Millionaire Chess 2!!

lol

Looks like he's a philosopher

https://milliern.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cv-blog2.pdf

Please, try to stay on topic, this off-topic is not even interesting 

They seem to be doing everything they can but the single one thing that will get a lot more entries: Lower the entry fee.

Reducing the entry fee may increase the number of entrants, but it doesn't solve MC's problem:  they aren't able to generate enough revenue to cover their costs.

The numbers just aren't there.  The majority of entrants for the MC Open will be from the U.S.  The U.S. has about 58,000 active players; 44,000 of these are juniors, most of whom are scholastic players.  The pool of possible entrants just isn't large enough to support the tournament.

Get out there and play richie !  

I forgot to mention that an active player is defined as someone who has played in at least one tournament in the last 12 months.

Also, my Class D rating puts me in the top 30% of USCF active players.  So, there aren't a lot of dedicated players out there.

Yes, we know it's a train wreck, but the discussion on why is well cooked. The new question is just why, and for how much longer, the organizers are committing themselves to this folly.

Chess has a history of eccentric patrons who cheerfully burned barrels of cash in an attempt to "popularize" the game, or at the very least surround themselves with grandmasters because they thought it made them glamorous.  One of these characters has been leading FIDE for almost 20 years. Another one built a museum in Florida shaped like a rook. Yet another started a school in St. Louis and is a Bobby Fischer obsessive.

Now we've got one staging a modified version of Wheel of Fortune in a second-tier Vegas hotel, trying to market chess as a casino experience. 

>Those nine players will match wits in a fast-paced game of strategy (details to be revealed later)<

I'm holding out for Pit. I'd love to see Nakamura bellow "Corner on wheat!" and ring the little orange bell. 

Started a club and financed the museum move to St. Louis. Via the club has also started chess instruction in schools across St. Louis. Not aware of him starting an actual school.

We're just judging said buisiness person by MC's own words: they wanted to "take chess to the next level".

I'm certainly not opposed to a high stakes tournament for those who are well off financially.

But then please have the honesty of just saying so outright.

Instead MC tried to present itself like a messiah for the game of chess, not only popularizing it again, but also "taking it to the next level".

Someone who makes wild claims like that will be judged by the expectations their own words have set, and they well deserve to be laughed at for it.

And seeing how the first thread about it was bigger than this one, we're more talking about thousands of posts, so I'm hardly the only one thinking like this.

There's a demand curve, but MC seems to not want to figure out what it is.  I thought that there were moving in the right direction by extending the early entry discount, but this latest "add another $1M to the prize kinda sorta" deal is the wrong move.  There's an optimal entry fee for this tournament, but we aren't going to find out because the price is too high and the location is wrong.

We know from past experience that ~1200 players will show up and pay $300 for a $250K prize fund in Philly or DC.  

We also know that ~600 players will show up and pay $250 for a $120K prize fund in Las Vegas.

MCO #1 got a comparable amount of entries in Las Vegas with 4x the entry fee and 8x the prize fund.  

With a $1000 entry fee, you're more likely to get 1200 entries in DC/Philly than in Vegas.  The pool of active chess players is in the NY/NJ/PA area.  A tournament held in Philly is a car ride and not as many people will need a hotel.  A tournament held in Las Vegas is flight + hotel for 99% of the participants on top of the entry fee.  You wouldn't get 1200 entries if the World Open were held in Vegas.  

TLDR: Hold MCO in Philly, lower the entry fee to $750 and see what happens.

Good idea....

Philly Open + World Open = $550 in entry fees for $330K in prizes.

MCO would be $750 for $1M in prizes.

If you're only going to do one major tournament a year, MCO would win hands down.

If someone wants to put up the $1M entry fee and other expenses, I'll hold the SilentKnight Open August 3-7 2016.

No live commentary, gift bags or limo rides though.

Labor Day Weekend might be a better time though.

But Philly doesn't have the kind of tacky, soulless glamor that MC is going for.

Agreed. Vegas is not a good chess location. People don't want to take their kids there. It's expensive and hard to get around without constantly standing in long taxi lines. There's nothing to do but lurch from hotel casino to hotel casino. It's in the middle of a desert, requiring long flights for just about everyone. Etc. 

MC seemed to think that Vegas glitz was just what the chess class needed, something to get them out of their basements and feel like real glamorous people. They showed their age on that one - Vegas as an alluring destination peaked back in the 90s.  The Internet has rendered it old hat.