Linares, Melody, NH, Mainz

And then there were none...

London Chess Classic is some new blood at least. I agree we are losing too many tournaments however.

"Just a rapid chess match" sums up my feeling as well.

Oh no... It was so nice to have the top engine programmers and the elite chess players at one tournament. I'm studying in Mainz and went to school there, it's very close to the place I live. That was like a dream for me, especially in the last years when Rybka was playing and Vas was there. I also participated in the tournament a few times and know the organizers a bit, it's really sad.

I think you misunderstood the organizers: They simply quoted Kramnik to illustrate why it is hard to find a sponsor ("not serious enough"), not in order to put blame on him.

I'd like to think that it's a normal course of events that some tournaments die (Chessbase reports that next year's Aeroflot Open is not yet secured) and new ones are born (like Pearl Spring). But it seems that an awful lot of dying is going on recently...

Everytime something like this happens someone points a finger towards Fide. One of these days chess players will blame Fide for global warming... Chess was, is and will continue to be a niche sport, and as such securing a long term sponsor for chess events will continue to be a real strugle for chess organizer. Why would any big company put money into an event that has no appeal to the masses? I am an optimist, for the last 25 years that I have been involved with chess things in general have become much better: more tournaments, more and beter access to chess information, rapid growth in scholastic chess etc etc. Chess is alive and well in sp[ite of the negative comments of the Cassandras of the chess world.

Good luck for FIDE to find the solutions!!! All them who voted in is now with their head in Fire... GO KASPAROV GO!!!!! for FIDE President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011 is shaping up to be the 9/11 of top tournaments.

I don't want to sound nostalgic but if Kasparov was still here, we would be playing round 3 of Linares right now and Shirov would still try to have his first win against Gazza.
I'm sure the economic atmosphere has a lot to do with the super-tournaments being cancelled but you can't deny that Kasparov secured money and sponsors in big tournaments. Anyone [except Houdini] willing to sac a pawn and take the initiative?
As for rapid chess events, they come and go.

Kramnik's quip, "It's not so important, this is just a rapid match", was typical coming from the so called "Classical line of World Champions" at the time.

Winning a tournament, Classic round robin, FIDE knock-out, or Rapid match was considered unimportant; childs play compared to winning a real 12 to 24 game classical match.

Kramnik probably used the jibe to put himself above Anand, the FIDE World Champion at the time because of the split title.

Well, we all know how the story ended. Anand >>rapidly<< dethroned Kramnik in Bonn 2008. 

another news article to be posted... Hikaru Nakamura won't play US Championship!

"Two-time U.S. Champion GM Hikaru Nakamura, currently ranked number one in the U.S. by rating, declined his invitation to play in this year’s championship, citing a desire to focus on working toward his ultimate goal of one day winning the World Championship."
http://saintlouischessclub.org/news/2011-02-15/two-spots-remain-2011-us-...

It's Carlsen's fault!

Amber and Mainz were 2 nice tournaments because you could see top players playing variants of chess (blind and 960) and it will probably never happen again, unless some millionnaire is a chess fan.

But I went in Nice to watch Amber a few times and there were like 10 or 20 people attending the games between the top players in the world in a small room ! (not counting this tall and thin guy who always come in the last 5 minutes to shoot video and he sits on the first rank so that everybody has to move to see the boards. I hate him, he must be working for some obscure chess site but anyway...). 10 or 20 people to watch Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik, Aronian.... playing rapids when it's free to attend! No wonder this kind of tournament can't survive.

There is still a rapid in Corsica though (won by Naka vs Chucky last year) and I hope they will go on. And there are few others when some regions or towns decide to invest, but they basically lose money.

As for "big" tournaments, WAZ seems ok for now thanks to Tata but the others like Linares, Dortmund or Sofia should imho emphasize on live comments from Gms and interviews and analyse of players. The last tournament in London was great for that. It was free on the internet but I think I would have payed a few euros to get the live analysis by GMs and the analysis post-mortem of the players. Add a few webcams to make sure you can watch every board and I'm convinced some people would pay to watch it.

So in both cases (classical or rapids/blind/960) the tournaments have to find someting else to offer than a pgn and a poor webcam where you can't see anything but the color of the hair of the players and if he did 0-0 or 0-0-0.

Basically few people come to watch the games so they have to make the internet broadcast much more "sexy" than it is now and offer webcams, analyse, interviews, reports... I don't think it's so expensive.

If I were a professional chess player I would be looking into online poker...:(

Unless a charismatic player like a Kasparov or Fischer comes on the chess scene, we will continue to see this decline.

It seems possible we won't see Aeroflot next year either...

Not a good sign for professional chess IMO.

very sad!
it was great to follow these games on-line.
so entertaining, not boring!..

Football, ice hockey, baseball, and basketball all have non stop colour commentary, detailed expert analysis during intervals in the action, and post game synopses along with analysis when the games are done. The tiresome, strategically limited game of poker has been made appealing to the masses (and by extension, sponsors) through the use of camera angles that have enabled continuing commentary, In all of this marketing, pace is everything. To all but the cognoscenti, chess played at classic time limits is as exciting as watching paint peel. If getting the attention of the modern day Medici, the multi national corporations, is the objective, then it follows that tempo is all. Thus, bullet, blitz, and possibly, rapid chess are the the most amenable to the coverage and marketing used for the BIG sports. These events would have to be rated, of course. Even someone who doesn't know a pawn from a taxi cab, is fascinated by the action in a blitz game. With encouragement that fascination could lead to a desire to understand what's going on. Now that computers can outplay the best mortals even on their off days, attention should shift to the most exciting human chess, replete with errors. Where do you find this. In blitz.

What does it matter what Kramnik said 10 years ago? Clearly, no! It's just an awkward excuse organizers.
The question is why investors moved away from the fast chess, which comes to many people and many more watching on the internet?
Confusing ... ought to reduce the cost of the top three prizes, probably.