Grand Prix in London ?

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:06 pm

David Robertson wrote:Never seen a chess story here before. Just shows what a large PR budget can do.

http://bit.ly/QQT9Bz
"But when the Grand Prix is held the matches will be out of sight of spectators who will have to follow the moves online."

Oh. I feel less bad now that I'll not be around to not be able to go to this.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Tue Jul 31, 2012 1:46 pm

David Robertson wrote:Never seen a chess story here before. Just shows what a large PR budget can do.

http://bit.ly/QQT9Bz

Good spot. Thanks for the link.


I wonder quite how large the PR Budget was/needed to be, though. From the text of the story I doubt this story is anything more than a rehash of the piece that appeared in The Times (the reference to the quote given to the other paper in the middle of The Daily Mail's report is a bit of a clue) and perhaps a story sourced from one of the news agencies. There's not an awful lot more here than there was in The Today Programme this morning

Once a story appears in one paper it tends to appear in all the others too. It's how the media works. They seem to assume that the publiciation of a report somewhere by definition makes the event newsworthy. The real sucess, then, is getting the story in the press in the first palce.

The original location was The Times and I'm sure the fact that they published their report owes an awful lot to their chess correspondent. So credit to RDK for getting another chess story in the news. It is, to be fair, something he's pretty good at.


That said, looking at the reports more closely, I do find them a little odd. The opening quote, for example,
World-class tournament chess will return to the sport's so-called 'home' in central London for the first time in more than a century.

and one from the end

The game briefly returned in 2003 for a small tournament to mark the 175th anniversary of chess on the site.

seems very strange given the claims being made for the Staunton Memorial at the time. The last version of Stauton announced at the start of every round that it was the strongest tournament held in Britain since the 1930s. This was of course cobblers - the 1st London Chess Classic held a few months later was clearly stronger and only claimed to be the strongest tournament in London for 25 years (an underselling if anything) - but, nevertheless, it was the claim the Staunton folk were making.

The second mail quote is simply factually incorrect and both describing the Staunton Memorial as "a small tournament" and the claim of no world class chess at Simpsons for 100 years is at least questionable and certainly in conflict with what was being said by the organisers of Simpsons events at the time. This is all particularly interesting given the likely orginal source of the story.

This is a question for publicising chess I suppose. How far are we prepared to go in being flexible with the actualitee?



PS: Talking of the Daily Mail, I'll check when I get home, but I'm pretty sure they covered both the Black Queen Murder Mystery and the Korchnoi-Spassky Candidates' Final of 1977/1978. Guess who was smack bang in the middle of those!

David Robertson

Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by David Robertson » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:00 pm

Such inaccuracies suggest, to me at least, that the source of the puff is Paulsen (or those working to him) rather than RDKOBE. After all, the latter has never knowingly unsold very much at all, especially not the Staunton Memorials. You may be right about the Daily Mail following the Times. Unfortunately I can't, don't and won't read the Times online as things stand, so can't compare. But from my limited exposure to such matters, the Daily Mail item 'feels' like a piece placed by a PR agent/agency

David Gilbert
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by David Gilbert » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:06 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Oh. I feel less bad now that I'll not be around to not be able to go to this.
The strong likelihood that this would be a 'closed' event for the public was made pretty clear at the London League AGM on Wednesday,11 July 2012. Didn't your Captain/Secretary tell you?

Leonard Barden
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Leonard Barden » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:15 pm

There is discussion of the Simpson's event in Saturday's Guardian article...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/ju ... ew-paulson

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:32 pm

David Gilbert wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Oh. I feel less bad now that I'll not be around to not be able to go to this.
The strong likelihood that this would be a 'closed' event for the public was made pretty clear at the London League AGM on Wednesday,11 July 2012. Didn't your Captain/Secretary tell you?
No (I'm not sure anyone from my club even attended). I'm also not sure why the London League AGM would be a place to expect to hear about this sort of thing. I would have expected the initial publicity for the event to make it clear, or at least the later publicity (which is now happening). It is disappointing, but I'm not sure there is much to do other than express disappointment. Maybe it will end up like a TV studio (canned audience applause at the end?), with replays so the packaged TV highlights can have 'exciting' moments re-staged for the cameras? Though I suspect the players and arbiters may have something to say about that. Will be interesting to see whether the 'wired up' proposals (heartbeat and eye movements and so on) get off the ground. I don't see that in the recent coverage.

PS. I also see I must have failed to read the second page of this thread.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Tue Jul 31, 2012 2:50 pm

David Robertson wrote:Such inaccuracies suggest, to me at least, that the source of the puff is Paulsen (or those working to him) rather than RDKOBE. After all, the latter has never knowingly unsold very much at all, especially not the Staunton Memorials. You may be right about the Daily Mail following the Times. Unfortunately I can't, don't and won't read the Times online as things stand, so can't compare. But from my limited exposure to such matters, the Daily Mail item 'feels' like a piece placed by a PR agent/agency

Yes, I'm quite sure that you're right about the Press Release coming from the Paulsen camp. When I talked about Ray being the origin of the story I mean in terms of being the guy who got it into The Times. I wouldn't be surprised if he had an input into the press release too although that's speculation of course (and even if he did give them something to work with it doesn't mean it was reproduced accurately).

I don't read the Times online either, btw, but I know they have the story because Ray tweeted it. Last night I think.

I agree with you about the PR placement and perhaps news agency involvement. The reason why I think they're also piggybacking The Times is because of the direct reference to The Times quote. That could have come from a news agency though. My guess is it probably did.


Still, the question remains, how flexible are we willing to be with the reality of chess history to get a story in the news. Personally I think it's a shame the importance of The Staunton Memorial has been downgraded in this way. After all, it was the only international event in town until the Classic turned up.

David Gilbert
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by David Gilbert » Tue Jul 31, 2012 3:46 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
David Gilbert wrote:
Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Oh. I feel less bad now that I'll not be around to not be able to go to this.
The strong likelihood that this would be a 'closed' event for the public was made pretty clear at the London League AGM on Wednesday,11 July 2012. Didn't your Captain/Secretary tell you?
No (I'm not sure anyone from my club even attended). I'm also not sure why the London League AGM would be a place to expect to hear about this sort of thing. I would have expected the initial publicity for the event to make it clear, or at least the later publicity (which is now happening). It is disappointing, but I'm not sure there is much to do other than express disappointment. Maybe it will end up like a TV studio (canned audience applause at the end?), with replays so the packaged TV highlights can have 'exciting' moments re-staged for the cameras? Though I suspect the players and arbiters may have something to say about that. Will be interesting to see whether the 'wired up' proposals (heartbeat and eye movements and so on) get off the ground. I don't see that in the recent coverage.

PS. I also see I must have failed to read the second page of this thread.

Of course, the London League AGM was the first place to hear about the London Chess Classic a few years ago. So maybe expect the unexpected! I understand things moved very fast and a prestige venue in Central London was needed at short notice. Andrew Paulson is said to have fallen off his chair when he heard what Simpsons' wanted for any space that could also accommodate the public. Let's at least congratulate him for having a vision.

MikeTasker
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by MikeTasker » Fri Aug 17, 2012 11:14 pm

Old news, but according to this http://tinyurl.com/ctlbayl, Karjakin
and Ponomariov are being replaced by Svidler and Ivanchuk. As far
as I can see Ivanchuk hasn't played in the UK since 1994 in the Intel speed
chess grand prix which I remember nothing about.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Aug 18, 2012 12:32 am

MikeTasker wrote:Old news, but according to this http://tinyurl.com/ctlbayl, Karjakin
and Ponomariov are being replaced by Svidler and Ivanchuk.
I don't know that's old news. The change increases the appeal to British audiences, not that any uninvited spectators will be allowed.

It's marginal though, both Karjakin and Ponamariov are known through their appearances at Hastings in their youth.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Aug 18, 2012 10:52 am

The substitutions are for health reasons, as the players are missing the Olympiad as well.

http://www.chessdom.com/morozevich-and- ... h-reasons/

MikeTasker
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by MikeTasker » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:13 pm

Morozevic and Gashimov were not due to play in the original list of
participants for London( and also the first revision), so I'm not sure
thats the reason. This http://chess-news.ru/en/node/8799
might make the situation clearer, or maybe not.
For an internet focussed event, there doesn't seem to be much online,
webpage,broadcast details etc, about it.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:29 pm

MikeTasker wrote:Morozevic and Gashimov were not due to play in the original list of participants for London( and also the first revision), so I'm not sure thats the reason. .
Are they trying to equalise the fields, based on current ratings?

MikeTasker
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by MikeTasker » Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:44 pm

:o
Roger de Coverly wrote:
MikeTasker wrote:Morozevic and Gashimov were not due to play in the original list of participants for London( and also the first revision), so I'm not sure thats the reason. .
Are they trying to equalise the fields, based on current ratings?
I really don't know, but its quite fun trying to work out whats going on :?

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Grand Prix in London ?

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:01 pm

I'm fairly sure it's personal commitmnts. Also Morizevich is in poor health and Gashimov has been.
Read nothing sinister into the switches. Andrew Paulson is well meaning.

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