Kathy, Ben, our neighbor Don, and I went to see the latest James Bond movie, ‘Skyfall’ last Friday. The Marshalltown theatre we went to see it at wasn’t even a quarter full, yet the movie had the biggest US opening weekend ever for a James Bond film at 88 million dollars.
The large box office figure can be attributed not only to the record number of screens set aside for the movie but the energy and popularity that the James Bond franchise experienced since Daniel Craig took over the role since the 2006 ‘reboot’ of the franchise.
Craig took over from Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond role. I thought Brosnan was the best of the replacements for the irreplaceable original film Bond, Sean Connery, but at 53 Brosnan was getting too old to be James Bond. Short, stocky, and blond, Craig looks as different from the archetypical Bond as possible. Aside from looking different, Craig’s James Bond is written as more of an action hero than the previous Bonds.
The first two movies in the current reboot attempt to show how James Bond becomes James Bond, setting it as his first missions as a ‘00’ agent. While Bond can still do all the action stuff and is able to sleep with any woman he wants to, he falls in love with treasury agent Vesper Lynd who dies in the first movie (Casino Royale) and is avenged in the second (Quantum of Solace). With the exception of the some extraordinary sappiness between Bond and Vesper (‘If the only thing left of you was your smile and your little finger, you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever known.’), the movies were action packed from start to finish. They were box office hits and that made the four year wait for the third movie inexplicable. The given reason for the delay was the financial problems of the MGM studios, the current owner of the franchise, but if a company is having financial problems, why wouldn’t it pour whatever resources it had into a sure moneymaker?
Skyfall starts off with a great chase scene which ends up with Bond having an epic battle on a train ending when he gets shot by friendly fire, falls into a river, and is presumed dead. Bond spends an undetermined period of time incognito, using his supposed death to retire, but he comes back after the MI6 headquarters is bombed. Bond returns as a much older agent who is shell of himself. He can’t pass the physical and psychological tests required to get back to active duty but he is restored by ‘M’ anyway because she is under government fire because of the MI6 bombing and needs an agent she can trust.
Bond travels to Shanghai and has a battle atop a skyscraper and eventually meets the movie’s villain, Raoul Silva. Silva is a former MI6 agent who, like Bond, was an ‘M’ protégé but has turned evil. He has mad computer skills, having hacked into M’s computer and also decrypted a secret file of all MI6 agents embedded in terrorist organizations, whose names he is releasing. Bond allows Silva to capture him and take him to his deserted island hideaway, but then outsmarts him by summoning a helicopter using a radio device given to him by the newly introduced ‘Q’.
Unfortunately, Silva has outsmarted Bond and only allowed himself to be captured so he could be brought to the MI6 headquarters in London and have his computer examined. His computer hacks into the MI6 system, Silva escapes and proceeds with the next part of his plan, the assassination of ‘M’. Bond foils the plot and realizing his technological inferiority to Silva, takes ‘M’ to his family estate in a desolated part of England where he defeats Silva and his small army of mercenaries (and an assault helicopter) with a couple of guns and some household supplies. England is saved, Bond is proven to be back at the top of his game, and the movie ends much as the first James Bond movie begins, with Bond in ‘M’’s office getting his next assignment with Moneypenny waiting outside.
Skyfall is smashing worldwide box office records for a Bond film and is even being touted as a potential Oscar winner. I didn’t think it was anything more than a workmanlike Bond film. I was disappointed that the movie had to be interrupted by filling in background on Bond’s past (Bond was an orphan; Bond’s family had an ancestral home; etc…). I understand that the ‘reboot’ aspect required some of this filler in the first film, but three movies into the current incarnation seemed a bit much. I imagine that the Bond enthusiasts were thrilled to see glimpses of the ‘inner Bond’ but I’m much more interested in action, thank you.
The film was entertaining enough but except for the opening action scene, it seemed like a rip-off of other films. The final fight was more like something out of a Steven Segal movie or an episode of MacGyver than a James Bond film. Javier Barden gives a fine performance as the rouge psychopathic agent Silva. The character’s general disregard for human life (as evidenced by his callous murder of the lady companion that allows herself to be seduced by Bond and his attempt to have ‘M’ kill herself and him at the same time instead of just shooting her himself) and psychotic demeanor reminded me a lot of the Joker in the Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’. Even some of Silva’s battle plans are similar to the Joker’s. Silva lets himself be captured by MI6 so he can attack from within just like the Joker allows himself to get captured by the NYPD so he can blow up the police station from the inside. Even the entire scenario of Bond retiring after his supposed death and then making a physically and mentally unprepared comeback is reminiscent of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.
I thought Skyfall was entertaining but nothing close to being the best Bond movie ever made and I’d put it in third place among the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. I was wondering why it took four years to make this movie and I think the reason wasn’t because of MGM’s financial problems, but rather to get a little distance between it and the Batman movie it copied so much from.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Laker Delusions
Last week, the Los Angeles Lakers fired their head coach Mike Brown after the team went winless in the preseason (0-8) and started the season by winning one of their first five games. Brown took over last season with a four-year 18 million dollar contract, replacing retired legendary coach Phil Jackson and led the team to a 41-25 regular season record, good enough for a third place finish in the Western Conference. After squeaking by the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers were defeated soundly by the Oklahoma City Thunder in five games in the second round.
In their desperation to squeeze another championship out of the Kobe Bryant era, the Lakers rebuilt their roster in the offseason. They obtained two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash as a free agent and got six time All-Star center Dwight Howard in a trade for oft-injured center Andrew Bynum. Bynum was projected to be the centerpiece of the post-Bryant Lakers, but had fallen out of favor with his injuries and questionable work ethic.
Laker fans had visions of their new ‘Big 3’ of Bryant, Nash, and Howard not only winning the Western Conference, but also being able to take the championship away from the Miami Heat’s trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. These hopes were bolstered when the Western Conference Champion Thunder traded Olympian James Harden to the Houston Rockets rather than give him a long term contract that would put the team over the salary cap and compel them to pay a luxury tax.
Even with Nash getting injured in the second game of the season and Howard not playing in the preseason while he recovered from offseason back surgery, losing four of the first five games was not how Laker management envisioned their season starting and Brown was fired just a day after being given a ‘vote of confidence’ from Jim Buss, the Lakers executive vice-president and son of owner Jerry Buss. I think that if a coach that was given a four-year 18 million dollar contract was fired after one season and five games, the man who signed him to the contract should be walking out the door with the coach, but I might think differently if I owned a basketball team and my son was hiring and firing the coach.
Mike Brown was the NBA Coach of the Year in 2009, a year after taking the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. He was the biggest coaching name available to the Lakers, who like to have a big name coaching their team. After last seasons’ disappointing playoff loss, Brown decided to install the ‘Princeton Offense’, which relies on precision movement and is generally thought of as an offense used to help teams with inferior talent compete against superior opponents. The new offense came under fire with the dismal start and was no doubt the primary cause of Brown’s dismissal. It is interesting to note that the 2 main candidates to replace Brown also have trademark offenses; 11-time NBA championship coach Phil Jackson uses the ‘Triangle’ offense and Mike D’Antoni has a fast break offense that asks his teams to take the first good shot and generally try to outscore the opposition.
Firing the coach, any coach, for not winning enough at the beginning of the season is straight out of the Yankee playbook of the 1980s. In 1985, Yogi Berra was the manager of the Yankees and they lost the first two games of the season to the Red Sox. Owner George Steinbrenner declared that the third game of the series was a ’big game’. The Yankees lost that game and Steinbrenner was livid. The Yankees evened their record at 5-5, but after losing 5 of 6 games to the Red Sox and White Sox, Yogi was fired with a 6-10 record despite Steinbrenner’s preseason pledge that Yogi was going to be the manager the entire season.
Another page out of the 1980’s Yankee playbook that the Lakers seem to have adopted is getting the biggest names available and expecting them to not only immediately mesh, but also play at peak levels established many years ago. New point guard Steve Nash is a two-time NBA MVP and an eight time all-star. Steve Nash is also 38 years old. Kobe Bryant has been an All-Star every year in this century and has five championship rings. Kobe Bryant is 34 years old and has played almost a hundred games a year for the last 18 years (counting playoffs and Olympics, etc...). Two other big name holdovers, Pau Gausol and Metta World Peace (the former Ron Artest) are 32 and 33 years old.
Getting Dwight Howard makes a lot of sense to me. At 27, Howard is still in his prime years and is arguably the best center in the league IF he can come back from his recent back surgery. Howard made a lot of bad press for himself with his demands to be traded from the Orlando Magic team alternating with his holding out the promise of resigning with the Magic in return for more say in the management personnel. The Lakers understand that these issues are solved by winning. Howard’s circumstances are very similar to the last big-name center the Lakers received from the Magic, Shaquille O’Neal. Like Howard, O’Neal had led his team to the NBA finals but forced his way out of Orlando when he came to the conclusion that the Magic was never going to be able to provide him with the supporting players to help him win a championship. The only question I have about Howard is that while he has been a defensive giant (three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year) in Orlando, he constantly complained about not getting enough shots. If this behavior continues in Los Angeles, he could ignite what promises to be an uneasy chemistry.
On Monday, D’Antoni was hired to a three year, twelve million dollar contract to coach the Lakers, whose will now be paying both Brown and D’Antoni at least four million dollars a year apiece to coach and not coach the team. Will the Lakers be able to contend for a championship? With the exception of Howard, none of their star players will be any better this year than they were last year. And last year this team was barely good enough to get to the second round of the playoffs. If the Lakers fall short, there will be plenty of people saying they should have hired Phil Jackson to be the coach, but the team didn’t look like champions two years ago in Jackson’s last season when they were swept out of the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks.
If the entire Lakers team is healthy going into the playoffs and can stay healthy through them, there is a possibility of them making the Finals (especially if Thunder can’t replace Harden), but I can’t see them getting out of the Western Conference. There are too many younger, more talented teams like the Thunder, Clippers, Grizzlies, and Nuggets for an aging team to fight through and the experienced teams like the Spurs, Heat, and Celtics have talent just as good if not better. If the rules are changed to allow the Lakers 30-plus year old superstars to bring their scrapbooks on the court with them, I may have to revise my prediction.
In their desperation to squeeze another championship out of the Kobe Bryant era, the Lakers rebuilt their roster in the offseason. They obtained two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash as a free agent and got six time All-Star center Dwight Howard in a trade for oft-injured center Andrew Bynum. Bynum was projected to be the centerpiece of the post-Bryant Lakers, but had fallen out of favor with his injuries and questionable work ethic.
Laker fans had visions of their new ‘Big 3’ of Bryant, Nash, and Howard not only winning the Western Conference, but also being able to take the championship away from the Miami Heat’s trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. These hopes were bolstered when the Western Conference Champion Thunder traded Olympian James Harden to the Houston Rockets rather than give him a long term contract that would put the team over the salary cap and compel them to pay a luxury tax.
Even with Nash getting injured in the second game of the season and Howard not playing in the preseason while he recovered from offseason back surgery, losing four of the first five games was not how Laker management envisioned their season starting and Brown was fired just a day after being given a ‘vote of confidence’ from Jim Buss, the Lakers executive vice-president and son of owner Jerry Buss. I think that if a coach that was given a four-year 18 million dollar contract was fired after one season and five games, the man who signed him to the contract should be walking out the door with the coach, but I might think differently if I owned a basketball team and my son was hiring and firing the coach.
Mike Brown was the NBA Coach of the Year in 2009, a year after taking the LeBron James led Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. He was the biggest coaching name available to the Lakers, who like to have a big name coaching their team. After last seasons’ disappointing playoff loss, Brown decided to install the ‘Princeton Offense’, which relies on precision movement and is generally thought of as an offense used to help teams with inferior talent compete against superior opponents. The new offense came under fire with the dismal start and was no doubt the primary cause of Brown’s dismissal. It is interesting to note that the 2 main candidates to replace Brown also have trademark offenses; 11-time NBA championship coach Phil Jackson uses the ‘Triangle’ offense and Mike D’Antoni has a fast break offense that asks his teams to take the first good shot and generally try to outscore the opposition.
Firing the coach, any coach, for not winning enough at the beginning of the season is straight out of the Yankee playbook of the 1980s. In 1985, Yogi Berra was the manager of the Yankees and they lost the first two games of the season to the Red Sox. Owner George Steinbrenner declared that the third game of the series was a ’big game’. The Yankees lost that game and Steinbrenner was livid. The Yankees evened their record at 5-5, but after losing 5 of 6 games to the Red Sox and White Sox, Yogi was fired with a 6-10 record despite Steinbrenner’s preseason pledge that Yogi was going to be the manager the entire season.
Another page out of the 1980’s Yankee playbook that the Lakers seem to have adopted is getting the biggest names available and expecting them to not only immediately mesh, but also play at peak levels established many years ago. New point guard Steve Nash is a two-time NBA MVP and an eight time all-star. Steve Nash is also 38 years old. Kobe Bryant has been an All-Star every year in this century and has five championship rings. Kobe Bryant is 34 years old and has played almost a hundred games a year for the last 18 years (counting playoffs and Olympics, etc...). Two other big name holdovers, Pau Gausol and Metta World Peace (the former Ron Artest) are 32 and 33 years old.
Getting Dwight Howard makes a lot of sense to me. At 27, Howard is still in his prime years and is arguably the best center in the league IF he can come back from his recent back surgery. Howard made a lot of bad press for himself with his demands to be traded from the Orlando Magic team alternating with his holding out the promise of resigning with the Magic in return for more say in the management personnel. The Lakers understand that these issues are solved by winning. Howard’s circumstances are very similar to the last big-name center the Lakers received from the Magic, Shaquille O’Neal. Like Howard, O’Neal had led his team to the NBA finals but forced his way out of Orlando when he came to the conclusion that the Magic was never going to be able to provide him with the supporting players to help him win a championship. The only question I have about Howard is that while he has been a defensive giant (three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year) in Orlando, he constantly complained about not getting enough shots. If this behavior continues in Los Angeles, he could ignite what promises to be an uneasy chemistry.
On Monday, D’Antoni was hired to a three year, twelve million dollar contract to coach the Lakers, whose will now be paying both Brown and D’Antoni at least four million dollars a year apiece to coach and not coach the team. Will the Lakers be able to contend for a championship? With the exception of Howard, none of their star players will be any better this year than they were last year. And last year this team was barely good enough to get to the second round of the playoffs. If the Lakers fall short, there will be plenty of people saying they should have hired Phil Jackson to be the coach, but the team didn’t look like champions two years ago in Jackson’s last season when they were swept out of the playoffs by the Dallas Mavericks.
If the entire Lakers team is healthy going into the playoffs and can stay healthy through them, there is a possibility of them making the Finals (especially if Thunder can’t replace Harden), but I can’t see them getting out of the Western Conference. There are too many younger, more talented teams like the Thunder, Clippers, Grizzlies, and Nuggets for an aging team to fight through and the experienced teams like the Spurs, Heat, and Celtics have talent just as good if not better. If the rules are changed to allow the Lakers 30-plus year old superstars to bring their scrapbooks on the court with them, I may have to revise my prediction.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Birthday Time
We turned two on Thursday.
Here's some of our presents!
Presents!! Turkey!! We love Christmas!!
Yes. The turkey was so good. I wish Kathy would cook turkey more. It was cold for a long time after that but Hank still took us for a walk every day before he left us for work and on the days he didn’t leave he and Kathy would take us for walks to the Jiffy and Kum & Go to get beef sticks and coffee. I love beef sticks! YUM!! I don’t mind walking when it’s cold but when the ground is covered with snow there isn’t as much food to scrounge and the vomit stands out so Hank and Kathy see it and don’t let us eat it.
We lost a good friend in Mindy, but Abby is our new friend.
When the weather got warmer, we went for more walks. Sometime we get beef sticks three times in one day. Matthew was hardly ever home, but when he was we got to go to walk by the pond. The pond is so much fun. There are all kinds of smells and people and dogs to bark at! I don’t like to bark at the people and dogs, but Daisy starts and then I can’t help myself and start barking too. Hank and Kathy get really mad at me when I snarl at everything that moves and start barking. Sometimes I get a spank. But they know that we’re dogs and can’t help but bark. When we don’t bark at someone they praise us and tell us what good dogs we are. My favorite thing to do on our walks is to try to catch squirrels, I try to creep up on them and when I’m close enough I lunge at them. I haven’t caught one yet, but someday I’ll catch a squirrel. Last week I found a squirrel foot on the ground. I started chewing on it, but Kathy took it away. I was so sad.
I'll catch a squirrel somday...
In the summer we went to the doctor, but instead of just staying there for an hour like normal, Kathy left us there for a whole week while everyone else went to New Jersey for a vacation! At first we were scared, but after a while we got used to it and spent all day barking at all the other dogs that were there. I hope the next time they take a vacation we get to go along with them. The doctor didn’t have any beef sticks! When we got back home we got a lot of attention. I think they missed us a lot.
For our birthday, we got some bones, some beef stick treats, toys, and a can of dog food for dinner (we always have dry dog food). Monica and Katie are going to pay us a visit next week. I like when Monica and Katie come to visit us because then we get extra attention. We love extra attention. Daisy hangs out with Kathy and Monica and Katie rubs my tummy. I love having my tummy rubbed!
Monica and Katie pay lots of attention to us when they visit.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Log Jam
Could these little trophies cause a problem? Maybe...
From 2006 to 2008, I did the scholastic program for the state chess association and continued their tradition of having 2 of the major tournaments in Des Moines. I also had 3 other youth tournaments a year at the Golden Teapot Chinese Tea House in West Des Moines. When I gave up the state scholastics, the first thing my replacements did was to remove one of the big state tournaments from the Des Moines area and then a local chess teacher went to the Golden Teapot owners and convinced them to let him run chess tournaments there instead of me, but ended up only running 3 adult tournaments and no youth tournaments. Without local tournaments, the remaining state scholastic tournament had poor attendance. The state tournament in February 2010 ended up being the only youth chess tournament in Des Moines in 2010 and was not rescheduled for 2011.
At that point I started teaching chess at the St. Francis Chess Club in return for the ability to be able to run youth chess tournaments in the cafeteria and decided that I would run monthly youth tournaments. I started this incarnation in January 2011 from scratch with the same format as my Golden Teapot tournaments: 21 trophies in the nationally rated section for a $10 entry fee and medals in the unrated section meant for beginners for a $3 entry fee. I never like to have anyone leave my tournaments empty-handed so I gave out a different participation button at each tournament. I had good attendance and broke even moneywise. As the weather got warmer my attendance shrunk, so for the summer months I rented an outdoor shelter and had quick chess tournaments that lasted from 11 to 1:30 with a $3 entry fee and medal prizes.
The quick chess tournaments weren’t well attended, but the idea of having a tournament in three hours instead of five or six hours made a lot of sense to me. When I started back at St. Francis in September of 2011, I had separate morning and afternoon three hour tournaments that I called ‘Youth Chess Doubleheaders’.
The doubleheader idea was and is very popular with the parents of Des Moines chess players. For most of these kids, chess is a hobby. As an all-day activity, it comes behind sports, scouts, and academic pursuits, but is the perfect complement for any of those activities and even if the child is free for the entire day, a half a day of chess is just about the right amount. Only one out of six players stays all day at my tournaments.
For my doubleheader tournaments, I charged $5 for half a day and $8 for a whole day and everyone got a custom made participation medal (no more buttons). I only gave trophies to the top 5 scoring players in the rated section while the top 5 unrated players would get a printed plate for the back of their medal to show their place. The attendance was outstanding for the entire school year but I was getting more unrated players than rated players so in 2012 I decided to give out trophies for the unrated players as well as the rated players.
In 2011, the top unrated players would more often than not get a USCF membership and try their luck against the better players. Almost all would struggle at first against stiffer competition. Many would rise to the challenge and take an occasional turn among the rated trophy winners while the very few players that could not compete in the new level of competition would go back to playing in the unrated section. That is the scenario I envisioned when I decided on the format of an experienced and beginner section – beginning players having a place to compete in tournaments, have success, and then move on to the next level. In the summer I went back outdoors for medal prizes and a minimal entry fee and was back at St. Francis in September.
Adding the trophies for the beginning players has led to an unintended consequence. In my last 3 indoor tournaments I still have many more players competing in the beginner section than the experienced section and I’ve only had a couple of unrated prize winners move up to the rated section. The rest of the beginner prize winners are content to stay in their section and have an easier path to a trophy. The pool of experienced players is shrinking. The real beginner players are getting discouraged in their first few tournaments because they have to take on experienced players that haven’t moved into a higher section because they’re gunning for a trophy. And the players that are winning the beginner trophies aren’t improving as quickly as they could because they’re not playing stronger competition.
Even though the attendance at my last 3 tournaments has been comparable to last years, I can see signs of decay and discouragement due to the log jam of players in the beginner section that are not only flooding my beginner tournaments but also drying out the experienced section.
I was thinking that once new players found some success in the beginner section they would naturally want to test themselves against stronger competition. It hasn’t been the case. I’m not sure whether it’s the security of knowing they’ll be one of the better players in their section, the insecurity of facing the possibility of stepping up in class and losing a lot, not being able to afford the USCF membership, or just wanting to win a trophy keeping the players from moving up. The coolness of my trophies this fall is likely a contributing factor. Instead of getting trophies with chess pieces on top, I got Halloween Trophies in October with a witch & pumpkin on top and Thanksgiving trophies for November with a turkey on top and next month I’ll be having Santa trophies like last year!
I’d been noodling around with a number of possible solutions to encourage or enforce a migration. I could stop giving out trophies in the beginner section and lower their entry fees; give the winner a USCF membership and not allow them to play in the beginner section for a few months; make the rated section trophies more attractive than the beginner trophies, etc… I’ve also toyed with the idea of getting rid of the trophies for everybody and try to guide the tournaments back into the realm of fun (playing for the enjoyment of it) instead of the realm of victory (winning the trophy). I know that you can never completely eliminate victory from a competition, but reducing the spoils to a sticker on a medal will diminish it severely.
I consider this a pretty big decision as far as running youth chess tournaments go (although not on the order of choosing which Harvard educated millionaire will lead the country). I asked one of my youth players who wins the occasional trophy in the rated tournaments and he told me that he thought it was cool to have a chance at a trophy. I’ve asked a couple of non-chess people that work with kids and they told me that they don’t see a problem. I don’t have to make any decisions until next month, so I’ll be able to gather more opinions and think it through. I agree that it is cool to have a chance at a trophy but I disagree that there isn’t a problem. I’ve seen so many players give up playing when they see the prizes for the select few out of their reach and I think I have a whole group of players near that tipping point.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Shocks To The System
In August, the family and I went on a week’s vacation at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. We had gone every other year or so, but after this week’s storm I don’t know if we’ll ever get to go there again. Super storm Sandy has obliterated the boardwalk and the amusement parks at either end of the boardwalk although it appears that like the row of stores facing the boardwalk is still intact. The boardwalk can always be rebuilt, but I can’t imagine that the amusement parks and boardwalk games business show enough profit to justify their re-creation instead of the owners taking their insurance money and selling their property.
As soon as I was old enough to drive I’ve been going to Seaside Heights and over 30 years seen the encroachment of mini gated communities in giant apartment complexes to within two blocks of the boardwalk and I’m sure that the ‘moneyed’ classes will use this opportunity to build even more valuable properties even closer to the beach. I could see Seaside Heights becoming like many of the other towns along the shore that discourage visitors by not having any food or amusements nearby and living off the property taxes from the expensive properties. To quote former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." And for some people that will mean semi-privatizing some of the shore that has suddenly become available.
As shocking as it was to see one of my favorite places in the world obliterated, I received another shock when I looked at a reply email to the youth chess tournament I was running and noticed that I had mentioned that the tournament was free. Yes, FREE! A few weeks before every tournament I take the previous months email, change the dates and some other information, and send it out to my mailing list. My last month’s email was for the free National Chess Day tournament and I forgot to remove the word free when I copied the email.
In ‘The Hustler’s Handbook’, Bill Veeck says that mistakes should not only be acknowledged, they should be celebrated! As an example, he talks about the time when as the owner/GM of the Cleveland Indians in the 1940’s he tried to trade his Hall of Fame manager and shortstop Lou Boudreau for half of the St. Louis Browns baseball team. The trade fell through, but not before the papers caught wind of the trade of Cleveland’s beloved boy manager. Instead of denying he had attempted to trade Boudreau, Veeck went to every baseball dinner in and around Cleveland that year and let the fans tell him what a fool he was and tell them that they had convinced him not to trade Boudreau after all.
I had no need to do anything as drastic as what Veeck did, but since at least some of the people were expecting a free tournament I decided to ‘celebrate’ my mistake and make it a free tournament for everyone. I didn’t announce it or make a big deal out of it – I was just going to tell people the tournament was free if they tried to pay me.
I had about 25 players as of Friday morning, but on Friday I got another 2 dozen signups. I needed to make more participation medals, so I got all my medals, labels, and ribbons in front of the TV and got to work. I turned the TV to the USA network expecting to see some reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit but there was a Hurricane Sandy relief concert on instead. I made the medals listening to Billy Joel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen (along with some other singers that I’m too old to know) and then the idea hit me that I could ask for donations at the tournament.
I put a note on the door mentioning that the tournament was free but I would be taking donations. Hardly anyone caught my email mistake and everyone seemed to want to contribute. When someone tried to give me money, I just pointed them to the cash box and let them put in what they wanted to. I was surprised when people told me they didn’t know I was from New Jersey but I forgot to ask if they thought I was from Iowa.
I got another half dozen entries on Saturday and, aided greatly by the end of scholastic football and soccer, the 56 players was the most I’ve had since April. The players had a great time, but the tournament one of my most inept efforts at running a tournament. I had a player who wanted to play in the morning assigned to the afternoon tournament and had to give him a bye in the first round when I had everyone but him playing. Then in the afternoon I made a mistake entering the results and had all the players who had sat down and were ready to play stop until I could correct my mistake and re-pair the round. I’ve never run a perfect tournament, but these are the kind of mistakes that disrupt the playing experience and luckily I don’t make them very often.
This tournament had me asking myself if I could have free tournaments and break even on donations. I might be crazy but I think it could work and at the same time help me solve some of the problems I’ve seen crop up in my tournament series since I’ve moved back indoors.
$304 was raised and I’ll get it sent to the Salvation Army office closest to Seaside Heights this week. I wanted to get the accidental nature of how I came up with the idea for the donation written down while it was still fresh in my mind. I know in a few years (or maybe next week), I’ll remember this tournament as the time I had this great idea to donate the tournament proceeds to Hurricane Sandy relief.
Seaside Heights, New Jersey in August of this year.
Click Here to see what it looks like after Hurricane Sandy.
As shocking as it was to see one of my favorite places in the world obliterated, I received another shock when I looked at a reply email to the youth chess tournament I was running and noticed that I had mentioned that the tournament was free. Yes, FREE! A few weeks before every tournament I take the previous months email, change the dates and some other information, and send it out to my mailing list. My last month’s email was for the free National Chess Day tournament and I forgot to remove the word free when I copied the email.
In ‘The Hustler’s Handbook’, Bill Veeck says that mistakes should not only be acknowledged, they should be celebrated! As an example, he talks about the time when as the owner/GM of the Cleveland Indians in the 1940’s he tried to trade his Hall of Fame manager and shortstop Lou Boudreau for half of the St. Louis Browns baseball team. The trade fell through, but not before the papers caught wind of the trade of Cleveland’s beloved boy manager. Instead of denying he had attempted to trade Boudreau, Veeck went to every baseball dinner in and around Cleveland that year and let the fans tell him what a fool he was and tell them that they had convinced him not to trade Boudreau after all.
I had no need to do anything as drastic as what Veeck did, but since at least some of the people were expecting a free tournament I decided to ‘celebrate’ my mistake and make it a free tournament for everyone. I didn’t announce it or make a big deal out of it – I was just going to tell people the tournament was free if they tried to pay me.
I had about 25 players as of Friday morning, but on Friday I got another 2 dozen signups. I needed to make more participation medals, so I got all my medals, labels, and ribbons in front of the TV and got to work. I turned the TV to the USA network expecting to see some reruns of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit but there was a Hurricane Sandy relief concert on instead. I made the medals listening to Billy Joel, Sting, and Bruce Springsteen (along with some other singers that I’m too old to know) and then the idea hit me that I could ask for donations at the tournament.
Sometimes all you have to do is ask!
I got another half dozen entries on Saturday and, aided greatly by the end of scholastic football and soccer, the 56 players was the most I’ve had since April. The players had a great time, but the tournament one of my most inept efforts at running a tournament. I had a player who wanted to play in the morning assigned to the afternoon tournament and had to give him a bye in the first round when I had everyone but him playing. Then in the afternoon I made a mistake entering the results and had all the players who had sat down and were ready to play stop until I could correct my mistake and re-pair the round. I’ve never run a perfect tournament, but these are the kind of mistakes that disrupt the playing experience and luckily I don’t make them very often.
This tournament had me asking myself if I could have free tournaments and break even on donations. I might be crazy but I think it could work and at the same time help me solve some of the problems I’ve seen crop up in my tournament series since I’ve moved back indoors.
$304 was raised and I’ll get it sent to the Salvation Army office closest to Seaside Heights this week. I wanted to get the accidental nature of how I came up with the idea for the donation written down while it was still fresh in my mind. I know in a few years (or maybe next week), I’ll remember this tournament as the time I had this great idea to donate the tournament proceeds to Hurricane Sandy relief.
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