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The Story of my "GOTM" Column
By A.J. Goldsby I Written: Monday; January 03rd, 2005.
I first started my "Game of The Month" around 1998. It was run on a {now} defunct chess server ... an early rival to ICC. (At that time, I did not have much of a website of my own.)
At first, it was only a VERY lightly annotated game ... the idea was to limit myself to five or six notes and one diagram. (Since the game was not on one of my own websites, I had to follow this rule religiously.)
Later,
this feature moved around quite a bit, it was even featured for a short while on the
Kasparov chess server.
{That server
is also - now - off the air.}
Later, it became a sort of "Game of The Quarter" on yet another chess server, in the form of a {sort-of nightly} lecture there.
About three years ago, a gentleman broached the idea of my doing this game on a regular basis. (At first, I turned him down.)
Later he suggested the idea again, but at that time, my wife had just been diagnosed with cancer. For about 8-10 months, I did VERY little real chess work. I lost all of my (on-line) students. For nearly a year, while I watched my wife suffer through treatment, surgery ... and later chemotherapy, all I did was to live off of our savings and to try and take care of my family. Needless to say, this was a very dark period for me.
Once my wife had gotten substantially better, I again began to teach chess on the Internet and also build web pages. And once more the same gentleman - who once lived in the Pensacola area - asked me to resume my ... "Game of The Month" column.
At first I said (a very firm) "no," but then he basically made me an offer I could not refuse. He found a group of 10-12 people, all of which were going to guarantee me a MINIMUM contribution/donation of 100 dollars every month. (Some promised to occasionally give as much as 250 a month.) Additionally, he promised to sign up "dozens of people," who would all contribute at least 10 bucks a month.
This led to my creation of my "G.O.T.M." website.
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My standards for this feature were VERY high. I often spent many hours searching for the most suitable candidate game. Then I often spent TWO or THREE WEEKS of effort, (4-6 hours a day - usually ... sometimes a whole lot more.); in the analysis phase of the game. (I made sure that all the games included a good look at the opening phase of the game. I would always quote the best lines out of book. I also did literally HUNDREDS of database searches for some games ... in order to pinpoint all relevant GM examples of that opening.) Then it took nearly a week to format the page, build the JS replay page, make the diagrams, double-check everything ... by now, you should be getting the idea.
(Click HERE to see one of my very best efforts.)
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Fast forward less than three years. All
of my main contributors have stopped sending support of any kind.
(And all but a small handful of the persons who made the smaller donations have
stopped sending support.)
Some of these people had major, significant problems in their lives. (My heart really went out to one fellow. His Mother had a stroke, and he eventually had to place her in a {expensive} nursing home. Another supporter had a family member severely injured by a drunk driver.) But for most of the others, it was simply a matter of convenience. (One member told me that he "had gotten me started," and felt that was "good enough." ) (Another gentleman said his wife demanded a vacation. However, saving for a lark in Mexico is hardly a good reason for non-contribution, at least not in my book ... especially not after making written promises of faithful, absolute and unflagging support!)
I put out a (new) plea for support, but the response was truly very, very, very small, almost microscopic. (I was very disappointed!) (Less than 20 people responded, and not all of these sent in contributions.)
This {series of events} has (now) led me to conclude that no one was truly interested in supporting this feature!!!
---> I decided to greatly reduce the amount of time that I spent on this feature.
Copyright (c) (LM) A.J. Goldsby I
Copyright © A.J. Goldsby, 2009. All rights reserved.
Last edit or save on: 06/25/2009 03:49 AM .
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