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View Full Version : 5A. Discussion Items - 1. Premium Chess FIDE's online server and training platform



Lyle Craver
12-12-2015, 07:45 PM
Premium Chess FIDE's online server and training platform

Vladimir Drkulec
12-13-2015, 07:40 PM
It is my intention to go ahead with making an arrangement with Premium Chess as discussed in the last two voting member meetings.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-16-2015, 02:07 PM
Carlo Stellati, president of Premium Chess pointed out the following:

"Just to clarify one point mentioned by your eMail:
The Premium Chess server does not come from FIDE but is fully managed by
Premium Chess. FIDE adopted the same platform proposed to the National
Chess Federations and players have the full visibility of every member
of the Premium Chess community (Fide plus National Chess Federations),..."

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 02:56 PM
If you are not in hurry to "go ahead with making arrangement with Premium Chess", please consider this:
1.www.chesssupersite.com is opening in January 2016.
2.Chess Supersite Corporation is a fully reporting issuer, already got all the required approvals such as US Securities Commission, FINRA, etc. and its shares will start trading soon under the symbol CHZP.
3.CFC Members could financially benefit from participation in the www.chesssupersite.com upcoming events.
As per quality of each site - obviously I'm not in a position to judge, however an independent panel of 3-5 experts could test them both to make its judgement.

Fred McKim
12-18-2015, 03:07 PM
If you are not in hurry to "go ahead with making arrangement with Premium Chess", please consider this:
1.www.chesssupersite.com is opening in January 2016.
2.Chess Supersite Corporation is a fully reporting issuer, already got all the required approvals such as US Securities Commission, FINRA, etc. and its shares will start trading soon under the symbol CHZP.
3.CFC Members could financially benefit from participation in the www.chesssupersite.com upcoming events.
As per quality of each site - obviously I'm not in a position to judge, however independent panel of 3-5 experts is welcome to test them both and make its judgement.

Vlad. Maybe you can give a summary. In order to get FIDE online ratings and titles do CFC members have to go with this premium chess server that's being offered, or can they just go straight to the CFC server which shares the same platform ? As I understand it they have to pay an annual membership fee of $X.

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 03:16 PM
Is Premium Chess charging members a fee???

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 03:53 PM
Is Premium Chess charging members a fee???

There are different levels of service. You can play for free. You can pay more and play for titles. The training platform for Chess in the Schools is the most exciting part of the service for me. That portion is free for kids.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 04:13 PM
If you are not in hurry to "go ahead with making arrangement with Premium Chess", please consider this:
1.www.chesssupersite.com (http://www.chesssupersite.com) is opening in January 2016.
2.Chess Supersite Corporation is a fully reporting issuer, already got all the required approvals such as US Securities Commission, FINRA, etc. and its shares will start trading soon under the symbol CHZP.
3.CFC Members could financially benefit from participation in the www.chesssupersite.com (http://www.chesssupersite.com) upcoming events.
As per quality of each site - obviously I'm not in a position to judge, however an independent panel of 3-5 experts could test them both to make its judgement.

We discussed this at two voting member meetings. Chesssupersite.com can't give us access to the chess in the schools training materials nor can they give us FIDE ratings We looked at quite a number of the big name servers and many of them offered attractive deals but without someone to drive membership I didn't see it going too far. Basically this is something that is being driven by requests from remote areas of Canada who want to take part in CFC and FIDE chess. Premium Chess fits the bill. Their demands with respect with what we have to provide are manageable. They manage everything except answering our email and some web content. If it goes the way they think it will, we will get a revenue stream of 50,000 euros per year which we will use to hire someone to manage the online portion of our business. If the members don't materialize we aren't penalized in any way that I can see. I know this is something you are interested in. If it flies we will be looking for at least one person to manage it though the training platform is something that I feel is strategic for the CFC. When the time comes this is something that someone like you who has experience with this might be invited to bid on.

We need to look at more revenue streams as we are getting squeezed on the one side by the fact that we aren't earning as much under the book contract and also the reduced payout under the FQE-CFC accord. Online chess is quite big. This seems like a risk free way to jump in and test the waters without any investment.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 04:14 PM
Vlad. Maybe you can give a summary. In order to get FIDE online ratings and titles do CFC members have to go with this premium chess server that's being offered, or can they just go straight to the CFC server which shares the same platform ? As I understand it they have to pay an annual membership fee of $X.

I will try and dig up the numbers again but frankly I am pretty exhausted at the moment and need to get some sleep. Probably late tonight.

Fred McKim
12-18-2015, 05:05 PM
I will try and dig up the numbers again but frankly I am pretty exhausted at the moment and need to get some sleep. Probably late tonight.

What I meant to ask was - Can players go straight to the FIDE server and bypass the CFC server to get ratings, etc.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 07:12 PM
What I meant to ask was - Can players go straight to the FIDE server and bypass the CFC server to get ratings, etc.Possibly. We have to create some tournaments and things to convince people to play. I know you can play for free because I have done so though not in a while.

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 07:49 PM
"I know this is something you are interested in"...
Whom are you referring to?

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 08:56 PM
"I know this is something you are interested in"...
Whom are you referring to?

My understanding is that you have a server yourself at least that's what you talked about last year. I presumed that the server I saw advertised on the CFC facebook page was yours.

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 09:32 PM
"I presumed that the server I saw advertised on the CFC facebook page was yours."
Could you, please, provide the link?

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 09:54 PM
"I presumed that the server I saw advertised on the CFC facebook page was yours."
Could you, please, provide the link?

No, I can't. It was removed. Advertising is not allowed on our facebook page.

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 09:59 PM
OK, I'll take a liberty to list here the advantages of the Chess Supersite just to keep Voting Members informed:

Here is a list of the CHESS SUPERSITE’S ADVANTAGES:

SNIP!

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 10:36 PM
"...nor can they give us FIDE ratings"

In a view of unsolved problem of cheating over the board (see Hal Bonds' report) how can anybody seriously talk about FIDE ratings in the on line games? What are they really worth? Don't you think that it is nothing but a fiction with only one goal in mind - to put more $$$ into FIDE's bank account!

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 10:45 PM
"There are different levels of service. You can play for free. You can pay more and play for titles. The training platform for Chess in the Schools is the most exciting part of the service for me. That portion is free for kids."

Well, I've looked at the Premium Chess and for free all you get - nothing except a mediocre playing zone. The "exciting" training platform for Chess in the Schools I could not find. Please provide the link.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 11:02 PM
Please refrain from advertising here. it is not allowed and could result in your ability to post being temporarily restricted.

Sasha Starr
12-18-2015, 11:35 PM
Please refrain from advertising here. it is not allowed and could result in your ability to post being temporarily restricted.

I'm not advertising here - all I want is to inform the Voting Members on some important issues. Look, earlier you were writing about advantages of Premium Chess. So in all fairness I thought I could mention advantages of the Chess Supersite.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-18-2015, 11:37 PM
I'm not advertising here - all I want is to inform the Voting Members on some important issues. Please address my questions.

I will permit you to post it on the regular forums but not here in this meeting. It is not appropriate here. I might even tolerate it in new business in this meeting as it is a new business but just not CFC business.

Sasha Starr
12-19-2015, 01:08 AM
5A. Discussion Items - 1. Premium Chess FIDE's online server and training platform

What kind of discussion is it if the Voting Members are disallowed to post? Where one is presenting advantages of one site, but same is disallowed to someone else (to post an info about another site)?
Need to have opinions of the other Voting Members.

Félix Dumont
12-19-2015, 11:13 AM
I would be curious to see what are the exact benefits of all options.
However, I firmly believe we should join a site that has already proven its worth. I'm thinking about Chess.com, ICC or Premium Chess. There is a lot of advantages in joining Premium Chess, since it is owned by FIDE, but we also all know how FIDE likes to take the biggest cut... So, a deeper financial analysis is probably required.
One major issue from Premium Chess though is that our rating appears on the FIDE website... Given how bad I am at blitz, I wouldn't quite want that to happen... :)

As far as Chess Supersite goes, I like that they include a lot of different options. However, the website is very amateurish and the interface very poor. I understand this is a beta, but one thing I learned is that such design flaws usually hide a lot of worse problems under the hood. And I honestly wouldn't take the chance there.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-19-2015, 11:30 AM
I would be curious to see what are the exact benefits of all options.
However, I firmly believe we should join a site that has already proven its worth. I'm thinking about Chess.com, ICC or Premium Chess. There is a lot of advantages in joining Premium Chess, since it is owned by FIDE, but we also all know how FIDE likes to take the biggest cut... So, a deeper financial analysis is probably required.
One major issue from Premium Chess though is that our rating appears on the FIDE website... Given how bad I am at blitz, I wouldn't quite want that to happen... :)

As far as Chess Supersite goes, I like that they include a lot of different options. However, the website is very amateurish and the interface very poor. I understand this is a beta, but one thing I learned is that such design flaws usually hide a lot of worse problems under the hood. And I honestly wouldn't take the chance there.

Premium Chess is offering a deal which has no cost to the CFC and could result in significant revenues if their plans bear fruit. I am talking about revenues equivalent to what we earn from memberships. If that happens most of our problems would mostly go away though we would get new problems. We have to update the Canadian portion of the website. My understanding is that we could do this with our newsfeed and maybe some linking to our facebook content. They are not asking very much from us at all which is good as our volunteers are stretched thin.

Félix Dumont
12-19-2015, 11:39 AM
Are they asking for a minimum number of players though? If I recall well, last time the CFC wanted to go ahead with a deal, the terms were completely out of reach (something like 2000 members willing to pay $60/year each).

Vladimir Drkulec
12-19-2015, 12:27 PM
Are they asking for a minimum number of players though? If I recall well, last time the CFC wanted to go ahead with a deal, the terms were completely out of reach (something like 2000 members willing to pay $60/year each).

They are not asking us to get those players. They are asking us to lend our name and some support like maintaining a small portion of the website pertaining to the Canadian scene and to allow them to get those players. They also want us to answer emails and organize some tournaments including a national online championship. In exchange we get a cut of the action.

If they get no results then we are at the same place we are now and we could start again with someone else like Playchess.com or chess.com after they kick us to the curb. Both of those companies gave us very interesting options. We talked to a bunch of server companies and there were some interesting ideas on the table. When we were at the point of trying to decide on one someone (Hal Bond) suggested we get involved with FIDE's efforts which was being organized by Premium Chess. That week they contacted me spontaneously with a sales job that wasn't necessary because I had already explored the idea and was primed. Now we've been circling in a holding pattern for months and I am sure they are getting frustrated. This is the third VM meeting where this was a topic. This thread is not so much a thread to convince everyone that this is a good idea but a thread to announce we are going ahead and hoping that this becomes something very important in the further development of chess in Canada.

Vladimir Drkulec
12-19-2015, 12:33 PM
They also offer some web services which we might look at later but we have to start somewhere. The corridor principle: Once you walk through the door and walk further down the corridor, you see new opportunities that you couldn't see or guess at if you stay behind the closed door.

Sasha Starr
12-19-2015, 12:34 PM
Felix, in all fairness your statement "the website is very amateurish and the interface very poor" is incorrect. You should've said instead "in my opinion"... and so on... There are opinions very different from yours including very-well known GM's: a few of them even became our shareholders!