has the organizing of draughts improve from about 15 years

[champion374]

would he good to see your views.

[George Hay]

Organizing in Draughts has improved IMHO. 15 years ago there was no World Checkers Draughts Federation,
and I think that organization has been effective in keeping World Championship Matches going. On the grass roots level,
many individuals are promoting the game. The last 15 years have seen a revolution in communication, and checkers has
been part of that revolution!
--George Hay

[champion374]

just wanted to her your views on it.

[steve]

Hell no! -Attendance at tourneys is down and so is membership-as i posted before-the majority of people who take on a sport or hobby want to be good at it-from playing checkers,golf or growing roses under 2 move the average player with a little study could play a decent game with a expert at times-3 move made it more difficult-with the addition of 19 new openings since i started to play the amount of time to study and memorize these one sided openings is unreasonable[12-16,24-20,10-15]both alex and ron lost in their 2009 world title match [i may add that long,ryan,hellman and tinsley did not ask for more openings]i think in my humble opinion that young players don't think it's worthwhile and give up the game-this also accounts for the increase interest in gayp-if i had my way i [1]would go back to 2-move for the average player [2]or 11 man ballot[3] back to the original 137 3-move openings-by the way i join the cleveland checker club in 1948 or 1948.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

Steve, both Tinsley and Hellman stated that "all sound openings shall be play !" It was first time written back to 40's-50's, and this is true today/ M. Tisnley personally contributed (and published) to analyses and study many of new 12 new openings. It seems like 156 is a final number. All openings are identical and are part of deck.

In my game with Ron which you mentioned, we both made mistake at one point ... so what ??? It's my fault, not opening which is perfectly drawn if you play it correctly. In 1974, FL Open (if I am not mistaken) D. Oldbury had Tinsley in lost in 2 sides of opening ... so what ??? Thats only game for human being.

In response on original question - checkers are on decline today, probably - free fall. Number of events and number of players are dropping, professionalism is dropping, game become more childish. Not much new books, magazines, articles. Miserable financing support.

I think WCDF (and checkers itself) passed it's prime time pick in 2008 and now everything goes down since then.

Regards,

Alex M.

[champion374]

I hope some one from the WCDF is reading this can only improve the sport.o how I envy chess those guys really got there sport going.

I think a lot of players just intrested in playing other than really see the sport move forward.

[Alex_Moiseyev]

I think a lot of players just intrested in playing other than really see the sport move forward.

Golden words !!! Respect

[champion374]

you one of these players? lol

[Alex_Moiseyev]

you one of these players? lol

Yes, I am. How about you - you are NOT one of these players ? lol

[champion374]

I want to see the sport move forward bigger prize money since it is so dam expensive to travel.

[Chexhero]

If you look at the ACF ratings, you will see that the number of players drastically declines below the 1600 mark, which is the minor range. Also, at many tournaments now, majors and minors have to be combined due to lack of minor players. This is a nasty cycle because it does not encourage minor players to come back to as many tournaments. More over, the few new people that do come out to the tournaments (such as my dad), end up getting slaughtered, even against major competition. This then only discourages them from coming to future tournaments. It's like checkers is becoming an organization of the very strong only. I see two main ways you get more people to come out to the tournaments. Either recruit strong Internet players, which despite great attempts throughout the years has somewhat failed miserably. Or you find ways to recruit players with an interest in checkers out there in the real world, which is very hard. And most of which are not good at checkers and will get slaughtered at tournaments. The ACF can do a lot to improve, but needs to find a way to appeal more to lower level players and keep them around.

[MFulkerson]

Is it so surprising that the game is on a constant decline? There are very few videos on YouTube, a go to source to gather info on a hobby for most people (whereas chess has hundreds of lectures given by GM's). The internet checkers scene is awful, consisting mostly of foul mouthed speed players. Most states don't have established clubs or associations (again, almost every major city has some type of chess club). And of course, there is no money to be made (two recent chess tournaments, the Millionaire and Sinquifield Cup granted $100,000 to the winner, with total prize funds at, or around $1,000,000). So even when there are people interested in the game, they have to dig for information about improving at it, mostly from out of print books, and dedicate their time and effort only to play on trash internet gaming sites, or pay for travel and lodging to go to a tournament with an 8 person turnout and restricted style of play.

[neilwenberg]

Mike, I am inclined to agree with you 100% Also Steve speaks the truth! What can we do about it? I am sponsoring a checker tournament on December 13 at the West Fargo, ND Library and am hopeful that some will drive the distance in raging blizzards and below zero temperature so they can be in attendance

[MFulkerson]

As far as recruiting more internet players, add World Champion of Blitz to the ranks and you'll probably get them. Also, I'm pretty sure there is at least one knowledgeable player in every state that could set aside at least one day a month to host a checkers club at a library or some such place. Maybe there could be a page on this site that provided interested people from each state a person they could get in contact with, to learn more about the game, and play local games?

[Chexhero]

Mike, I can assure you that there are people "behind the scenes" that are putting forth great effort toward improving the organization. We have plans to make serious updates to this website, making it more user friendly and easier to access information along with new added content. That along with cutting out content from 10-15 years ago with no added value anymore. I would like to see a section designed specifically for beginners, including beginner problems and video tutorials. I also would like to see a section containing some play through games from every ACF tournament. Perhaps being able to provide a copy of all games for free to ACF members. Also in the works are plans for a new rating system. Through this rating system, only paid ACF members will have access to their rating. I think these are a few ways in which we can add value the the ACF and encourage more people to join. In addition to that, we need as you said more people out there promoting the game. This is not done nearly enough.