Okay may be 1998, but now which events are now,this year and where can I now these players see playing GC? Here in Europe nobody knows this game.In Germany we have the strongest first league of the world with many grand- and international masters from everywhere. But they play chess and only chess and they play for money in the tournements.(The only event is the JanusChess Championchips in Saarbrücken one time in the year, Kortschnoi was here and others).We have also here many newspapers of chess and correspondence chess and there are many good websites.And nowhere was mentioned Gothic Chess except your own site.I like this game, I like some other variants too, but it will be always a small minority of the chessplayers who are playing something other than chess.That`s the fact! What is the future of chess (I have heard here often)It is only ...chess.

Our last event has had only fifty participants without entrance fee.
But okay,try to organize a big tournement with 500 players and entrance fee,if you have success certainly you are right!
But better would it be first to restart and to finish our last championships! We all have waited and played here and now... nothing?

The KM Tanks A Lot tournament is open for sign ups. Enjoy.

Speaking for myself (a not very good Gothic Chess Player), I would not pay a fee to enter the tournament (Basicly because I stick at the game, and have no way of winning anything). But if it was with no entrance fee, I would probable join just for the very slim chance I might actually make some good moves. (And I believe many others feel the same way I do)

So the question would be if you would want a lot of players in your tournament (no entrance fee), or less players in your tournamanet (with entrance fee)

Or as mentioned once before, maybe the player will need to be a paying member of BrainKing to play in the tournament (which will get a few more players in your tournament, plus help out BrainKing)

--------
Prizes - If there were more prizes, that might also get more people to join. Lets say the entrance fee is $50, maybe some of the "lower" prizes could be cheaper "Gothic Chess" shirts, coffee mugs, etc... Even if a player can win something, it's a good thing (even if it is not worth the same as the cost to enter the tournament).

BBW (BIG BAD WOLF)

Cassius, the GCA was founded in 1998, long before this site. We played tournaments face to face before playing online.

I played IM Larry Kaufmann in Washington DC in Spring 2001 at the Law Offices of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP. I was there on business, he lives not far from the area, he met me for a 90 minute lunch session. He brought his Gothic Chess set, and we played two games.

His son is a 2100+ player who also plays Gothic Chess. They subscribed to the magazine, Gothic Chess Review, which I used to publish myself personally.

Other players with Gothic Chess sets: You must know the name of Bruce Pandolfini. He was the teacher of Joshua Waitzkins from "Searching for Bobby Fischer" fame. Bruce is our representative to QVC, and was supposed to appear in our commercial this past October before we both had to make changes.

Greg Shahade and I are both from Drexel University. Last time I checked he was 2502.

Gothic Chess has already been apart of some big tournaments. At the Supernationals II in April of 2001, kids competing for the crown of national high school chess champion were surrounding our booth non-stop. Some parents even had to drag them away as their clocks had already been started.

This happened round after round, and it was at this event with 5000+ people that I met Bruce. We had known of each other for different reasons (my 'Sniper' chess program was popular in the late 1980's and early 90's) but had never formally been introduced prior to that.

Other players have specifically asked not to be a part of any endorsement or promotion, and I will respect their wishes.

Seven players.... call their names, they have played one time Gothic Chess, or two times?
Where do they play now and where is it published?
The young generation? Okay perhaps in the future,perhaps not.It is fact if you want to organize a big tournement you need sponsors and sponsors need famous names.Look at your invitation, no one wanted to sign in for $ 50,- except four persons, most here are funplayers.And you speak about 500 players...?
Let us finish the interrupted event and look if somebody receives something and than we go to the next step.

There are now 7 Gothic Chess players who are in the top 50 of the US Chess Federation's October 2003 rating list.

Most of the members of the older organization (GCA) were under the age of 16. Our goal was not to skim Grandmasters from the USCF and get them to convert. What good what that do us, since there are only 36 Grandmasters in the USA??

The goal is to appeal to the young, who will one day be older and be able to support the organization as they are more financially independent.

There is one 17 year old player from Pennsylvania who will beat any FIDE 2100 player in Gothic Chess game after game. He is an incredible talent and I know his interest and enthusiasm will probably surpass me on the way to the 2500 mark. He is that good.

Players such as this are a tribute to our success, not Grandmasters who are already established. GMs have too much invested in the 8x8 game to play Gothic more than just casually.

My aim is to create a member-based organization equivalent to the USCF. Imagine with 50,000 members the kind of tournament we could have every year for the national title!

This is where I would like to take Gothic Chess.

it seems to me...if one has 50.00 to enter this contest...then one should be able to afford a rook membership....I take it,that the tourny will be for paying members only?

I bet Spirou gets moderated LMAO

You say "Keep it for your self" !! ?? I think we are yet in a democratic environment.
About "elevating the quality", as I know there is not yet a computer program for playing golf.
Who are are you for trying me to shut down my mouth! Though I am not so surprised. I have already read your preceding querellingsome, childlike literature.
Good bye illmannered young fellow !!

Perhaps you should first repeat the interrupted event and disburse the promised money before you are planing a new,much bigger event.Btw you cannot compare Gothic Chess with big chessevents,if no one famous grandmaster plays this game.

$50?

I simply don't understand the negative posts of Spirou and that other person. Here I offer thousands of dollars with no entrance fee, and I get this negative feedback. A horrible crash occurred, so to be fair, we had to cancel the tournament.

Playing for money has always elevated the quality of play. Look what large corporate sponsorship has done for golf. Even mediocre pros can make about $250,000 a year and never finish in the top prizes!

Why cannot the same happen for chess and Gothic Chess?

If you have something negative you want to express about the tournaments and prizes, do us all a favor, keep it to yourself.

I am asking those who want to participate in the event what would be a reasonable amount to pay in order to enter?

promises promises - I am a prophet ... ~*~

In my opinion, playing for money, mainly exacerbate greediness and consequently encourage the use of programs. Those programs killing the fun of play. In other words sleepying the imagination. How a sad future.
Chess and its variants are rare plays the fun is self-sufficient for enjoy and yet meaningless ratings points already could pertubate the fair-play of someone. Imagine when golden calf come in.

It would be nice to be able to offer prizes for a great many players, but the point of tournament play is to encourage you to strive hard to make it to the top tier. The top 20 finishers of an event like the World Open do get prize money, but they also have 500+ players per section paying $250 to enter.

By annoucing a larger prize fund at different internet sites, we could attract more players here, which is the objective.

I tried a $20 tournament here once with the winnings being a function of the players who register, and there was little interest.

So, I think I will offer prizes as follows:

$10,000
$5,000
$2,500
$1,000
$500
$200
$200
$200
$200
$200

For places 1 through 10.

The question is, what should the entrance fee be?

You would do better to offer more prizes, perhaps to the top ten finishers or even top twenty. After all, most of us stand little chance of winning the whole thing, so you could offer $1, $1,000, or even $1,000,000 and it wouldn't matter to 90% of the players (including me).

Also, I vote to scrap the 2003 tourney. Even if you started it today, the bulk of it would take place in 2004 and could even extend so long that it would make getting next year's played during the year and after the 2003 tourney is finished quite difficult. (sorry for the run-on sentence).

Thad

Would the entreance fee be still $50 or higher?

I am for a $ 50.000,- prize tournement!

Would players prefer a $10,000 first prize with an entrance fee, or would you prefer no entrace fee and just win the "title" of World Champion?

The reason I ask is because I have been talking to some seasoned chess players who would be interested in playing Gothic, and they were wondering what all of you think about it.

Thanks Fencer - looks better now. :-)

OK Here goes again.

We had a superb 28 people signed for this the first time around, lets see if we can get the same? Prize Tourney One Year Rook Membership

It would be nice if the winner was already a member that they donate to a pawn somewhere, but this is only a suggestion :O)

Aragon's Checkered Past II

Still a good bit down from last time :)

If like me you have scrapped all games and started from scratch your Main Page will look quite bare LOL

Sign up here for ALL Checker Variations and get some games going again :o)

Oh, and have fun!!

Checkers, Checkers and More Checkers

~~Aragon KM~~

I need the tournament ID.

Yea, i've already sent a message to Fencer about the tournament that is messed up. I've seen it happen before, and usually Fencer can fix it pretty quickly.

The only problem that I seen was there were about 15-20 pawns that were removed from the tournament because they did not have enough space (which was only suppose to be 5 free spaces needed), but since some sections produced many many games (10,15+), a lot of paws got kicked out - which I'm not sure if Fencer can put them back or not - have to wait until Fencer is back on-line! :-)

Hey BBW,

Have you seen the crosstables you've produced? Lots of extended sections, and our names appear several times each.
: )

I trust you and/or Fencer are on the case!!?

Everyone who voiced an opinion voted to cancel the tournament. Since games could not possibly be restored to their prior state, it would not be fair to anyone to allow it to continue.

If you read the posts on here, you will see I have posted several "words" to everyone. I was not going to personally send message to everyone in the event, that is what these forums are for.

Hey Gothic Inventor, I feel we have been screwed on this tournament! Have not heard a word from you since the little "crash" on the site.....

thanks for asking, Ed
I for one find myself with far too many ongoing GC games from previous tournaments to start new commitments right now.
VOTE: A

I think that it's fair to everyone that the tournament be started over in 2004! I had 6 wins and 1 game to be decided, so I think I would be affected more than anyone since I had already made it to the 2nd round!!

So my VOTE=A

I'm not in that tourney (as I STINK at any form of chess), but I agree, that all prize tournaments should definitely be started over. Seems only fair. As far as regular tournaments? That should be at the discretion (ugh, I'm not sure I can spell today) of the creator..

My message box was full of mail about people who were winning whose games were lost, etc. So, should we just scrap the whole event and just run one in 2004?

Vote:

A - delete the 2003 Tournament
B - keep it, but start it when we get back to 32 rooks and 48 pawns.

My vote = A

I was in, butI was getting my butt kicked and I'm not great at GC anyway so I'm not going to rejoin.

I don't like the long time limits, either. I have stopped entering those events, because some players will go for weeks without moving!! It gets frustrating. I prefer the one and two day limit events.

For those who want more time, as Caissus says, play fewer games; or, take some vacation time until you can get a handle on things.

There were 32 participants in the Paying section, and 46 in the BrainPawn section.

Once we reach these counts again, I will start the tournament, unless there is a general lack of interest.

I for myself think that the turn limit with 5-7 days for a move is much to long and I don`t play such tournements.Games with long turn limits will take an endless time until they are ready.
Why don`t you play a little bit fewer games, then you can play games with a shorter timelimit and it would be also good for the capicity problems of the server.
Btw I think as a rook you can define your own tournement.

BBW - I would love to enter your mini tourney's but dont want to commit myself to a short turn limit. I play every day, but like you, I have a lot of games and dont always get chance to move every game every few days. Is there any chance you would consider alonger period - such as minimum 14 days? Perhaps more people would join?

Bry.

More than 500 games ,o I understand : you are creating your many tournements only for the other users....This is very respectful :)

I currently have too many games, so I have not been signing up for too many tournaments. I had finaly started to get my "too high" of a game total down before the crash, but now I'm back to where I started from.... :-)

come and join in. Pit your wits against the best in this game. Can you be a giant killer?

SpiderLine4 Unrated Tourney #1

"The 1st Joust at the Realm". Come one , Come all!! Show us your mettle in this years jousting contest.

Fast start - first 5 to sign up... So many tournements again ? Hey BBW I miss your own sign in ,or don`t you play in your own tournements?

I just got into Scrabble Bug a few days ago..great game

Scrabble bug is a pretty cool sight for web tv users

►► B I G · B A D Tournament! ◄◄ all games NOV 10 - This tournament was scheduled to start in September (and did start), but now is back in the list - so it is now scheduled to start on November 10th

Plus my "Fast Start - First 5 to sign up" - tournaments have started back up - I just continued with where I left off in September..... which will be interesting since there had already been some tournaments made, with a winner, and now gone! :-)

Here it is :o)

Fast play tourney for Backgammon
Have fun
TNP

Ill set one up for you then :o) Ill go do it now

I'm still new to this site and just don't understand everything that goes on and can be done. tyvm n TNP

You can do one yourself now you a member if you like Mrloupcity :o)

Hiya e1,
If any1 cares to set 1 or 2 day tourney in BG or BG race I know I would join them. That is as long as people don't join then just make the tourney try and last for over a year.
TYVM for ur time n TNP
:o{P``````

For the Fans of Atomic Chess here is a tournament for those who enjoy the game. KM Atomic Blast #1