All things must pass. This decision wasn’t easy for me to make; in fact it’s overdue. I feel like I’m letting Fred and Marshall and Pearle down. But I just can’t do it anymore. The game has changed. The players have changed. I’ve changed. I would hope they would understand.

Scenes from the life of an organizer and coach:

The time one of my players was making a meteoric rise. He deserved to play on a higher board, and the website ratings supported that move. The organizers of the state scholatic tournament, however would not use the website ratings in his case. Another coach in the same event was allowed to do so.

The time one of my players, a borderline varsity player, walked up to me during a match, and threatened to throw his game, and with it quite possibly the match, if I wouldn’t guarantee him a seat on the team I would be taking to Nationals.

The time I actually had to forfeit a player over cell phone use, after three times making the announcement that I would, and having to listen to hours of whining afterwards, then having him stalk off in a huff, never to return (OK, so there was an up side to that one).

The time the USCF, then in the middle of a push for drug-testing chess players, endorsed a supplement (an acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, of all things) to help you play better chess.

The moment I came to accept that getting high ranking chess players to come to your event was one thing, but that getting them to actually play a game (instead of regurgitate a few moves from theory and shake hands) against each other was quite another, and in the rare event that happened, getting either of them to turn in a copy of their scoresheet was impossible, anyway.

The many times I overheard players, who thought I couldn’t hear or understand what they were saying, “negotiating” the final tournament standings. 

The year I spent in the middle of a fued between officers of an organization that were old enough to know better.

The time a mother threatened to sue me because I dared ask if her precious and perfect little girl had moved one of my books to another table, one of middling commercial value but priceless to me sentimentally.

Just a few moments from the last decade or so. There are plenty more where they came from. Straws on the back of a camel.

This is my last year as an organizer; my last year as a coach was a few years back. I could continue a litany of reasons, but it all comes down to one very simple one: It’s just not fun anymore. I’ve spent upwards of $15K over the last decade or so on chess organizing and coaching, and while I don’t begrudge doing it I just can’t keep spending that for an activity that I no longer enjoy.

I’m tired. I’m tired of begging players to share their games with the organizer of the event they’re playing in. I had planned on publishing a book of the best games from the Western Open. Trouble is, only a few really good games are played there every year, and only a small minority of those ever made it into my hands, despite my entreaties.

I’m tired of complaints. In the same event I’ve heard complaints from players that the time control was too fast and too slow, that the entry fees were too high and not high enough. That the prize fund was generous and low.

I’m tired of dealing with a national organization that’s more interested in sniping at each other and playing with children than actually promoting chess tournaments to adults.

I’ll keep playing chess, and maybe even play in a tournament or two. But I won’t be behind the big table. I’ll be the grumpy old guy in the corner at the chess club. My interest in chess as a game continues (I just renewed my subscription to New In Chess, if you need proof of that). It’s just my interest in chess organizing and organizations that has evaporated.

And I’ll keep on writing about chess history here. The chess players of the past still interest me. The computer-generated progeny of today don’t.

Maybe I’m just old and grumpy, living in the past. Whatever it is, the prospect of tournaments today fills me with more dread than excitement. I refused point-blank the idea of making players pee in a cup for the absurd drug-testing schemes that were proposed. I’m even less thrilled at the prospect of following some kid into the bathroom to make sure he’s not running Fritz on his iPhone, or frisking players for dubious “hearing aids.”

It was a fun ride, but now it’s over. I just don’t fit anymore. I don’t relate. It’s time to step aside.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

This year’s Levit is experimenting with shorter time controls and more games (seven rounds at SD/60 time controls) in response to some player’s requests for longer rounds. (More games means a single mistake is no longer enough to take a player out of contention, because there will be ample opportunity to regain form.)

He’s created yet another scoring system that eliminates the zero-sum aspect of chess. In this system Black wins are worth 3 points, Black draws are worth 1 point, White wins are worth two points, and every else, including White draws, are worth nothing. The aim of the system is to encourage White to play for a win (note, it does nothing much to encourage Black to do so, but that’s not relevant to my point).

On the surface of it, it’s a good try, and we applaud his efforts and his willingness to experiment. But we are skeptical. Why? Let’s do the math:

Current GM level stats are 28+17-55= for White. Running the statistics through his point system we get White socring on average .56 points per game, while Black scores on average 1.06 points per game, giving Black about a half-point edge in tournaments where colors don’t balance (all 5-ss weekenders fit that category, as do all other odd round total events). But we haven’t forgotten the goal of this system is to reduce the number of draws.

We’ll look at two hypotheses and see how the numbers change. First, let’s assume that by buckling down on both sides, the pile of draws is divided evently between the three possible results (draws will still happen, because sometines they’re the only way to avoid losing). So now we have 46+37-18= for our baseline, and that yields average scores per round of .92 for White, 1.29 for Black, still an edge to Black of about a third of a point in odd-round events.

Now let’s assume Black picks up a disproportionate share of the formerly drawn games. I consider this the more likely outcome, as every chessplayer understands what usually happens when they try to win a drawn game. So we’ll divide the draw pie into 5 slices, in which White will win 20%, Black 60%, and the remaining 20% will still be drawn. This makes our baseline 39+50-11=, and that yields .78 points per round for White, 1.61 points per round for Black, giving Black a whopping .83 point edge in an odd-round event.

There is, of course, a point at which the scoring system becomes neutral. Will Mr. Ballard’s event find the “sweet spot?” We don’t know, and we welcome the chance at additional data. But we doubt it.

And we also believe that even if it works, it will be, at best, a temporary “fix.” Chessplayers are, after all, intelligent gamers, and it will be just a matter of time before they would begin to “game” this system, quite probably by throwing games to one another in order to arrange the final results, rather than playing quick draws as they do today. Would that be an improvement?

We at The Chessmill wish you luck, Mr Ballard, and truly hope you’re on to something. But the numbers do not make us optimistic.

The Reserve Section was won by Rishi Sethi, who also won the trophy for top Junior, with a four-way tie for second between Jimmy Yu, Matthew Hass Laszlo Nazodi and John Bowen. Class C prizes went to Ben Rothschild and Sasha Velikanov, While Ben Anzis won Class D and Sriram Datla won Class E.

With three IM’s, seven players in all above 2200, and 14 total players above 2000, this was the strongest Western in years. Thanks to all who helped make the event what it was.

1. Raymond Hayes is tied for #52 on the “Seniors” list.
2. Daniel Kane is #96 on the “Age 18” list.
3. Erik Santarius is #17 on the “Age 17” list.
4. Joseph Richards is #44 on the “Age 17” list.
5. Siarhei Biareishyk is #56 on the “Age 17” list.
6. Wesley Jervingis tied for #99 on the “Age 17” list.
7. Derek Paitrick is #64 on the “Age 16” list.
8. Jeremy Kane is #39 on the “Age 15” list.
9. Brian Luo is #1 on the “Age 7 and under” list (by 180 rating points).

Notably missing: any names from girls or women. Why? We had one promising girl, but she’s moved on, mainly because her school (Homestead High you should be ashamed of yourself) gave her no support. There should be more. Where are the females?

At least five of the names are directly traceable to the same coach in Madison, Alex Betaneli. One cannot help but wonder, though: How many other names would be found on this list if only there were some support for chess coaching in other school systems? And how many names outside of Madison that are there would be higher? The questions need to be asked of your own local schools. To paraphrase an old advertising campaign: Chess builds strong minds twelve ways. This has been proven over and over again in the literature. How long can we afford to have our schools ignore this?

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