You can never please everyone, but between the three photo galleries, the blogs, and the daily reports there are several hundred photos now online at the official site. Whew. The latest is this big one with thumbnails. Most of the pics are by John Henderson, the rest are by me. Most of the great at-board shots are John's, the post-game shots and closing ceremony pics are mostly mine.
It's not random, but it may as well be because it's alphabetical, sometimes by first name, sometimes by last name, sometimes you'd never guess. I started out using a spiffy flash gallery template but wanted people to be able to save these images if they like. Jpg compression level is relatively low (55) because it looks like we're going to have this monster server and its 1,000 GB of transfer for another month. I may even use it to distribute some old video clips and the like.
I still need to put up a photo gallery of the off-day Chess Fest, but I don't know who various VIPs are since I wasn't there and nobody sent me a key to the pics. I guess I'll just skip the captions. Pics of cute kids and chess, boo-yah.
On the right, new US women's champion Anna Zatonskih. Oddly enough, putting on her Ninja shirt for a photo was her idea. Alexander Onischuk said he'd send me a pic of him wearing his standing next to Karpov at the Poikovsky. I don't know exactly why I think this will be hilarious, but I do. Speaking of Onischuk's clothing, one pic on the new gallery shows NTC honcho Alan Ziter presenting him with Chess Fest logo boxer shorts. Baffled laughter all round. No thong for Anna, but if you need a chess-themed thong, you know where to go.
Great photos Mig! Two slight errors in the captions. Igor Ivanov would have loved to be in San Diego, but he is presently in even better surroundings. That was no doubt Alexander Ivanov. And you prematurely promoted Perelshteyn to GM in a photo with Wojtkiewicz and Kudrin.
I really loved the US Champ website. One of the first things I would do each morning (PST) was check the blog and daily reports. Much appreciated.
MA
One little correction: The guy is called Varuzhan Akobian, not Vladimir Akobian. :o)
Yah, thanks for the kind words and the corrections. I had already caught the Igor thing on my side when redoing some of the captions. Stupid program truncated around a third of my image titles, not sure why. At least I got it right on the file name and page name so I didn't have to fix those.
Just about every major event site I've seen hires more people and then produces stuff nobody reads. There's very little feedback about what people want and about how many people are visiting and why. One of the most amazing things about the US Ch site was that, on average, visitors viewed 20 pages per visit, an incredible number.
I have a bunch of other interesting stats to post soon. The Daily Dirt, for example, drove more traffic to the site than any site other than TWIC. It outpaced ChessBase and the USCF site.
Loved the site, really believe the human interest angle (meet the players and champ blog) is a stroke of genius, and the way to generate more interest. I even liked the reality TV show question, althoug Joel Benjamins answer was the best reply...
Regarding statistics, it would be interesting to know how the sponsor links on the site fared, and if they managed to create some income.
You should have an ebay auction on who gets to see Anna in a chessninja thong. I bet it would make more than enough to cover the championship monies that werent paid out.
I've noticed a couple of comments from you about people needing to buy those Chess Ninja thongs. Out of curiosity, how many have you actually sold? Why no Chess Ninja boxers?
Sold 5 of them, according to CafePress. I'm sort of hoping they were gag gifts. Since it's a basic shop I can only offer either boxers or thongs (or camisoles) from the "intimate apparel" category. Since I never imagined selling any of the above, I left the thong there as something to joke about, also because it's five bucks cheaper than the boxers. Any demand for ChessNinja.com boxers I was unaware of?
Hmm, scratch that theory. It let me add the boxers despite clearly saying I could only have one item from that list in my store. I won't tell if you won't.
I brought a few dozen of the bulk Ninja shirts to San Diego to give out and left a stack on the table where they were selling official championship and Chess Fest shirts. They sold a dozen of them at $15 a pop so I just took the $4 each they cost to make and donated the rest. I'd just meant to give them out as promos anyway. The bulk ones (two color process) aren't quite as nice as the ones from the official shop linked to above, though you can only tell the difference up close by looking at the text.
I've asked people to send me pictures of themselves wearing their Ninja gear, but almost nobody has. The shop has made a few hundred sales all over the world. Maybe people are shy. I only get a buck or two per item there, mostly it's for promotion and fun. Next I want to make Daily Dirt shirts with the hands and dirt and pieces logo.
Thx for the great pics!
Just wanted to say great job on the website for the US championships. Considering the blogs, photos, and ease of use (even without the "click here to view live games" caption - lol), it was the best tournament site I've seen.
I like the images with the cheques! Did all get such big ones or the winners only? Are they real or for fun, with real smaller ones? Are the pics copyrighted, or can be used in chess magazines and newspapers? How long can you survive in the US with 25.000 US$? More than 12 months or not?
How many hours did you spend on the US site, did you count? Are you happy overall? Can't wait to see the site stats.
Whats the (hi)story of the hands and the dirt, I want to know?
Regarding $25,000 for a year in the US...It all depends. The US is very large and the cost of living varies tremendously from one area to another.
If you compare the $25,000 to that of an hourly worker, at 52 weeks of 40 hours of work it would come out to about $12 per hour. That's more than twice the legal Minimum Wage in the US (current federal rate is $5.15 per hour), and is about what most people working at, say, Starbucks make.
Of course many people working at fulltime jobs have some employer assistance in paying health insurance, so that's a separate issue.
So while it wouldn't support an individual living alone in Manhattan, it's a very respectable prize and enough for a year for someone who makes frugal choices about where and how to live.
Duif
Thank you Duif for your comment. It makes me understand much better now. USCF and its sponsors had done well then.
Just noticed you're a girl!? I respect your work with chess promotion, just visited your site. Of there were more like you, the world may be a better place to live in probably.
It says Joel Benjmin was in 33 US Championships! Thats awesome that he qualified for it first when he was 8 years old. That beats Fischers record!
Mig, you might want to hold off on creating "Daily Dirt" items. I once typed that in by accident (I had just started visiting your site) while trying to show some chess items to my students at school and got something VERY different. You don't want to promote someone else's site...especially since it wasn't anything close to chess.
Funny, I used to frequent that other "daily dirt" site, landed here by accident and now I'm hooked. I'd have posted this earlier but the water I poured on that brunette chick's t-shirt trickled down and fritzed out my keyboard.
Funny, I used to frequent that other "daily dirt" site, landed here by accident and now I'm hooked. The babes on this site seem more, I dunno, real somehow. I'd have posted this earlier but the water I poured on that brunette's t-shirt trickled down and fritzed out my keyboard.
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