…doesn’t it get old after a while?
Just once, I would like to see how well Team Texas does at a National Scholastic in “Yankee country.”
Well the spring nationals are in Minnestoa, Ohio and Georgia. NYA was in Chicago. 09 US Open was in Indiana.
superNationals last year were in Tennessee.
I believe this will be the 3rd National Scholastic in Texas in the past 4 years (2005, 2007, 2009). Are you including the Polgar Tournament for Girls? In the next 3 years Dallas will host twice more. Equal to Minneapolis, Columbus, Orlando, and Nashville.
If you want to complain, complain about the fact that Dallas is the furthest West that the K12 or Spring Nationals will be until 2013. Last time it was further West was Sacramento for Junior High Nationals in 2007.
- Enrique
I like to see the Texas teams have to come play the New York teams in NY. Though that will never happen in our life time.
I was really impressed with the number of New York teams that showed up in Sacramento for the 2007 National Junior High. Something’s definitely different between New York and the rest of the country! I don’t know any California school that has the coaching and necessary finances to travel to the eastern or central time zone twice a year. Not even last spring’s K-6 champion Mission San Jose Elementary or 5-time CalChess K-12 champion Saratoga High School.
That’s why you see about 40 unaffiliated kids from California, many quite strong, but rarely any serious school teams.
Michael Aigner
The most important thing is that it is held somewhere as warm as possible.
The Meeting Link hotels seem to be mostly out-of-state.
Given how poor the in-state turnout was for the Sacramento event, it might be a while before CA gets another national scholastic. The 2010 US Open is in Southern California, though.
If you liberals would quit your meddling, we could make it even warmer.
Patience “grasshoppa”, soon it will be warm no matter where you are! :mrgreen:
Who cares how cold or warm it is outside…
…as long as you have hot chess action inside! :mrgreen:
[size=85]Sayeth the former resident of mid-central Wisconsin and central/southwestern Arizona.[/size]
The recent World Cup participants in Khanty Mansiysk (in Siberia, where it got down to 30 below) agreed that everything was very good and the playing site was wonderful, the organizers were great, etc. etc. But there was a single small matter that was mentioned by a few of the GM’s including the winner Gelfand (players almost never make any complaints in public): it was so damned cold!! Gelfand said that someday he hope it will be warmer when he visits and he can walk around and see the town.
Understood. Sacramento is practically a different state from both the Bay Area (2 hour drive) and Los Angeles (7 hour drive). The number of active chess players in the immediate Sacramento area is small–maybe 100 or 120 adults plus kids. There’s no comparison between Sacramento and a large city like Dallas.
While most of the Bay Area’s nationally ranked juniors supported the 2007 nationals, relatively few of the under 1000 rated kids in the scholastic programs came. The parents of most of these low rated kids don’t seem to be devoted enough to chess to stay for 2-3 nights in a hotel at their own expense. Plus the K-5 kids aren’t thrilled about playing in a middle school section.
Frankly, if the same tournament had been in Oakland or San Jose, easily another 300-500 would have attended. Anyone from CalChess could have told the USCF this, but CalChess only found out well after the contracts were signed. Zero communication.
Michael Aigner
Michael Aigner is 100% correct. Sacramento was a very low potential location.
The US Open location of Irvine for next summer is, likewise, one of the worst possible geographic choices in southern California, for somewhat different reasons. It would be a reasonable choice, though, for a scholastic.
USCF has great technical organization capabilities for many of these nationals, especially the scholastics. But sadly, USCF has no instinct at all for event promotion.
(Having organized the major southern California events in the 80s with success - including the record 842-player US Open in Pasadena in 1983 - I have a track record on which to base the comparison.)
For those of us who don’t live in California, can I ask you to elaborate on why Irvine is such a poor choice?
Yeah I wonder too. Having lived there briefly, it seems like a reasonable location, accessible from the LA, San Diego and the Inland Empire. But inconvenient for people from northern California, who would have to go thru the LA area.
Pasadena is on the north side of the LA basin, more accessible to northern California.
But Irvine is served by John Wayne Airport. Pasadena doesn’t have a nearby major airport. LAX isn’t nearby.
Maybe Mike Nolan can answer this: How many of the of the players at K-12 Nationals last weekend live within 50 miles of Dallas? There were slightly more than 400 registrations from the entire state of Texas, and I would bet that half came from Dallas and its suburbs.
Out of about 1000 players in Sacramento, I estimate no more than 30 were active in the Sacramento area scholastic chess community.
I’m sure Sacramento was chosen in large part because the convention center was cheaper (and nicer) than the Bay Area. But every 200 in additional entries translates to $10,000 in the bank. Economics… The CalChess Scholastics halfway between San Francisco and San Jose drew nearly 1200 kids just four weeks later.
Michael Aigner
I doubt the difference between driving 6 hours versus 7-8 will change the mind of anyone from Northern California. With $59-79 for typical one-way summer airfares on Southwest (if you book smart), I am sure some will find it more convenient simply to fly to John Wayne Airport.
Michael Aigner
Of the 425 players from TX at the 2009 K12 (out of a total of 1221 players), 158 came from within 25 miles. Another 12 came from 26-50 miles away. So 40% of the Texas players and 13% of the total turnout came from the Dallas metro area or nearby.
Of the 270 players from CA at the 2007 Jr High (out of a total of 994 players), 24 came from within 25 miles. Another 7 came from 26-50 miles away. That means 11% of the California players and 3% of the total turnout came from Sacramento and nearby.
When it comes to finding sites for USCF national events, I am reminded of the old joke about the guy who lost a quarter at 1st and Main and was searching for it at 2nd and Pine, because the light was better there. Low room rates are important, but so is a reasonable base of local players to support the event.
I did some analysis by population centers shortly after the poor turnout at Sacramento. In terms of USCF members per 10,000 population, Sacramento ranks in the bottom 10% of the roughly 930 population centers defined by the government.
My understanding is that Pat Knight-Smith has been using that analysis to help in choosing areas to look for sites for national events. Texas has the largest number of USCF members, especially among those eligible for national scholastic events.
I wonder what a list of sites which broke the attendance records of previous nationals would look like? I suspect it would look a lot like a list of big cities in the Midwest. Kansas City in 2007 broke the record for most attendees at the National High School, and I think Milwaukee may have broken the same record previously.