Vease wrote:
Before I go on, I'm English so don't give me a hard time...
What, you expect to be treated different than any other Brit?
England - Chess wasteland
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They're all too busy applauding weakly at a bunch of toffs playing Stick-Ball, or shouting at overpaid men-toddlers chasing a ball around a patch of grass.....
I'm fine with chess being unpopular. There is a club close to me so I have a place to play, that's popular enough for me. Most attempts at promoting chess make a mockery of the game, dumb it down to the lowest common denominator and do us all a disservice. I say keep chess unprofitable, keep chess for those who have a desire to play, those of us who seek it out, and not those who have been roped in by some marketing scheme.
Free Big Mac with every game!
Feb 13, 2012
0
#6
Well I must say that I'm a bit surprised at this thread, I had assumed with the large population base in the UK that Chess was doing okay there. In fact over the years I've been been able to buy the odd copy of " Chess " ( the magazine, published in the UK ) in local News stores. Here in Canada I'm sad to say that we have lost the paper-printed version of our national Chess magazine, but we do still have a printed newsletter put out re Correspondence Chess.
cabadenwurt wrote:
Well I must say that I'm a bit surprised at this thread, I had assumed with the large population base in the UK that Chess was doing okay there. In fact over the years I've been been able to buy the odd copy of " Chess " ( the magazine, published in the UK ) in local News stores. Here in Canada I'm sad to say that we have lost the paper-printed version of our national Chess magazine, but we do still have a printed newsletter put out re Correspondence Chess.
The game is not promoted in any way at all, juniors up to the age of 16 or so can get some kind of support from various private sources but really Chess has almost no media presence or public recognition at all. Sounds strange when the Candidates tournament is going to be held in London, but the people running that are only interested in making a profit, not using the event to bring the game to a wider audience.
I'm one of the few chess fans who seems to like Nigel Short but I admit he probably set Chess back decades in the UK when he was wasted by Kasparov in the 1993 World Championship. The first half of the match was a public humiliation and that was unfortunately the first and last games ever shown live on network television in the UK. Compare that to the huge upsurge of interest in India after Anand became world champion (Chess is now a core curriculum subject in Indian schools!)
Check out the teams in the 4 Nations Chess League against what the Bundesliga turns out and its embarrassing, there is pretty much zero corporate or private sponsorship for the game. Of course, its a two way thing - because of the minimal media attention the game is not attractive to corporate sponsors.
Feb 15, 2012
0
#8
Ex-parrot wrote:
I'm fine with chess being unpopular. There is a club close to me so I have a place to play, that's popular enough for me. Most attempts at promoting chess make a mockery of the game, dumb it down to the lowest common denominator and do us all a disservice. I say keep chess unprofitable, keep chess for those who have a desire to play, those of us who seek it out, and not those who have been roped in by some marketing scheme.
+1
uhohspaghettio wrote:
I feel a little annoyed at this topic.
"The game is not promoted in any way at all,"
This is not true at all when compared to Ireland. England has always had numerous large chess clubs and there's always been a culture there. You have chess in the schools sometimes, if you want it, it's there for you. No such thing in Ireland.
If you want to talk about a country that's a chess wasteland, try Ireland. There is literally nothing here but a dinky few chess clubs. I've even toyed with the idea of making a trip over to England some time to join one of the high profile tournaments there.
Even though England may not have the chess culture you seem to feel you deserve, there is still a chess culture there. In Ireland, you'd have to go out of your way to find people even 2000 south of Dublin. A FIDE master is a very rare thing indeed, and as for GMs... Ireland has NEVER had an indigenous GM, though Sam Collins is coming close it has remained elusive to him.
I assume you'll be playing in "the strongest weekender in the world" this weekend then?
uhohspaghettio wrote:
Chess shouldn't be on any curriculum anywhere, that's ridiculous. If you put chess on a core curriculum you will kill chess. Normal chess players will not be able to survive against people who learned it every day in school. People will say what's the point. Of course we want more chess players, everyone here wants that. Not to be increasingly destroyed by the youth as our game is turned into a living joke.
The Indian government obviously sees Anands success as a positive reflection on their country so they are trying to capitalise on that. Also just because people study chess doesn't mean they ever get fantastically good at it, its like any other subject. I 'studied' Maths for years at school but I still had to resit my O- levels twice because I had no interest in or aptitude for the subject.
With regard to Chess in Ireland, your population is heavily centralised around one city and although Cork, Limerick and Galway are fair sized places really Dublin dominates everything so if Chess is not a big deal there it would have a hard time being popular anywhere else.. Fantastic country by the way, don't get me wrong, I had the best weekend of my life at a friend's wedding in Roscrea and probably the best holiday of my life touring around Mayo and Galway. So sad the bastard property developers have crippled the place.
uhohspaghettio wrote:
chrisr2212 wrote:
Bunratty ?? heard of it at all ?
Oh... yeah I think I read something about a rare event coming up in Ireland where numerous GMs will be attending. Events like these are of course highly rare in Ireland.
And why should the number of GM's playing concern you? You start at the bottom of the ladder like everyone else buddy.
A fairly stacked calendar in the next few months, but of course you won't be at any of these events and will continue to moan on the internet about the lack of chess culture in Ireland. Are you waiting for someone to invite you to a super GM tournament at your local library?
and as for GMs... Ireland has NEVER had an indigenous GM, though Sam Collins is coming close it has remained elusive to him.
I was sure this wasn't true because of
GM Albéric O'Kelly de Galway
but it turns out he's not Irish... he's Beligian! C'mon on how is O'Kelly de Galway not Irish?
kjl
uhoh, you really don't need to create a watertight repertoire and achieve total endgame mastery just yet. Like I said, you start in the basement playing 10 year olds in the 4 Knights and Spanish Exch. 
I always thought chess was much more popular in the United Kingdom than here in the states.There are many avenues for OTB tournament players from national events to state chess federations and their local tournaments in the U.S. but for the most part outside the hardcore chess base the popularity of chess seems to be on the decline and that trend will mostly continue in the United States. 
I'm fine with chess being unpopular. There is a club close to me so I have a place to play, that's popular enough for me. Most attempts at promoting chess make a mockery of the game, dumb it down to the lowest common denominator and do us all a disservice. I say keep chess unprofitable, keep chess for those who have a desire to play, those of us who seek it out, and not those who have been roped in by some marketing scheme.
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...wow, this is a different perspective that I have not even considered. I will need to ponder on the implications for a bit...but I do understand where you are coming from.
JG27Pyth wrote:
and as for GMs... Ireland has NEVER had an indigenous GM, though Sam Collins is coming close it has remained elusive to him.
I was sure this wasn't true because of
GM Albéric O'Kelly de Galwaybut it turns out he's not Irish... he's Beligian! C'mon on how is O'Kelly de Galway not Irish?
kjl
Makes perfect sense to me ... after all there is a race-car driver named Dario Franchetti who is actually Scottish!
JG27Pyth wrote:
and as for GMs... Ireland has NEVER had an indigenous GM, though Sam Collins is coming close it has remained elusive to him.
I was sure this wasn't true because of
GM Albéric O'Kelly de Galwaybut it turns out he's not Irish... he's Beligian! C'mon on how is O'Kelly de Galway not Irish?
kjl
I think the 'Alberic' gives it away..fooled me for years as well. Of course in the dim and distant past there were Irish players who were grandmaster class like McDonnell, MacDonnell, Mason and Alexander but that was before the term Grandmaster existed.
Before I go on, I'm English so don't give me a hard time...Theres some stats on Chess Siberia showing the changes in the chess population of rated players since 2008. One of the tables shows the number of GM's per country and the change since 2008. England have not produced a single new GM in that time, for comparison the US (often seen as having an ambivalent attitude towards the game) have seen 8 new GM's. Even countries with relatively tiny populations like Slovakia and Denmark have created a few.
The only tournaments where a GM norm is possible in the UK (not just England) are the Hastings Open and the Open played at the London Chess Classic. These are played within a month of each other in December/January, for the rest of the year there is nothing. Look at The Week in Chess and you see dozens of events all over the world where norms are achievable, yet English players never enter them. Its sad that the game is in such a poor state in my home country, presumably because nobody has seen a way to make money out of it, which seems to be the only criteria that matters...