Is this tournament being held again this year? I can’t seem to find any info on it anywhere. I thought it was very successfull.
Thanks!
I actually asked GM Ashley about it last summer at a simul, and the tournament was not successful. They had a Chinese investor who bankrolled the money and they lost a ton of money on it.
I wouldn’t expect to see it again soon.
Thats the major problem with big money tournaments … you can find someone that is a fool with their money. It hurts the state associations that can get large number of players … as the chessplayers will say this tournament was trowing the money at us … and you only have small prize awards.
I heard complaints from players about local tournaments long before there were a lot of big money tournaments.
Chessplayers tend to think 120% of the entry fees should be paid out in prizes. They think ‘profit’ is a four letter word, too.
Will the HB Global return in 2007? Too soon to say. If it does, it will probably be somewhere other than Minnesota and some time other than mid-May, which in my opinion were both factors in the turnout. (Then again, having a breakeven point of around 2000 players was incredibly optimistic.)
The HB missed many students because most of them still had school.
Check out chessninja.com/dailydirt/arc … ndered.htm for more on this subject.
How can anyone have one tournament and blow away two million dollars?
Doug, did you actually READ the post from Maurice on that site?
He says they didn’t lose $2 million on the event, they lost about 1/10th of that, which sounds about right based on their entry fee, prize fund and the number of entries.
Question, how many HB tournament were there … one. Do you know a second HB tournament Mike? If they have one tournament, and they blew away 1/10th at the tournament, and 9/10th to get the organization to support the one tournament.
Lets try some simple math Mike, if the USCF has only one tournament in 2006. If they lose say $5,000 on one tournament and lose $1,995,000 to support the USCF during 2006. In this simple math, how much money would the USCF lose in 2006. Oh ya, two million.
So in simple math the HB foundation had two million and lost two million, and only had one tournament. So they are out two million dollars, and had one tournament. Lets see, if you have two million and divide it by one, I still get two million Mike – what do you get? Did Frank Nero teach you accounting skills, now I understand!
Let’s try some simple math, since you obviously don’t get it.
$2 Million dollars, how did that money get there? Did it magically show up in GM Ashley’s Bank Account? No, it was probably there because of investors making a long term committment based on a big tournament.
Well, since that tournament went bust, do you think that they should get that money back?
Think once in a while man!
I nominate this post as the most screwed up one in 2006 so far! 
yeah I see a lot of hot air on here these days (: I can only pray for the ones who have been active here longer than I.
I do not know what the HB Fdn’s loss was, but while at the event, I was ballparking it at $150K to $200K.
Foundations usually shut their doors by transferring assets to a public charity or another private foundation.
As far as I know the HB Foundation has NOT gone out of business. I think it has gone out of the major chess tournament business, though, or at least until they rethink their strategy. Expecting 4000 people to show up at an adult tournament is unrealistic.
I honestly think they could have gotten 2500 players if it were held in, or close to, a major city on the East coast and if the dates were better. I’m surprised they had as many as they did.
Would have to say, for an adult tournament, there is not a chance in the world to get 2500 players: in any city of the United States. The USCF says its’ close to 90,000 members. If you take 2,500 X 36 = 90,000 members. That would be one in thirty-six USCF members, or around 2.78% of the USCF membership.
If you remove the scholastic players, than remove the USCF members without a rating. That is a very small group of players.
Well considering they got 1500 players in Minnesota in May, 2500 does seem possible. Suppose it was in New York in July. There are so many more chess players in the East Coast, and July would be a much better time to have the tournament if only it wasn’t for the World Open. Also, if any players came from overseas (I’m pretty sure that some actually did), then New York is closer and it’s easier to catch an international flight to New York than to Minneapolis.
As I recall, there were something like 35 countries represented at the Global Chess Challenge (and 1600, not 1500, total players). The Mpls/St Paul area actually draws a significant volume of international tourist traffic, due mainly to the Mall of America.
The players from overseas, New York City or Minneapolis – it does not matter. If they are willing to travel to Elistra to play chess, they are just as willing to travel to Minneapolis.
I can imagine a super tournament held in Orlando, FL , sometime during the summer hollidays. Heck, let’s not stop at 2500 players…maybe even 3000!