Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

[Hugh Siddeley]

Thank you to the organizers of the Hart House Holidays Open, it was very enjoyable! I've never played in the Great Hall before, in fact I never knew it even existed!

I do want to raise a concern about the prize distribution though...:

My section had 39 players, and let's assume an average entry fee of $60, accounting for the discounts given to the many juniors, seniors, women, U of T students etc.. So that's $2,340 total revenue with the prize fund for the section totaling $900. That works out to about 38% of entry fees returned as prizes!

The crown section had 22 players, and let's assume again an average entry fee of $60, but wait, free entry was given to the IM's and GM, so only 17 players paying to play. That's $1,020 total revenue with the prize fund for the section totaling $2,800. That works out to about 275% of entry fees returned as prizes!

I'm not saying the lower sections shouldn't subsidize the top section to some extent, just not by a factor of seven (275%/38%)... geez! How about two to three times as much or even four...

Also, in my section if you had one accident you were pretty much eliminated from contention. Only +3 or greater won prize money. In the top section +2 or greater guaranteed a prize, if you were in the U2300 subsection (only 10 players) then +1 was enough to pocket a share of $400...

In conclusion, not only was my section more competitive (39 players vs 22 players) but the prize distribution was very unevenly balanced as well imo... And when you have Zehn Nasir playing in your section you can pretty much just write him a cheque at the start of the tournament. Every big weekender I've seen him play in he walks away with a nice stash of bills. He should be BANNED from all lower sections. :p

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Have no fear, Hugh. Both Zehn and Jonathan Yu are mid-2200's now so you've hopefully seen the last of them in the U2200 Section for a good while (if not forever!). Zehn certainly has had a remarkable run at the money events, starting with the Labour Day Open in 2011 when Zehn and his brother Pi split a whopping $1,450 prize fund in the U2000 Section (:

[Bindi Cheng]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Alex might be too nice to post something like this here but I'm not - As someone who has been part of the chess club for several years, one of our understandings is that no amateur should be able to make money playing weekend chess tournaments or any tournaments in general. Essentially people who play in sections rather than the open section should not be able to make a living off chess. By encouraging top level players to show up because of the prize distribution, these tournaments make it more likely that people who play in the same tournament will benefit from them just being there and will in turn make everyone better in the long-term. Giving large class section prizes will only encourage sandbaggers to show up and thus will not demonstrate much positive value to the chess community.

[John Brown]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

It looks like that it is time that someone rewrites the swiss pairings system so that we no longer have class sections and that we have only one Open section.
They would have to tweek the pairings so that the higher rated player never sees a lower rated player until say Rd 3. Yet pairings can be made within a group of cut off ratings before Rd.3.
Then just distribute the final prize funds to the top 20 players overall. If a lower Class player wins in the last 3 games against stronger players then they deserve a prize.

[Caleb Petersen]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Essentially people who play in sections rather than the open section should not be able to make a living off chess.

If the U2200 was raised up to say $600 that's still not even close to making a living off chess. In fact if you didn't live in the area and stayed in a hotel you'd be lucky to have made any money at all by the end of it. Of course i agree that the open section should have a large prize fund, but saying that amateur players shouldn't be able to make a living off of chess as a reason not to increase the prize fund for their sections is ridiculous because it's impossible to make a living off of chess in Canada unless you're a coach.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

If the U2200 was raised up to say $600 that's still not even close to making a living off chess. In fact if you didn't live in the area and stayed in a hotel you'd be lucky to have made any money at all by the end of it. Of course i agree that the open section should have a large prize fund, but saying that amateur players shouldn't be able to make a living off of chess as a reason not to increase the prize fund for their sections is ridiculous because it's impossible to make a living off of chess in Canada unless you're a coach.

Well said, Caleb. Words of wisdom from an U14. Best of luck in your budding chess career. And don't spend your $75 too, too foolishly (:

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Are there any other sports/activities which award cash prizes for mediocrity? Let's bring back tournaments like the 1973 Quebec Open - 500 entries, one section, and no class prizes - but there were about 40 place prizes.

Another example - the one-section, 9-round Cappelle tournament in France had 604 entries in 2014, including at least 50 GM's. 40 place prizes, plus one woman and one senior prize. Entry fee: 50 euros; 25 euros for juniors and seniors.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Are there any other sports/activities which award cash prizes for mediocrity?

While I might quibble with your use of the word "mediocrity", Hugh, the short answer is yes. The most popular sport by attendance is horse racing and that sport most certainly offers cash prizes by sundry levels of ability (e.g. even 'maiden' races for lifetime 'non-winners'). Moreover, even team sports which don't offer cash prizes as such do offer substantial financial award for 'mediocrity'. There are lifetime minor leaguers who manage to make a living in their trade for their relative 'mediocrity'. Chess might be the one sport where it's nigh impossible to make a living via 'mediocrity'.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Even "lifetime minor leaguers" are just shy of being among a sport's elite (i.e. the "major leagues", or a GM or IM in chess terms), whereas a C or D class chess player is far from being a GM.
The prizes a horse might win in a lower class would be nowhere near what it could win in a Kentucky Derby, but we are giving class prizes often equal to the prizes given to the "elite" players in a tournament.

[Caleb Petersen]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Well said, Caleb. Words of wisdom from an U14. Don't spend your $75 too foolishly (:

Was that sarcasm? The $75 barely covers the entry fee, so I won't really be able to spend it foolishly.:)

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Was that sarcasm? The $75 barely covers the entry fee, so I won't really be able to spend it foolishly.:)

Not one iota of sarcasm, Caleb. Just a very weak attempt at being jocular. I iterate, I liked your post and was surprised to ascertain at the CFC website that you're U14. I know most of Ontario's Juniors since my own 2 sons have been playing Junior tournaments for years and your name was unfamiliar to me.

[Jack Maguire]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Even "lifetime minor leaguers" are just shy of being among a sport's elite (i.e. the "major leagues", or a GM or IM in chess terms), whereas a C or D class chess player is far from being a GM.
The prizes a horse might win in a lower class would be nowhere near what it could win in a Kentucky Derby, but we are giving class prizes often equal to the prizes given to the "elite" players in a tournament.

Hart House had $400 prizes for the winner of each of the U2200, U1900, and U1600 sections and $1200 for the winner of the Open, a 1 to 3 ratio which is by no means unreasonable, albeit I'd likely lean a little more towards Hugh's line of reasoning and reduce that number to maybe 1 to 2. Making the Open Section more top heavy in prize distribution would likely be self-defeating, imho. Those Class C & D players might just start staying away in droves if they had no opportunity for prize money and then where does the money come from for your elite players?

[Hugh Siddeley]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Alex might be too nice to post something like this here but I'm not - As someone who has been part of the chess club for several years, one of our understandings is that no amateur should be able to make money playing weekend chess tournaments or any tournaments in general. Essentially people who play in sections rather than the open section should not be able to make a living off chess. By encouraging top level players to show up because of the prize distribution, these tournaments make it more likely that people who play in the same tournament will benefit from them just being there and will in turn make everyone better in the long-term. Giving large class section prizes will only encourage sandbaggers to show up and thus will not demonstrate much positive value to the chess community.

Wow, Bindi, your reply kind of took me by surprise...

"No amateur should be able to make money playing weekend chess tournaments or any tournaments in general." Well, that is why they are called amateurs aren't they? Rather than professionals...

I reread my post, nowhere did I mention anything about wanting to make a living off chess by playing in weekenders... And I don't think anyone in their right mind would ever even consider that, even playing in the more lucrative top section. If I had Houdini to assist me in every weekender I could possibly attend in Canada I think I would still be much better off working minimum wage somewhere. Sorry if you misunderstood my post, maybe I should write more clearly.

Just for argument's sake, let's discuss a top-level poker tournament. I don't have a clue as to how that even works but I'm sure the lesser players aren't told "$100 buys you 38 chips" whereas the pros are told "$100 buys you 274 chips". Poker, now there's a game if you wanted to seriously think about making a living.

And also I'm confused, can you explain to me how I benefit from top level players just being there? Aside from glancing at their games from time to time, they're pretty much just more faces in the crowd. I kibitzed a bit of the post-mortem between Noritsyn and Sambuev, and while they were gawking away in Russian there was nary an upward glance of acknowledgment of my existence. Yeah, huge benefit there! Now I'm not knocking them, I'm just saying that the top level players appear not to give two sh*ts about the amateurs wandering around the playing halls. I just don't see how I benefit from their presence, can you explain that to me? Now in a tournament like the Canadian Open, the organizers kind of twist their arms into giving a lecture as part of their appearance fee, now there is benefit there, but in a weekender? Nah, don't see benefit.

So yeah, if I was really foolish enough to think of trying to make a living off weekenders Bindi, I'd probably have cracked open a book on rook endings years ago. As it stands, the only nugget of wisdom I had was that "all rook endgames are drawn", now if I could only find that person and strangle him because I found that out not to be true this weekend.

"Giving large class section prizes will only encourage sandbaggers to show up". Oh, beware the sandbaggers out there! Lurking in the dark waiting for the chance to show up to a section with a large class prize LOL, they're everywhere ;)

[Hugh Siddeley]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

I forgot to mention. I find it interesting that Kramnik played in his first Open event in 22 years! Guess he didn't think it worthwhile trying to win money in an Open event when he could always at the very least be guaranteed a nice appearance fee in invitational tournaments.

I want to reiterate that I am not opposed to subsidizing the top section, even to a very large degree! Just not by a factor of 7. If my section had the same number of players as the top section then that's already down to a factor of 3, end of story and my original post wouldn't even exist. What I'm saying is that when a section inflates to an unexpected size and there is the potential to have a logjam at the top, the organizers should toss us a bone, maybe throw in a 4th place prize, add a couple hundred or so, 'tis all!

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Hart House Holidays Open - Prize Distribution

Poker tournaments have a variety of entry fees. You aren't likely to see Phil Ivey (a very rich, successful poker player) sign up to play a tournament with an EF of $20, for example, though he certainly could if he wanted to.

It's why imo tournaments should be divided into sections by EF, not by rating. All monies from each section (minus that section's share of expenses) should go the prizes for that section only. So, you might have sections with EF: $100, $50, $25. Let's assume expenses per person (site, TD fees, rating fees, etc.) are $20/person. If each section had 30 players, the prize funds per section would be 30 x ($100-$20) = $2400, 30 x ($50 - $20) = $900, 30 x ($25 - $20) = $150, with say three place prizes in each section. A 2500 might enter the lowest EF section, and probably would have an almost 100% chance of winning that section. He wouldn't win much for the effort, though, and probably his average game wouldn't be very interesting. A 1200 could play in the highest EF section and would probably go 0-5, but can compete for the largest prizes.

Just for argument's sake, let's discuss a top-level poker tournament. I don't have a clue as to how that even works but I'm sure the lesser players aren't told "$100 buys you 38 chips" whereas the pros are told "$100 buys you 274 chips". Poker, now there's a game if you wanted to seriously think about making a living.