Media Worthy UK GMs??

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John Upham
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Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by John Upham » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:15 pm

Do we have any GMs to rank with

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4760 (Maurice Ashley and also Susan Polgar)

when it comes to promoting chess to the masses?

Ours seem to get into fights, dress like a tramp or argue for the sake of it. :oops:

Maybe David Howell would be a good chess ambassador in the the UK? :D

Suggestions?
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Justin Hadi

Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Justin Hadi » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:47 pm

Danny King

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John Upham
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by John Upham » Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:57 pm

Justin Hadi wrote:Danny King
A good choice and the one I was predicting.

How many national TV / Radio appearences has he made?

It is easier to rule people people out than in but my shortlist (no pun intended) would include :

GM Danny King
GM David Howell
IM Andrew Martin
GM Michael Adams

any more?
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Sean Hewitt

Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Sean Hewitt » Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:38 pm

David Howell? Really?? After what went on in Cork???

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John Upham
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by John Upham » Thu Jul 10, 2008 6:17 pm

What did go on? Did it make national news?

I guess you are referring to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?title=Talk ... ss_player)

Hardly earth shattering. I am sure we can all forgive and forget and have had a moment of madness at least once in our youth. 8)

Some players are predictably less well behaved.
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Sean Hewitt

Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Sean Hewitt » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:36 am

Its minuted in the Irish Chess Union AGM http://www.icu.ie/articles/display.php?id=26

Interestingly, neither the ICU or Wikipedia seems to detail what allegedly happened - and the chess press doesn't seem to have reported it. Which is probably why the National Press didnt. But, if what I am told happened is true - lets just say that if a footballer did it he would have been banned from all football, worldwide, for life.

So maybe he is media worthy - but maybe not in a good way :D

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Nigel Wright
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Nigel Wright » Sat Dec 27, 2008 11:49 pm

can you PM me what "allegedly" happened? :p
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Ben Purton
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Ben Purton » Sun Dec 28, 2008 12:11 am

Davids definately our most sellable GM, by a country mile.
I think what happened at cork shouldnt influence that in future , as everyone has a one off etc.

Ben
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Ben Purton
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Ben Purton » Sun Dec 28, 2008 12:35 am

We all do stupid things....Davids was very little relative
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James Coleman
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by James Coleman » Sun Dec 28, 2008 1:49 am

Is being "sellable" enough these days ? Maurice Ashley and Susan Polgar have both achieved unique things. Ashley was the first African-American GM (I think) and Polgar's credentials speak for themselves.

Nigel Short's match against Kasparov in 1993 comes to mind as something that captured the attention of the average guy in the street. He's still by far the best known British GM. We need something like that again. Simply having GM's that are snappy dressers or take more than two showers a week isn't enough to get noticed :)

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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:37 am

Taking fewer than two showers a week, however, might do the job....
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"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Dec 29, 2008 9:38 am

Re: Danny King, my former partner used to admire his cheekbones.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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Arshad Ali
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Arshad Ali » Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:52 pm

James Coleman wrote:Is being "sellable" enough these days ? Maurice Ashley and Susan Polgar have both achieved unique things. Ashley was the first African-American GM (I think) and Polgar's credentials speak for themselves.
I've met Ashley and he's a personable fellow but there's a rumour that FIDE encouraged a bunch of players to drop games to him so as to produce an African (-American) GM. He was instrumental in setting up the 'HB Global Chess Challenge' in Minneapolis -- my adopted hometown -- in 2005; it was a commercial disaster because of Ashley's over-optimism on how many players the $500,000 prize money would draw.
Nigel Short's match against Kasparov in 1993 comes to mind as something that captured the attention of the average guy in the street. He's still by far the best known British GM. We need something like that again. Simply having GM's that are snappy dressers or take more than two showers a week isn't enough to get noticed :)
Look at how poorly and gracelessly Short came across in interviews at the time. Kasparov came across as a true ambassador of chess.

Among British GMs, I think Danny King comes across well.

It's increasingly difficult to make chess media-worthy: there's now a plethora of TV channels and the public's attention span has correspondingly gone down. Not easy to cover chess under such circumstances.

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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Geoff Chandler » Wed Feb 24, 2010 2:22 am

King is too snobby. Can we not get out of Oxford?

He's like one of those posh trollopes you see on daytime TV
wandering around people's tacky houses.

Cosy cosy chess won't work. It has never worked before.
You had your chance and you blew it yet again.

We simply have to shatter this old school tie, gentleman's game myth.
This tag has been around the neck of chess for 200 years

We have to get right in the faces and kick their butts about
the sitting room.

How about this?

We portray Harriet Hunt as an unmarried mother.
Dress her in a shell suit and bruise her up a bit.

We have her calling another female player "a right cow,"
because she beat her at chess.

Enter David Howell, who just went right up in my estimation.

He shows the game in between swigs of lager complete with
bleeped out comments from Harriet.

That should do it.

Next Week. Blitz Chess from some seedy Newcastle strip joint.

Anthony Taglione
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Re: Media Worthy UK GMs??

Post by Anthony Taglione » Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:21 am

We don't need a GM to represent British Chess; we need a grass-roots Northerner, Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred by way of some upper-echelon University. We need someone who is a viable cross between Jonathan Mestel and Mike Tyson; someone who can glare at the camera and send a shiver of intimidation down the spines of the watching men and a shiver of delight down the spines of watching women; someone who, a tiny fraction of a second later, can transmorph that glare to a grin of intellectual delight and give the viewer a sense of intimacy at the board and then to want to match them up with their daughters.

I might be available later in the year. :D

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