The Scotch Game

In one of my early opening books I read that the name of the well know opening 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 was historically incorrect. The opening is of course the Scotch Game, so named because it was played by the Edinburgh Chess Club against the London Chess Club in a Correspondence Chess Match. The author argued that in this case it should really be the Scottish Game, as Scotch referred to the whiskey, and not the country.
Due to an interesting marketing campaign, there may be a chance to repair this historical error. The Lindores Abbey Distillery is hosting a 4 player rapid event towards the end of the month. It will feature Carlsen, Anand,  Ding and a 4th player to be named. It will be held at the distillery, and so, if one of the players actually plays the Scotch Opening (possibly inspired by the local product), it may then rightfully claim the name.
Sadly for me (and many others) the Perth the distillery is near is the one in Scotland (not Australia), and so I will have to follow it online. For the lucky locals, tickets are an incredibly cheap 20 pounds(!), although the space is only limited to 70 spectators.

It is all publicity

Even Chessvibes notices the Sydney International Open with a nicely humerous post.
And Chessbase covers the Doeberl Cup (courtesy of Dejan Bojkov).

How not to publicise a tournament

Since the start of December I have been bombarded with press releases from the "World Championship" tournaments being held in Las Vegas by the World Chess Federation. Some of them are totally laughable, with my favourite being "FIDE take notice of World Chess Federation". The notice was in the form of a warning not to deal with this organisation.
The other press releases fall under heading of "totally pointless". They breathlessly announce that player X has beaten player Y, and now leads tournament Z. What they miss is all the other essential information that a press release needs, such as how many players are in the event, and how the other leading players might be performing. This information (including tournament crosstables) seem to be well hidden, both in the press release, and on the web page of the organisers.
I suspect that this type of PR will continue until there is a sudden announcement that some 2100 player is the new "World Champion", followed by a complaint a few days later from the "World Champion" that they have had trouble cashing their winners cheque.

Doing the little things right

Often the secret to success isn't waiting for the big rewards to come, it is doing the little things right. While the Australian chess community worries about the lack of chess 'culture' and publicity in this country, there seems to be less enthusiasm for actually remedying the situation.
As an example, earlier this week IM David Smerdon fulfilled the requirements to become GM David Smerdon. Knowing that the ACT Chess Association doesn't have a publicity officer (although it probably should have one), I quickly sent out a press release about David's achievements as Caberra's first Grandmaster. Within 6 minutes of me sending it, the first request for an interview came through, from ABC Radio. Within 2 hours there were more requests for radio and print interviews, and a further request the following day. Now while Australian chess isn't going to get a new GM every week, there probably is enough chess news to send out a weekly press release. Certainly in Canberra, the ACT Junior Chess League (which does have a publicity officer) is usually able to get all the results of its junior events published in the junior sports section of the Canberra Times, by simply sending them the results.
The underlying point of this post is that if organising bodies put there energies into the small stuff (publicity, membership management etc) then the big rewards will be easier to catch.

Is there no end to his talents?

The winner of the 2009 O2C Doeberl Cup T-Shirt design competition has been announced, and it is none other than IM David Smerdon. Not content with recently walking off with first prize at the 2009 Queenstown Chess Classic, he also beat the field of t-shirt designers with the slogan

Chess Ninjas: We own the Knight"

The prize for the best design was free entry into the event, but as he already recieves that (by virtue of being an IM) he will recive a gourmet hamper instead!

(Standard disclaimer: I am a paid official for this event)

Upcoming Chess PR

Residents of Canberra and surrounding areas will be able to catch some on air chess PR this Sunday morning. If you tune into 666 on the AM dial after 10:30am you will be able to here Alana Chibnall talk about junior chess in the ACT. Apparently there will also be an on air game of chess, but I'm not sure how that will come across to the listeners.

Fun with Google Maps

Looking for another way of publicising your chess club? Google Maps allows you to enter new locations into their map system. So simply locate your chess club premises on the map, then choose the "Add a place to the map option". Fill in the required details (Name etc) and after about 10 minutes is should be searchable by the rest of the world. You can even add extra details in the "Review" section.
Already a number of Australian chess clubs and businesses are doing this. To see which ones, just go to Google Maps and search on "Chess Club". To see stuff that I've added recently, you can even search for "Street Chess".
This way prospective new members can find a local club quickly and easily.

Spassky in Hay

One of the most interesting places I've visited is Hay-on-Wye, while one of the most interesting people I've met is Boris Spassky.
For those that don't know, Hay-on-Wye is a small town in Wales, famous for its second hand book stores. And on the 25th of May, former World Champion Boris Spassky is playing a 20 board simul at the annual Hay Festival. One participant is Welsh Assembly Member Peter Black, who was a a former Welsh League Champion. The mixture of chess and politics is interesting enough for the BBC to do a small story about the meeting, which you can read here.

The country circuit

One new thing I learnt while playing at Dubbo this year was the existence of the NSW Country Chess Circuit. The idea of Gary Losh, it is the informal collection of NSW Country Weekenders that are also part of the Myer Tan Grand Prix Series. There are 8 tournaments in total, although 3 (Toukley, Newcastle and Dubbo) have already been completed. The next 2 events in the series are Laurieton (3 May 2008) followed by Mingara (17 May 2008).
The Mingara event is already looking good, with extra money going into the prize pool. There are also plans to have an extra prize event following the last round, and hopefully I'll have more details soon.
While for this year the Country Circuit is mainly about coordinating publicity for NSW Country chess events, next year may even see the addition of prizes for the best scoring players in the series.

BulletTime

Here is an idea I've had kicking around in my head for a while about how to make televised chess interesting to the non-chessplayer.
The idea is BulletTime, and is a based on presenting Bullet (1 minute) chess in a way that anyone can follow. Instead of expecting the spectators to work out who is winning themselves, you incorporate that information into the visual presentation.
If you look at the diagram on the right you can see that apart from the chessboard, there are a couple of other pieces of information. The vertical bars down the sides indicate how much time each player has left. At the start of the game the bar would be entirely filled, and be represented by some "safe" colour, such as green. As the players times run down, the bar would empty, and the colour would change towards a more threatening red. When a player runs out of time the graphic would change to indicate this.
Across the bottom the horizontal bar indicates who is winning. If white is in front the light part of the bar would move to the right, if black is winning the dark part would move to the left. This information would be provided by a computer either doing real time analysis, or in post production.
In this way spectators would be able to see at a glance who was winning the game (without having to work it out themselves) and who had more time left.
The intention is to combine this with live action footage of Bullet chess, with the video appearing on the screen where the computer board is located in the diagram. In this way you could combine the fast paced anarchy of Bullet chess, with a way of allowing people to follow what is happening.

At this stage I've just toyed with the concept, playing around with some filming and computer software, but at some point I'd like to present a 'proof of concept' demo. When I am ready I'll let you all know.