A.J.Bell Investments and the Chess Advert

[Geoff Chandler]

Spinning through the adverts last night of a taped film, 'Red Heat' when I happen to notice a demo board go whooshing past. I back-tracked and paused it.

The demo board showed a position from the mainline of a King's Indian. e5 has been played, white has just played d4-d5 hitting a Knight on c6. A few frames later we return to the board and see this position.

8/8/8/8/1NB5/2r5/2KN4/k7 w - - 0 1

It appears Black has just played Rook ??-c3+ and is either stalemated or white is left with two Knights. It is possible we are witnessing the final move from a chess study.

BTW after 2.Kd1 Rxc4 3.Nxc4 Kb8 there is a Help Mate. 4. Na3+ Kb2 5. Ke1 Kc1 6. Nd3 mate.

8/8/8/8/8/N2N4/8/2k1K3 b - - 0 4

I was going to put this in media comments but decided to plug the company because the company appears to have an interest in chess. The advert was for A.J.Bell Investments.

https://www.ajbell.co.uk/articles/lates ... s%E2%80%99

[Mark Howitt]

I have a small amount with them... they promote themselves quite well.

[Geoff Chandler]

From the link I gave above.

'World Chess PLC on Thursday [piece dated 14th Oct 2022] affirmed its intention to float on AIM as it seeks to profit from the growing interest in the chess worldwide.

"World Chess is a chess organisation seeking to promote ‘the mass market appeal of chess’ through the commercial offering of chess-related activities. The company seeks to raise up to €8 million but does not specify how many shares will be issued or at what price. "


Edit: I've found the advert with the chess in it. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/02/01 ... characters

[Roger de Coverly]

'World Chess PLC on Thursday [piece dated 14th Oct 2022] affirmed its intention to float on AIM as it seeks to profit from the growing interest in the chess worldwide.

That's Agon as was. As was observed at the floatation, it had a long way to go to catch up with chess.com in terms of presence and coverage.

https://worldchess.com/
claimed membership as of this post 714,872

By contrast chess.com claims 148,554,826
https://www.chess.com/leaderboard

I think AJ Bell's involvement in World Chess PLC was only because of its day job as an investment platform.

[Mark Howitt]

From the link I gave above.

'World Chess PLC on Thursday [piece dated 14th Oct 2022] affirmed its intention to float on AIM as it seeks to profit from the growing interest in the chess worldwide.

"World Chess is a chess organisation seeking to promote ‘the mass market appeal of chess’ through the commercial offering of chess-related activities. The company seeks to raise up to €8 million but does not specify how many shares will be issued or at what price. "


Edit: I've found the advert with the chess in it. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/02/01 ... characters

I know a millionaire who wants to make profit from chess- he thinks doing a one day event with big prize money is the way to go...

[Mick Norris]

AJ Bell's Technical Manager is a chess player

[Joey Stewart]

From the link I gave above.

'World Chess PLC on Thursday [piece dated 14th Oct 2022] affirmed its intention to float on AIM as it seeks to profit from the growing interest in the chess worldwide.

"World Chess is a chess organisation seeking to promote ‘the mass market appeal of chess’ through the commercial offering of chess-related activities. The company seeks to raise up to €8 million but does not specify how many shares will be issued or at what price. "


Edit: I've found the advert with the chess in it. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/02/01 ... characters

I know a millionaire who wants to make profit from chess- he thinks doing a one day event with big prize money is the way to go...

There would only be two ways you could make much profit -
1) have an absolute huge Swiss and hope you can get enough goodwill to get a cheap venue and arbiting team to turn a profit
2) pay a few top masters to enter and boost the prestige so you can charge high entry costs to the remaining players

[Nick Ivell]

That is a useful position because although I knew there is never a forced mate, I did not realise there was a mate away from the corner.

[Peter Ackley]

From the link I gave above.

'World Chess PLC on Thursday [piece dated 14th Oct 2022] affirmed its intention to float on AIM as it seeks to profit from the growing interest in the chess worldwide.

"World Chess is a chess organisation seeking to promote ‘the mass market appeal of chess’ through the commercial offering of chess-related activities. The company seeks to raise up to €8 million but does not specify how many shares will be issued or at what price. "


Edit: I've found the advert with the chess in it. https://www.thedrum.com/news/2023/02/01 ... characters

I know a millionaire who wants to make profit from chess- he thinks doing a one day event with big prize money is the way to go...

There would only be two ways you could make much profit -
1) have an absolute huge Swiss and hope you can get enough goodwill to get a cheap venue and arbiting team to turn a profit
2) pay a few top masters to enter and boost the prestige so you can charge high entry costs to the remaining players

Never thought I'd say this but I'd really like it for chess if Mark's millionaire's suggestion would work however my concerns are along Joey's lines:
-Venue fees are expensive, especially for a venue large enough for a huge swiss. Maybe you could do a deal if you had a huge venue with on-site facilities but in order to get the deal chess players would need to use the facilities - think I have made my views known on this before
-Arbitering and ancillary costs are pretty much fixed - an arbiter's time, travel costs etc don't benefit from economies of scale. When I arbiter I get a small fee paid to cover costs. If the fee does not cover costs I'm out
-High prize funds will necessitate higher entry fees. Exempting highly graded players pushes their costs onto others. Some players may be willing to pay a high entry fee to play "prestige" players or take a gamble at a high prize fund but others won't. I'm c.2100 rapidplay. I'll play a few games in the local rapidplay league. if I have nothing better to do I might pay £20 to enter a local rapidplay congress. £100 entry I'm not paying - what I'm going to get for that £100 just isn't worth the money.