The Greater Toronto Chess League

2009 Greater Toronto Chess League

 

Present:

Michael Barron, President

Ilia Bluvshtein, Vice-President

Erik Malmsten, Secretary

Nicholas J. Varmazis, Treasurer

Egidijus Zeromskis, Club Team Coordinator

Bob Armstrong, Scarborough CC Newsletter

David Cohen

Alex Ferreira, Hart House

Brian Fiedler, Toronto Open Organizer

John Chidley-Hill

Steve Karpik, Scarborough CC

Yuri Lebedev, Knight of Chess

Michael Sutton, City of Toronto

Barry Thorvardson, Brampton CC 

William Yuan, Director of Communications, was in Kingston. 
 

Agenda

1. Announcements
2. Toronto Open Report
3. GTCL Awards
4. Executive Reports

1. Club Team Coordinator
2. Director of Communications
3. Secretary
4. Treasurer
5. Vice-President
6. Outgoing President

5. Election of New Executive and 3 Directors at Large

6. Nominations of CFC/OCA Governors
7. 2009-10 Budget
8. 2009-10 Tournaments
9. New Items

1.Announcements

Later this month Toronto will host the Ontario Girls’ Championship and the Canadian Chess Challenge.  

The GTCL President encourages chess organizers to submit bids for chess tournaments this fall: Toronto Junior, Toronto Senior, Toronto Women’s and next spring the Toronto Closed and Toronto Open; Also Blitz and Active Championships. 

2.Toronto Open Report – Brian Fiedler

 Besides every player receiving golf shirts, around 1 in 4 received a prize. The GMs were very happy and would come back. The sponsors were very happy. The sponsors donated less than they would for a comparable event like a golf tournament. Brian lost money on the event, but within tolerance and worth it to help jump start the Toronto chess scene again. An appeals committee was formed on one judgement call. Preregistration allowed for an exact number of shirts and number and layout of tables and chairs.  

It wasn’t FIDE rated due to:

1. Maintain focus on supporting the CFC
2. Some top players don’t want to lose FIDE rating points
3. Not enough rounds for title norms.

Next year's organizer may nevertheless want to consider having it FIDE rated. 

Key Learnings:

• Participation from outside Ontario was low.
• Large sections resulted in ties for first.
• Timing after Easter (and Foxwoods and Victoria tournaments) good for families, but exam time for university students.
• Problems with phones, may want to have a mandatory phone check like a coat check.
• Preregistration wasn’t a problem, only four turned away at the door. But rush at deadline — 50% of entries — could be avoided with stratified entry fees.
• Monroi adds to the prestige but the cost/benefit of AV services needs to be assessed.
• Have TD protocol for procedure if there is a fire alarm or other disruptions re stopping or pausing of clocks.
• Too much work for one organizer, a committee is needed for an event of this scale. Needed more TDs for time scrambles. Include Erik Malmsten on your organizing committee early as he has some brilliant ideas.

 Evaluation forms were for the benefit of future organizers. Although Brian received many positive verbal comments, thirty players filled in the evaluation forms, a couple mailing them in:

• Most important factors were dates and downtown location.
• Just over half preferred the slower Classical time control of 40 in 2.
• There wasn’t strong interest in the open being FIDE rated.
• Half preferred a 5-round event over 6 or 7 rounds.
• Half felt the prize distribution should be left up to the organizer.
• Players don’t want an entry fee over $100.
• Players loved the large playing hall.
• Players would have liked the first round pairings in advance and the rounds starting on time.

 One of the successes was bringing out old guys. Of the respondents:

• 17% were over 60
• 27% were 50 to 60
• 23% were 35 to 50
• 6% were 25 to 35
• 10% were 18 to 25
• 17% were 7 to 18.

 Occupational Demographic:

• 29% professional/technical
• 25% students
• 21% retired
• 11% self-employed/ business owner
• 7% managerial
• 7% labourer.

 Also 5.5% were female. Full copies of the survey results are available on request. 

Discussion. In the U.S. they have paired late comers together, or given a first-round bye. In some events a player losing their first game can re-enter.  

The Mayor has a cultural agenda so should support something like having a civic centre as a playing location. Letter will be sent by Michael Barron. 

Chess players’ are analytical. CFC’s financial difficulties and negative discussions on Internet boards may turn off potential sponsors, why risk negative publicity. 

GTCL Awards

 Michael Barron presented Brian Fiedler with two knight bookends as an award for being the GTCL Organizer of the Year.

4.Executive Reports  

a.Club Team Coordinator – Egidijus Zeromskis

Two teams in top section, four teams in Under 2000: Knights of Chess, BOTSB and Brampton. Two teams in Cup (active): Chess Academy of Canada and Willowdale. All results are posted on the GTCL website. 

Discussion. Problem in scheduling matches. Earlier in year snow storms, now players not available because of club championship. A busy club has will have trouble scheduling in twelve nights for team chess. 

Registration could begin in June, or at least end in September rather than October. Other clubs should have enough players to field a 4-member team. The benefits are to play different players and see different clubs, open horizon beyond one’s club.  

Maybe hold an active team event on a Saturday? Brampton C. C. can host it in the Rose Theatre. Can all clubs hold their club championship at the same time? No, Scarborough moved their club championship later to escape the winter weather.    

b.Director of Communications – William Yuan, report read by Egidijus Zeromskis

Report was emailed. After lots of testing and experimenting, the GTCL website was finally able to get rid of the Beta version. With php and XML technology, many large search engines such as Google and Yahoo would be able to search for us easily. On Alexa.com our 3-month global average ranking of 2,022,722 is above most of the provincial chess sites in Canada. 

My goal is to help the GTCL website reach a 3-month average ranking of 1,000,000 or higher next year. More and more people are visiting the site everyday so therefore I believe that there is a very good possibility that we can achieve this goal. 

Comparing most popular reads last year had counts of only hundreds, this year ten times more:

2,547 reads 2009 Chess Calendar

2,075 reads 2009 PwC Toronto Open

1,726 reads 2009 Toronto Closed

1,021 reads 2008/9 Club Competition 

As the GTCL website gets better, I hope it will bring more players into the chess community and also satisfy the needs of current chess players in the Greater Toronto area. 

3. Secretary – Erik Malmsten

Worked with Egis on putting a history of the Toronto Closed on the GTCL website and helped out with the Toronto Open. Due to a change in work, didn’t have time to compile a report on the amount of CFC activity in 2008. 

4. Treasurer – Nicholas Varmazis

Report was emailed. Total expenses were $1,367 and present funds available $995. We haven’t yet received the 2008 CFC rebate from the OCA. The Toronto Open donated $500 for the rights to the tournament.  

5. Vice-President – Ilia Bluvshtein

Assisted the President in his activities. Lively discussions over the year. Also was Olympic Coordinator. 

6. President – Michael Barron

Report was emailed and published in the Scarborough C. C. newsletter. We’re living during interesting time for Canadian chess! I would call the past year “a year of hope.” 

Thanks to our most experienced TD Bryan Lamb and new organizers Liam Henry, Alex Ferreira and Brian Fiedler we saw significant increase in chess activity since last April. We hosted Canadian Junior Championship, completed the Greater Toronto Chess League Team competitions, had our annual Toronto Junior, Senior, Women’s and Closed Championships, and a series of weekend Opens. A high point was the excellently organized and ran PricewaterhouseCoopers Toronto Open with a very strong field and international coverage. 

I should mention as well the Grassroots’ Campaign – the initiative of ordinary CFC members willing to help the CFC to restructure its operations to bring a real benefit for Canadian chess. 

We could conclude that chess in Toronto is on the rise – thanks to our dedicated organizers and tournament directors. We need more people willing to put their skills, knowledge and time to get momentum and establish Toronto as a Canadian chess capital.   

5.Election of New Executive

Club/Team Coordinator Egidijus Zeromskis

Director of Communications William Yuan

Secretary Erik Malmsten

Treasurer Nicholas J. Varmazis

Vice-President Ilia Bluvshtein

President Michael Barron  

Directors at Large

They contribute ideas in executive discussions.

Alex Ferreira

Yuri Lebedev

John Chidley-Hill

  6.Nominations of CFC/OCA Governors

 CFC Governors

CFC has 61 Governors. All of the GTCL Governors were active in voting. Until the OCA changes policy at its annual meeting, nominations are passed on to the OCA. Presented in order:

1. Michael Barron (FIDE Representative)
2. Ilia Bluvshtein
3. Egidijus Zeromskis
4. Gary Gladstone
5. Natalia Khoudgarian
6. Bob Armstrong
7. Nava Starr
8. Barry Thorvardson
9. Bill Evans

 Other Governors who live in the GTCL:

David Lavin, President

Eddie Urquhart, Masters’ Representative

Philip Haley, Past President

Maurice Smith, Past President

Nikolay Noritsyn, Canadian Champion

Artem Samsonkin, C.C. runner-up 

OCA Governors

Not as busy as the CFC, only issue last year was to rebate 50% to the leagues.

As GTCL President Michael Barron is automatically an OCA Governor. Presented in order:

1. Brett Campbell, OCA Vice-President
2. Ilia Bluvshtein
3. Egidijus Zeromskis
4. Gary Gladstone
5. Natalia Khoudgarian
6. Bryan Lamb
7. Chris Field
8. Bill Evans

7.2009-10 Budget

 Fiscal year ended Mar. 31. Barry Thorvardson is still donating the hosting of the website. A slight lost is projected. Tournament Support is raised to $500. The GTCL could see funds to advertise tournaments such as a flyer with a list of all clubs and tournaments. Online advertising? Could also have non-monetary Grand Prix awarded to the players who scored the most points in the year’s weekend tournaments.    

8.2009-10 Tournaments

 Scarborough Chess Club is having its 50^th anniversary in 2010 and would like to have some kind of festival for its members. Maybe an active and buffet, GM simult/lecture.  

Alex Ferreira announced the Hart House Summer Open 5-round Swiss in five sections July 3-5, directed by Bryan Lamb. http://hhchess.sa.utoronto.ca/hhopen. Hart House does not want to host the Thanksgiving Open because it’s a bad week for school work. Next January U of T will host the Canadian Post-Secondary Chess Championship.  

Hal Bond will be running the Canadian Closed in Guelph, August 7-16. 

Fred Komendi and the Willowdale C.C. can again host the Toronto Senior Championship this fall. We encourage organizers to submit their bids for Toronto Junior and Women’s Championships. Is there anybody that can provide a space for 4-hour games so that the Toronto Closed can be FIDE-rated? 

9.New Items

 Proposed to have a GTCL emailing list of Toronto players. Hart House was advised not to share their list, a question of privacy. Perhaps have box to check on entry forms if willing to receive mailings of future chess tournaments. Can also ask for emails addresses on the GTCL website. Not everybody has subscribed to the Scarborough C.C. newsletter. There is a hierarchy of emailing flyers to clubs who can then inform their members.