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?

$50?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Caissus: You know that it was not Ed's fault that the tournament had disappeared. It's up to him if he wants to resurrect it or not. And if he decides to start another big prize tournament, why not? It's everyone's right to create any tournament he wants. If you have better idea [and money for prizes], you can do it yourself, there are no limitations.

Yes Fencer,it was not his fault that the tournement disappeared.But he had offered and promised a $ 3000 prize to us.Nobody has asked him for it.He had the prize offered voluntarily.And now he withdraws only because of the crash? We can repeat and continue the tournement. This is not okay!

First of all, the money had to be earned. I was not just handing it out. There would be 4 finalists, and I was going to be one of those finalists. Before anyone got $3000, they would have to get past me.

I offered the money, of course, but I am not using the crash of the site to not dispense of it. Let's just say you were winning 3 games and one of your opponents, once he saw your attack, now avoided his weak move and gets a draw with you? Furthermore, suppose he resigns a game he had a draw in previously, an the person he resigned to now advances to the finals and you do not?

You would be the first to complain.

The only fair thing to do was put the decision to a vote, which I did do, any everybody voted to cancel the tournament as you can see if you read the posts.

36 Grandmasters in the USA and 55 Grandmasters in in the much smaller Germany shows the difference.
After new hard- and software is installed I will try to bring one of them to play here a simultan event,perhaps in Janus or Gothic.

I still don't see the point Caissus. The density of Grandmasters does not, in any way, correspond to the popularity of a chess variant.

if it doesnt,Gothic...it must mean the Germans are better players??

Lets Start over Loop Chess .....
still plenty of openings!!!

Cassius, more people play Gothic Chess in "heartland" USA than where I started it all in Philadelphia. We sold over 400 sets in only 3 days when we were in Kansas City.

The reason why you see Gothic Chess in only one place is because of the patent. This is what we want!

I have postcards from players from all over the world who play Gothic Chess. One of the scientists in Anarctica has a Gothic Chess set with him. A solidier in Iraq wrote to me and said his supply chief showed him a Gothic Chess board and he wants one when his tour of duty is up.

Gothic Chess was going to be a recurring monthly article in Chess Life before they cut the page count back to under 40 per month when it was discovered that some widespread misuse of funds had left them nearly bankrupt.

Gothic chess is played all over the world, whether you elect to notice it or not.

It is not a small organization, it is one constantly being revamped to accommodate its growth.

Look how many people on this site have Janus chess ratings, and look how many have Gothic ratings. Start a new game of Janus and one of Gothic, then look at the stats showing the counts of how many of each have been played.

This is just a small subset of the entire Gothic Chess community.

One teacher in Canada wrote to me and said he assigned an extra credit project to the computer science students to write a Gothic Chess program. Anything like that happening in Germany??

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 !!

I bet Spirou gets moderated LMAO