English Chess Forum

Which site are you using to follow the games? The official one isn't working for me. I'm waiting to go home but want to see how the match finishes first.

Looks like Hou will win the title in style, Ruan pushed too hard for a win and now her position is about to come tumbling down around her.

Yes, a convincing win to clinch the match 3-1. Hou is the new women's world champion.

Congratulations to Hou Yifan - a worthy champion

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"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

See this link: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6952 for an open letter from players who played in the championship "thanking" the organisers for the excessive prices of hotels, airport transfers etc

This is not a new complaint but one that occurs in practically ever major FIDE event. I hope that they will listen, but I have my doubts.

The thing is Loz that if they abolish such charges, the lost revenue would presumaby have to be recovered some other way - e.g. reduced fees or prizes, or increased entry fees, or something else.

I agree if it's a self financing tournament and the budget has to be balanced but where you have a sponsor putting in money as is generally the case with top events then i don't believe in overcharging the players and forcing them to stay in specific hotels and pay more than a normal guest would.

The budget has to be balanced even if you have a sponsor! Once you loose a revenue stream (even if you have a sponsor) you either need to replace that revenue, or cut costs to the same value.

The thing is Loz that if they abolish such charges, the lost revenue would presumaby have to be recovered some other way - reduced fees or prizes, or increased entry fees.[/quote]

I agree if it's a self financing tournament and the budget has to be balanced but where you have a sponsor putting in money as is generally the case with top events then i don't believe in overcharging the players and forcing them to stay in specific hotels and pay more than a normal guest would.[/quote]
The budget has to be balanced even if you have a sponsor! Once you loose a revenue stream (even if you have a sponsor) you either need to replace that revenue, or cut costs to the same value.[/quote]

I am quietly confident that neither FIDE nor the organisers will ever be out of pocket for these events. One of the problems is that the cost of the number of delegates and officials. In the first couple of rounds players had to stay elsewhere and then be moved into the main hotel as the number of players diminished.

Then the ECF should be organising all these events in England!

When I looked at bidding for an ECU event, the amount of income that we would need to generate to break even was absolutely frightening!

Thankfully the European Individual in France this March is much better, players have complete freedom of where to stay and don't have to book through the organiser which seems much better and is certainly much cheaper. I anticipate about a third of the cost compared to the women who played in Turkey. Sadly the European Women's Individual seems to be bogged down in politics between Turkey and the ECU so I've no idea if that will take place or not.

For a normal tournament, the organiser has to be aware of what prices and price structure the market will bear. Get that wrong and no one will enter.

For championship events, it's slightly different in that a third party, FIDE or delegates to FIDE have to decide where to award the event. There's a row about the forthcoming Euro Womens see http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6953.
This seems to be in least in part about the ECU cracking down on the Turkish organiser's desire to charge excess fees.

As a matter of principle, I would think it unacceptable for an organiser to charge much more for services than an internet surfer might expect to be quoted. This doesn't preclude the organiser from arranging a bulk deal with hotels and reselling to participants at a slightly higher price. The 4NCL was charging £ 60 for dinner, bed and breakfast at Hinckley, the normal price for this appears to be nearer £ 130.

I cannot claim extensive research, but a quick check against a well-known French budget hotel chain's website suggested that the FFE's price might be marginally cheaper ( as one might hope).

There's a king sized moan from the Turkish Organisers at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7004

They do however put their hands up to one of the central complaints, which is that they were treating the players as a profit centre.



I think the key points are that they should have got the price below € 110 (4NCL and e2e4 seem to manage this in high cost UK) and that they shouldn't have been taking nearly 20% mark up on the price they got from the hotel. An event with a large number of participants should get the hotel public rooms for next to nothing.

Does anyone else find it strange that they have yet to announce dates for the 2012 Olympiad and yet we have them for Norway in 2014? I am beginning to wonder if that will now take place and I can't get an answer from anyone about the matter.

On a similar vein I noticed that FIDE couldn't resist slagging off London regarding their withdrawal from the 2012 match on the chessbase site.