Chess in this state has had a downturn in numbers this year.
What could be the problem?
Could it be due to the phenomenon that is poker?
Could it be that Chess Tournaments have not been advertised enough?
One other possibility in regards to the NSW Tournaments is the fact that in order to get the early entry fee you must pay the fee before the closing date or pay an exuberant fee? For this point I want to do a bit of a study. The first tournament to hold this policy was the Ralph Seberry Memorial tournament in November last year. Lets compare all the NSWCA weekenders and see what the difference in numbers has been:
2005 Ralph seberry memorial attracted 56 players
2006 Australia Day Weekender attracted 76 players
2006 May Weekender attracted 54 players
2006 July Weekender attracted 51 players
2006 Ryde Eastwood Open attracted 72 players
2006 Ralph Sebery memorial Open attracted 40 players
2007 Australia Day Weekender attracted 62 players
2007 John Kellner Memorial attracted 30 players
2007 July Weekender attracted 38 players
So what do we have here? We have a steady decrease in numbers Does it have to do with the fact that early entry has to be paid?
I'll just say now that I've been against early paid entries from the start.
Lets compare the tournaments
2005-2006 Ralph Seberry Memorial - A drop of 16 players from 56-40
2006-2007 Australia Day Weekender - A drop of 14 players from 76-62
2006 May weekender - 2007 John Kellner Memorial: a drop of 24 players from 54-30.
2006 July weekender - 2007 July Weekender: A drop of 13 players
An assumption could be made that the change of policy may have affected numbers. the minimal downturn in this comparison is 13 players!
The NSWCA made a large loss last year. How big will the loss be this year given the low numbers that might have been caused by this policy change?
Now I have not included the NSW Open or the City of Sydney or the NSW Open in this study because these tournaments are supposed to be NSW's premier tournaments. But I would still like these to go back to pre register to get early entry rather than pre pay.
Furthermore I dont think there would be many people willing to pay $75 for a weekender tournament where they didnt get their payment in on time. I surely wouldnt. Not for a normal weekender. Its just too expensive for a vast number of people. And people are busy. Things happen. Eg I had intended to go to Australia Post yesterday to buy a money order to send off but the train was late and it was raining so I had no time to go to the Post office before going to work. Now I'll have to ring Australian Chess Enterprises and make a credit card payment over the phone with my mothers credit card. I don't like doing this but i'll have to do it to get early entery for the NSW Championships.
Ok there's my view on this. People can make their own view up. I'm done.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The 'other hand' being players who register for early entry but do not turn up (for various reasons). Then it is down to seeing who has registered on-the-day ie you know they are *there* and making the draw *on the dot* - so, do people who have been held up or have lined up to register
a) miss the 1st round
d) miss the draw for the 1st round and get paired after the first set of players start playing (but still included in rnd 1)
c) pay early discount
d) pay normal fee
e) c & d may be affected whether they have registered early or not
remember that the whole idea (or a large part) of early entry is to speed through the register/payment/pairing roadblock - I once rolled along to a Fisher's Ghost in the 80's - usual turn-out 40 , this year 90 !
hmm tricky
Post a Comment