL

Clearly any of the criticisms didn't discouarge the MC team from moving forward. In fact in the blog post below what I see is that they are ahead of their initial anticipation of where they thought would be by this time - 

http://amylee.biz/the-true-value-of-millionaire-chess-sept-1014/

Anyone wanna hit up some strip clubs after this thing?  I think I'm going to go.

Who of the GM's will play in the tournament?

Yah count me in, Johnny.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/put-a-brave-or-bold-face-on-something

567 registered players.

That´s a fail.

But if they get at least 500 more players in the last days... sure it would be fantastic for them. But I don´t don´t think that that would happen.

Why worry about what someone else does with their own money. I think that this could open up some minds and ideas, about chess. Thats all that matters, not feeding the world, or saving some stupid spider in Uganda.

Careful Mr Shaw, I'm a big fan of spiders.

Lets take a pause and see where we stand now in terms or supporting or disliking the idea of high stakes chess like Millionaire Chess after almost 9 months of debate in this thread. I have a feeling like a handful of chess players are supporting it, a few players are discouraging or protesting this idea and a majority of people are indifferent about it i.e. neutral about it.

Is this assessment right? Or may be we dont have enough data to come to this conclusion yet? But if my assessment is correct then the mission is still NOT accomplished. For the supporters, we clearly need more continuous support and hopefully we will see it not only in October event but also in future events of MCO. But for the critics, where do they stand? Writing some sharp words in a fourm topic won't take them far. They are clearly not in a strong position to let others agree to them. Except the few who are actually posting against the MCO idea here (and very few in fact - so few that we can remember their names on top of head) I don't see people who says they dont like this idea. Yes, people say MCO will be loosing money, but they dont say the idea is bad for chess. They dont see it as a bad precedent. Of course majority doesn't have to be always right but at this point - I see the initiative has already got handed over to MCO supporters with all the recent improvements - the number of entrees jumping from around 150 to 500+ last week of July, New York Times article on MCO creating a chain of arcticles accross the major newspapers all around the world, the MC mobile app which is the first of its own kind as long as chess is concerned...

¡Por favor, sea relevante, útil y agradable!

I really dont seewhy would anyone be opposed of the tournament. I am upset because they have a very weird and, in my opinion, unwise way to fight the cheaters and as a result honest players suffer. But the idea that I can win 40K playing chess is awesome. When I just started playing chess 16 years ago, I didnt care about the prize. 16 years later, after I spent a lot of time and money learning this game, I want to play for the bucks, and this is all i care about when i enter the tournament. beauty comes seconds

$40k, once you take off tax and travel and other expenses, is not a lot of money. Even if it was tax free and you had no expenses, it's still less than the average annual wage. Given the time needed to study chess to get good enough to win any significant amount, you'd probably be better off working in McDonald's as you'd come out better financially for the same amount of time invested.

I don't know what the laws are in the US but I'd be surprised if they allowed this to be called "Millionaire Chess" where I live, since the maximum individual winnings are a tiny fraction of that. I've no objection to the tournament per se, but the marketing is naff and I feel sorry for anybody who thinks this tournament is going to make tournament chess a profitable pasttime for anyone except the existing super GMs who already make a living from it.

only profitable if you perform far stronger than your rating.  but this is always the case.  28 GMs and 567 players registered.

Well this is why we have sections. You dont need to study chess for a life time to win D or C section

I still think it's a great idea but it isn't going to last. Without profit, there will be no corporate sponsorship and without corporate sponsorship, there will be no profit...

Quoting Amy Lee here: 

http://amylee.biz/the-true-value-of-millionaire-chess-sept-1014/

I would not be true to myself if I deny the fact that I didn’t see the business opportunity in this endeavor. I did. But I did not envision profit at this early stage. I was looking at year 3 or even year 5. Having been an entrepreneur for decades, I knew that business does not bring in business at its early stage – especially if it involves more than just product or service.

Well, they are going to lose about $400,000 plus expenses the first year. They may need about 80% retention from each event, plus a new flock of entrants to grow. This is going to be an uphill climb, especially when competing events will tap into their base. Amy Lee is lookng for profit, (Read the quote) and I just don't see how she'll ever see a dime here.

Also, for what it's worth, I know of one chess club which a few years ago stopped rating games over a rift with USCF and the value of having an affilliation. They are sending several players with low ratings to MC who are anywhere from 200 to 900 points underrated. I'm sure these won't be the only ones, and they are not sandbaggers. This problem arose over 30 years ago when Northwest Chess broke from USCF and started their own rating system. Their players cleaned up at the World Open before CCA got wise....

Yes, the comments from NM aww-rats, small_potato are constructive. You are doubting MCO will be able to sustain in this business model or not. Very reasonable and frankly I can't say they will (or will not). But from your comments its clear that if they survive and continue you will be happy.

But the second thought on this thread from rdecredo and maskedbishop (and may be Doggy_Style and johnmsusacha?!) are that even if they succeed (which lets assume they will not) this is a bad idea for chess in usa. They have given their good reasoning of why they think so and while we can agree or disagree - that is not the point I am trying to make. The point is that I dont see too many other people than them who think along this line. And I wonder why only such a tiny fraction of players (2 to 4 players out of many that roam around chess.com forums) think along this line? Compared to that if you count the number of supporters or neutral people - you can't finish counting before the tournament starts this October.

I think they will run a 2nd event, but some tweaks will occur. Maybe they not penalize late entries with such a huge increase, or eliminate the playoffs. However, they will probably see another $400,000 plus expenses loss. I think it's clear Amy Lee is in this for the money, even if she does like chess. As long as she's willing to risk hers, a select few chess players are going to walk off with a lot of her money. This event will probably be over $2 million in the hole by the 3rd year. That's a huge loss to make up, even if it turns a small profit in year 4. Corporate sponsorship is the only way to  keep it afloat because the 1,500 participants needed to make money just seems too high a number to approach. I don't know how they can reach that number. I also don't know how they can get an outside corporate sponsor to chip in either since it' won't be making money. Amy Lee is the corporate sponsor.

>> The overwhelming majority of people that play chess in the USA are not going to the event.

redecredo, I am not saying the tournament will be successful (or not). What I am saying is that you are one of the few people here who will be unhappy even if the tournament succeeds and MCO gets profitable over a long period of time. Many other people, lets say majority of the chess players - think that this tournament will be a failure. That's fine. I am not debating that. My point is, in princinple or in terms of chess morality - is this tournament bad for chess in USA or is high stake chess bad in general. Tell me who else other than I named sahre this same opinion that you claimed. You will find the people who you are referring to will be simply putting that - MCO didn't do it right by increating the entry fee so high. Or they will point out why MCO will loose money in sussequent years because even less number of entrees will be there. Or they will say they didn't like the rapid format of last 2 rounds. Or may be the location should not have been Las Vegas. All these are valid points (but poitns that I may not agree with - which is a different story) and I don't see anything wrong about those comments.

What I am puzzled is why there are only 2 (or may be 4) in this forum who shares the opinion you have - that despite these minus poinst, MCO if succeeds, is going to be a bad precedent for chess. The logic from maskedbishop is that it will create dividation or layers (elite vs poor) amongst chess players - and that by principle is bad. Or chess players should be playing chess for the love of game and not for money. Well who can argue against that? We can only agree or disagree but no point in arguing on these beliefs. What I see is that very few or none other than him and you actually agree that this point should be so high in the priority list that all the good things that a high stake chess can bring to chess players are not worthy in terms of trade off.

The players who think really agree to this - are either not interested to post in this forum and be part of a controversial topic or they are simply not internet users or chess.com members. But how can we quantify them. Similarly I can say there are thousands of players who wish success to that tournament but couldn't play in this first installment either because of a schedule problem or high entry fee - but they wish success to this initiative. How are you going to quantify them.

What I am asking here are comments from a few more people who are clearly saying - MCO succeeds of fails doesn't matter - the idea itself is bad and should be protested. Can you show some more people saying this vision?