Texas may have the largest number of USCF members. But Texas also is 7.5% of the land area of the U.S. and 8.84% of the continental U.S. I’d expect that Texas would have the most members (discounting Alaska.) But how much travel time would be required to get where in the state - is that a factor?
Same deal with California… 5.27% of U.S. land area.
I’d bet that in both states, the majority of members are in the large population centers of the states. (Which is why I can see using census-defined population areas in calculations.) But statewide I’d think one ought to factor in land area to member numbers, somehow.
For example, in the time it takes to get from San Francisco to San Diego, I can travel one-way from my home to any of the following cities:
Minneapolis, MN
Omaha, NE
Des Moines, IA
Kansas City, MO
Memphis, TN
Huntington, WV
Columbus, OH
Detroit, MI
Green Bay, WI
Now I’ll acknowledge that I’m centrally located to all those points. So I don’t know if I have a point of if that’s irrelevant. But I humbly think that distance is a factor, too.
Brownsville TX, which is by no means the largest population center in the state, has a very successful scholastic program. When I ran the numbers back in 2007, the Brownsville metro area had over twice as many USCF members per 10,000 in population as ANY other metro area in the country. (I think Tucson AZ was a distant #2.)
Southern California has a large population, and the worst traffic in the country. The US Open runs through an entire work week, and traffic will affect the “local” attendance.
I would bet that situating the US Open somewhere on a rough line running from Pasadena, through downtown and west LA, down to LAX, would maximize the possibility of driving to the event daily by locals from all the major valleys and down the coast a ways. To play evening rounds in Irvine as a commuter, one would literally have to arrive there by mid-to-late afternoon to avoid being frozen in traffic instead. Nor could San Diego players hope to make it north on I-5 with rush hour (and it is not a single hour!) making the drive very hard or even impossible.
The only solution for this, in my opinion, is to start the daily rounds at 3 PM, rather than hope locals could commute to game starting at 7 or 7:30 PM.
I also think that there are numerous other organizational components that reduce the appeal of the US Open that are corrrectable, unrelated to geographical location. The fracturing of the event into many alternate schedules is one of them, and I hope my point about the traffic doesn’t lead to yet another alternate schedule.
By the way, the alternate theories posted here have been entertaining - thanks!
Aside from holding a few national events in Texas, which was largely a function of having inexpensive sites, what resources has the USCF ‘poured’ into Texas?
New York would be prohibitively expensive as a site for a national scholastic or for the US Open.
There’s a building up the Hudson a ways in New Windsor that might have some meeting space available … but they don’t have enough parking.
Nationwide figures for hotel “Revenue Per Available Room” are falling off a cliff. I don’t know if that’s affecting the NYC area. But if it is, the terms should be a bit more reasonable to hold an event at a hotel. And some places that don’t want a chess tournament might see the benefits of flexibility if it helps them make their next mortgage payment.
There is cheap space in Central Jersey, which I realize isn’t in New York, but would be in the middle of the country’s eastern “chess heartland.” If the Amateur Team can be run there every year as a smashing success in February, why can’t a National Scholastic or the US Open?
Texas gets five or six Nationals (and almost all of the ones USCF bids out). Organizers can’t bid for tournaments the office handles, and the office pattern is to go to the same four or five places. Everybody else is iced out.
Mr. Nolan didn’t answer my question on NY attendance in Dallas. Guess I’ll have to start counting.
I don’t think the Parsippany Hilton has enough space to hold a national scholastic event, it appears they have around 25,000 square feet of meeting room space and that’s maybe half of what is needed these days, as I recall.
Here’s a breakdown of turnout by state for spring national events since 2006. (The total players might not be quite the same as the table I posted over in the USCF Issues thread because of players who were in multiple sections.)
[code]year event site players NY TX FL IL WI MZ AZ CA NC TN MO MN PA OH WA KS
That would be great news if it is true. The Federation whose president once said, “We are a national organization, not a New York organization” has certainly backed up the talk.
Now they cover the whole country – Houston, Dallas, Lubbock, El Paso, Brownsville and San Antone!
In Pittsburgh, New Yorkers made up 1/3 of the field despite the tournament being six hours from NYC. In similar circumstances for the Supernationals or the Nationals in Missouri, the Texans simply didn’t show up.
I wouldn’t call being over 10% of the field ‘not showing up’, especially when you consider that NY players made up 23% of the field at the Elementary that year (in TN) and 17% of the field at the JHS in CA. There were also more NY players at the 2007 HS in MO than at the 2006 HS in WI.
There were 526 players from NY at SuperNationals I (12.2%), 597 at SuperNationals II (12.9%), 785 at SuperNationals III (14.6%). Around 2/3 of them were under the age of 13, so turnout from NY is much higher for the elementary sections, even at SuperNationals.
I doubt any other state could show those kind of numbers, much that kind of growth over the four SuperNationals.
I don’t think there are any national scholastics scheduled in TX in 2010.
According to the long range planning calendar on the website, the 2011 and 2014 National Elementary tournaments are in Dallas, the 2011 K-12 is also in Dallas.
It really won’t matter after we( Working Americans) get though paying for the “liberals” Health Care Package . There may not be enough left, with money enough to play Chess.
Find a safe and affordable site with enough space for a national scholastic and decent transportation options, and send that information to Pat Knight, pknight@uschess.org.
I think for a National Elementary they need something like 100,000 square feet of space and they prefer a room rate of under $100, though I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to meet that target anywhere.
Having been involved with other types of conventions, one of the big challenges in New York may be dealing with unions. Imagine having to pay union workers to set up all the chessboards! (I knew more than a few exhibitors who paid the union workers extra to NOT set up or touch anything.)
