Cover Story
Walter High (left) and Gary Newsom
forced rooms to be held in reserve. “I think they just thought we weren’t paying attention,” Newsom said. “You’ve got to watch these things. Don’t trust your sales person. Watch him like a hawk.”
Next up was the choice of weekend. “To me it’s a no-brainer,” Newsom said of Labor Day weekend. “It’s a time when a lot of hotels don’t have a lot of business, so you can make a deal.” Another caveat was making the tournament the final event in the state’s year-long grand prix contest (also the brainchild of Newsom), thus encouraging residents to accumulate last-minute points. With the setting established, High took over as the main
recruiter of players, both in-state and titled. The tenacity and personalization of his communications ensured the successful turnout. “If you send out an e-mail blast and it says, ‘Dear Chess
Player,’ you know it’s a form letter,” High said. Instead, High diligently met players in person and researched individual caveats to lure them to Charlotte. “I don’t think chess players are used to being treated like customers.” By his estimate, he went to 35 tournaments last year, glad-handing and swapping business cards. From the U.S. Open in Orlando to the Big Enchilada in Raleigh, no tournament was too big to make acquaintances or too small to matter. He studied players’ online MSA (Member Services Area) pages to see if they were close to achieving a rating threshold
28 Chess Life — January 2012
or other personal goal. “Why should they come to play for us instead of staying home?” High said about his thinking. Like Newsom, High runs his own small business (a used book store at Raleigh-Durham International Airport), which gave him useful insight into the needs of chess playing “clients.” He guessed spending at least 200 hours typing e-mails. “For the past two to three weeks, I was up until three in the morning at my computer.” High blogged at the NCCA’s website, offering dignified pleas to attend. He used Facebook to find top players and give them incentives for playing. High’s tactics included “friending” GM Alex Lenderman, “because he accepts everybody,” and then culling more talent from his friends list. Actually, the young grandmaster has accepted about 1,700 friends, with a glut of top players included. High said IMs Justin Sarkar and John Bartholomew were contacted via Facebook, and both attended. The superlatives began racking up. In total, six grandmasters (GMs) and ten international masters (IMs) played, making it the strongest tournament in North Carolina in the last 20 years. The North Carolina Open was also the largest and the strongest of all the state championships held over Labor Day weekend— New York wrangled only two IMs while Florida could not attract any titled players. Some top players, like IM Yury Lapshun, “just walked in
the door,” according to High. For Newsom, this was a pleasant surprise. He expected top players to be dissuaded
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PHOTO: PHIL LOWDER
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