Sunday, July 31, 2016

Chess and Bigotry redux


In 2008 Mike Griffin posted about Chess and Bigotry.

He thought it might be a good time to repost it:

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Chess and Bigotry

Many very bright and seemingly reasonable people may be called "complex" because they are prejudiced against a given group of people. Many times ethnocentrism is heralded as a good thing by some "defending the culture", as in the case of legislating English in lieu of Spanish. By 2050 the US will be 29% Latino having 82% of the increase in population growth from immigrants and their descendants. Will the US approach this situation like France, Canada, or find another approach? Any situation of them vs us, especially when a stressed majority perceives a threat, can turn out to have very dangerous results. Nefarious leaders play on these fears fostering outrage in order to grow their own power. Ironically the prosecution or bondage of a minority in turn enslaves the oppressing majority because of the side effects: sanctions that stifle liberty of some eventually smother the liberties of everyone. That is why we have a Bill of Rights that protects everyone, especially minorities. Today in Tibet the Dali Lama is trying to navigate a non violent, different path of co-acceptance.


In 2005 Boris Spassky, my chess hero,
signed an anti semitic petition in Russia trying to restrict Jewish people in participating in Russian politics. Spassky has also made some pretty bad remarks about Jewish people, too awful to repeat here. I can't comprehend how anyone who plays chess can have any type of prejudice if they take a good look at who plays and who is gifted at chess.

David Bronstein, another chess hero of mine, had taken on the whole Soviet chess establishment that was biased against Jewish players in the 1950's. Opportunity denied by prejudice reduces the potential of all.

On any given tournament at the BCF you will see an amazing field of players of various race, religion, ethnicity, age, political background, and occupation. And any chess player who can state that any of the above mentioned characteristics can predict who is a better chess player, or better human being, is just plain wrong.

For example at today's tournament all of the following players could arrive:

Harold Dondis,
Lawyer Times, Gabe Frieden,Natasha Christiansen, Charlie Mays, Jesse Nicholas, Lior Rozhansky, Melvin Zhang, John Pina,  


 Steve Stepak,
 





Eric Godin, Michelle Chen, Dave Glickman, Alan Price,  
George Mirijanian, Satyajit Gupta, Ken Ho,  
Chris Chase and Satea Husari, Bernardo Iglesias, Yogesh Raghunthan, Ed Foye, Scott Didham,  
Chikwere Onyekwere,














Mikhail Derazhne, Tony Scali and Rachel Dillon, Dave Vigorito and Greg Kaden, Kent Leung, Tony Cortizas, Stuart Finney, Katherine Gasser, Alexander Ivanov, Ruben Portugues, Griffin Price, Mike Griffin, Bob Oresick, Vikas Shiva, not to mention the powerhouse Lung and Wang families.


Looks like a good time having a terrific amount of talent heaped with intelligence.

Boris you blew this one(???).
 
Is there any way US chess should prepare for the future change in demographics? 
Do you have any stories or comments about bigotry in chess? 
Please Comment.

Mike Griffin 04/08/2008 

Pew Hispanic Center
http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=85


Monday, July 25, 2016

August Quads


 
 
 
 
 
 
DateSaturday, August 6, 2016
Event FormatQuads
Time ControlG/65, d10
SectionsPlayers will be arranged into quads by rating
Entry Fee$35, $20 for BCF members for pre-registration online by 9:00am day of event; $5 more at the door
Prizes$$80 First place in top quad, $$50 First place in each of the other quads
Registration9:15am - 9:45am
Round Times10:00am, 1:00pm, and 3:30pm
Entry ListCurrent Pre-Registration List 










Fischer Random Tournament




 
 
 
DateSaturday, August 6, 2016
Event Format4SS
Time ControlG/15 d3
Entry Fee$15, $10 for players in Quads
PrizesBased on entries
RegistrationEnds at 6:55pm
Round TimesRound 1 at 7:00pm, rest ASAP
DescriptionFischer Random Chess - this is an evening event.
A random starting position will be generated before each round, all games in that round will use that starting position.
See Wikipedia for full rules and details of the variant.













August Thursday Night Swiss




 
 
 
DateThursday, August 4, 11, 18, 25
Event Format4SS
Time Control40/90 SD/20 d10
SectionsOpen & U1900
Entry Fee$35, $20 for BCF Members, $5 more at the door
Prizes$300 based on 25 paid entries: Open 1st $125, 2nd $75 U1900 1st $60, 2nd $40
Registration6:30pm - 7:00pm
Round Times7:15pm
Entry ListCurrent Pre-Registration List