The URS has much to do with Rex Sinquefield, Gary Kasparov, the Grand Chess Tour and Jeff Sonas of Chessmetrics, Mark Glickman, J. Isaac Miller and Maxime Rischard. The research and creation of the system resulted from a collaborative research project funded by the Grand Chess Tour, the Kasparov Chess Foundation and the Chess Club of Saint Louis.* There is now a good deal of money behind the use of URS because of the events and prize lists involved with the GCT. Should the GCT decide to totally ignore FIDE ratings in selecting qualifiers for the GCT, that could set up a power struggle between FIDE on the one hand and the GCT with its quite wealthy backers on the other.
Another related aspect of such a power struggle could arise if Caruana becomes the challenger for the WCC in 2018. Enter Rex and his billions once again. It has been reported that if Cauruana is the challenger, Rex may seek to have the WCC match moved to St. Louis.** Might there be a battle of the billionaires for control of international chess? Would a well funded alternative international organization be able, with significant prize money on offer, to draw enough of the self-motivated elite chess masters to its event as opposed to financially struggling FIDE. What if Magnus and Fabio, for the right amount of money, agree to play in St. Louis for the championship under GCT/URS sanction and not FIDE sanction. Money talks......how, after all, did Fabio come to switch his national affiliation? How much money would it take to draw the top women to a GCT backed Women's World Championship, not in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but in London, Paris or St. Louis?
As to US Chess and other national federations as they now exist, it's been said that what they offer is little more than rating systems in return for membership dollars. URS is free to use. What happens to US Chess if organizers here in the US start dual rating their events. What if clubs start using URS to rate club events, matches between clubs, between states.
It's mostly about money and power. Relatively speaking, I don't think it would take all that much money to take over international chess in a defacto way making FIDE a dunsel organization. That could be quite a legacy for an aging Rex to leave the world of chess.......and still have $1billion+ to leave to others in his Last Will and Testament.
* The rating algorithm was designed and developed by a research team which consisted of Maxime Rischard, J. Isaac Miller, Mark Glickman and Jeff Sonas. This team conducted extensive testing before finalizing the rating algorithm and found that the URS™ consistently predicted game results better than the existing ELO system used by the World Chess Federation. The superior results were observed “on a consistent basis, from year to year, and across all three rating categories”.
Another major draw-card of the URS™ rating system is that it will be free to use for any local organizers or chess federations that wish to make use of it. This is expected to be a major attraction as it will allow scholastic players and locally based amateur players to quickly achieve a URS™ rating by simply playing in their local events.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/chess-launch-universal-rating-system-opens-doors-global-chess-community#stream/0
** Leonard Barden recently wrote: "The actual venue has yet to be announced although the organisers say they have several short-listed options. The prize fund is the world body Fide’s minimum of $1m, which could yet present a problem if Fabiano Caruana wins the eight-man candidates in Berlin in March. In that case the billionaire Rex Sinquefield, who has made his home city of St Louis into a global chess capital and who could easily fund a much larger purse, may try to have the match switched to the US."
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/dec/01/london-confirmed-for-magnus-carlsen-title-defence
(c) 2017 Brian Lafferty
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