Georgia Chess Problems

There have been many changes in tournament chess since I began playing in 1973, some good, and some bad. Currently tournament chess in my home state of Georgia (USA) is being ruined by one particular change and thats having too many sections for the number of players involved. A close friend of mine who is also an NM and living in Ga and very active in tournament chess has told me that attendance in Ga events has fallen so much that there is even a possibility there won't be a state championship this year. He has made many complaints to those who are responsible and he said his complaints fall on deaf ears and so he simply plays most of his tournament chess in neighboring states and rarely plays anything in Ga even though he lives in Ga. When you have fewer than 50 players and 4 sections it becomes ridiculous. The pairings become more like round robins when you have open sections with 10 to 15 players and players even start getting full point byes. He said the "last straw" for him was when in one such event in Atlanta the only IM in the event got a full point bye in the last round !!  Apparently those responsible dont listen to the complaints of the players and seem to be blind to the "problem". The Ga players are reacting by not playing in GA but playing their tournies in neighboring states instead, who can blame them ? Ofcourse 99% of all chess activity in Ga means Atlanta so players living in Atlanta still play for the most part but players are no longer willing to come from any distance to play in an Open section with 20 or fewer players in it and see full point byes given out, even to titled players !  I have been following the activity in Ga and bordering states and it seems this is only happening in Ga.  What about your state ?  

Wow :(

I live in georgia too but I don't play in top level tournaments just small local ones

I tried about 3 years ago to get into a chess club here in Heywood and found out from the ECF that only 1 is in my local town. 1 club which does NOT encourage young people to join up (its on a Tuesday evening 7.30pm till 11pm in a pub)

I asked about a club for younger people (both my kids WERE interested) and I was met with "set your own up" which I did and it failed miserably because I had no "NO" support from ANYONE!!!

I think this is a global problem not just in Georgia

The problem you describe here and the one I refer to are two different problems. The problem I refer to has to do with those who run tournaments in GA having too many sections ( in relation to number of players ) in their tournaments. There is NEVER a good reason to have more than 3 sections in GA tournaments, simply because the number of people coming to play will not support more than 3 sections. In fact, many times two sections is enough and even one section will do fine when you have fewer than 40 players..... From 1973-1997 I played the majority of my chess in Ga, with some played in bordering states and they never had more than 3 sections and often didnt even have 3 . There was usually an Open ( players over 1799 )  an Amateur ( players 1400-1799) and a Novice section ( players under 1400 ) .  This format seemed to work fine and there is no reason this format wouldnt still work fine. 

I like the one big section approach. I win a couple, then lose against a master, win a couple more then lose again. It's a bumpy journey through the tournament but you get to play all sorts. I don't enter small section events.

In my country there are many chess entusiast, the biggest problem is that there are very few FIDE events. But you can see people playing in parks, schools, some of them on extremly strong level, but without rating...

Northern California is ok, though it should be MUCH better given where we live, and the local population. But the efforts of people like John Donaldson at the Mechanics and Salman Azhar at Bay Area Chess do much to make what we have. It's always going to require someone to give more than they get out to make chess successful in any area. Someone has to love the game, and be willing to more or less volunteer to make it a reality. If you really have the great organizational skills to make it profitable, you can probably make a lot more money organizing something else. If you sponsor tournaments and only break even, then of course you could be doing something else with that $$.

Reb, for your specific problem, it sounds like there should be an Open section and a Reserve section. And if there is enough interest, there can be a Booster section. Or call it a scholastic section. Or whatever.

But to start it should be Open and Reserve. Maybe you should try speaking their langugage, and tell them what your estimates are of the number of people who would play if it were reorganized in that manner. If all tournaments were Open/Reserve, they could even have one a year (GA State Championship) to be a class tournament. That could work, one would think. But it's unfortunate that they don't see the writing on the walls. Maybe you should run for office?