Monday, March 1, 2010

Hurricanes, Tsunamis, and Chess Tournaments

The 2008 Miami tournament is back in the news with an appeal from the Rules Committee. - Fallout from the organizers lowering the prize funds due to Hurricane Ike - which did not hit.

Hurricanes and other natural disasters do occur. Experts put out alerts and then they turn out to be wrong. Just look at the tsumami warnings in Hawaii and throughout the Pacific this weekend. Experts thought it might happen; mass evacuations were declared and made. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC provided all-day coverage of an anticipated disaster that did not happen.

It does not help chess organization in the future to create precidents that discourage organizers by blaming them for National Weather Service warnings that do not pan out.

1 comment:

  1. I'm not going to repeat what I wrote on the USCF Forum about this. Suffice it to say that a policy which allows dishonest and unethical organizers to ignore the rules while those of us with some integrity follow them does not strike me as a healthy approach.

    ReplyDelete