BCC STATISTICS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE NUMBERS // TOURNAMENTS // PLAYERS //

YR:  2011   2012   2013

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

By Steve Stepak

Plotting an encouraging trend: up!

My goal was to create a "virtual community" on the

Boylston WebLog to attract chess players to play tournaments

at the BCC. I try to portray the Club as a friendly, safe

place to venture out into the unknown of chess theory:

openings, middlegame combinations, and the complexities

of endgame play.  Chess is tough, requiring not only

accurate and creative cognitive energy but also

nerves of steel (aluminum?) to arrive at the "right"

answer in the face of the dreaded: time-pressure.

[It may be noted on the grandmaster level, that in

the strongest tournament in chess history: Zurich 2014, 

in the match between Nakamura and Carlsen, 

that Nakamura had a totally won position, yet

he was in severe time pressure and ended up

losing this game!]

Let's focus on the nervous system.

Lots of connections and networks, in

the brain and throughout the body!

DENDRITES

CARRYING THE SIGNAL

Neuroscientists tell us that playing chess induces dendritic growth.

Dendrites carry the signals of "thought" inside the brain:

the more dendrites, the better and faster we think.

That's why parents encourage their kids to play

chess, especially tournament chess.  

Why tournament chess? Because tournament

chess forces the child (adult) to think critically,

and to be disciplined (a piece touched, is a piece moved)!

We write down our chess games. This act of writing also

aids our brains to remember salient points of

openings, middle games and endings (piece movements)

patterns

enhancing hand-eye coordination; we create a copy

of our tournament game so that after the game 

we can go over the moves and critically analyze

them to make improvements. This is a process

of "doing" and afterwards, "observing/criticizing"

our decisions, the same procedure as used in

scientific research. So the more we master

this process, the greater is the power of our skill

to critically re-work everything we do, 

including all kinds of academic and

professional activities: good for chess and good for establishing a career.

So we have "community" at the BCC, a place

where we meet: parents, kids, friends, colleagues,

to socialize, to share life-stories and chess.

To laugh!

It was my hope that in creating a happy, interesting

visual environment on BCC blog posts, I could

increase the number of players in BCC tournament events.

I chose the years 2011, 2012 and 2013 for the following reasons:

In 2011, I had not yet started posting my photo essays of BCC events.

In 2012 I began to post promotional blogs for tournaments, 

and by 2013, I had perfected a creative

platform for featuring photos of key chess events during

tournaments as well as pictures of new players (and their

friends and relatives) who were brave enough to play their

first chess tournament in their lives! Not an easy thing to do!

Below, I will note key totals of chess activity.

I only counted games rated by USCF, and not, for example,

events like the Boylston Blitz Chess Championship,

which is not rated.

Let's look at the numbers:

Total number of players in all rated events, for: 

2011 = 1536;   2012 = 1707;   2013 = 1828

This, as you can see, is a favorable trend (may God let it continue to rise)!

Now let's look at my favorite statistic: Saturday events:

2011 = 1309;  2012 = 1277; 2013 = 1316

The numbers here show a dip on the attendance graph, for 2012,

due to a number of other chess events

scheduled at the same time as BCC Saturday events (bad luck)!

Thursday Night Swiss: 2011 = 189; 2012 = 240; 2013 = 252

TNS: for the serious (mostly adult) chess player.

An encouraging 3 year trend upward. I am happy about this.

A visual average for QUADS = +/- 20

Highest QUADS attendance = 32 (8 quads); 2nd highest 28

QUADS is a difficult event if only for one reason:

it is a 3 round all-play-all;  no byes, no withdrawals!

Top attendance: 2012 March $10 Open =  52

2013 = Elaine Kahn Memorial = 51

Grand Prix events average around 35 - 40 players.

$10 Opens // $5 Opens also 35 - 40.

Average 3 yr totals for all rated events: 1690 (+/1) 1

Average 3 yr totals for Saturday events: 1300 (+/1) 1

And the most significant statistic of all:

On average, say 51 percent +/-

of the total number of players in BCC rated games 

for Saturday events are juniors!

The kids are the backbone of chess and hear of chess

at the BCC!

May they thrive and succeed,

and play lots of chess at the Club throughout their lives!