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I think its unfair that the lower section are forced to play for trophies
being that most players do not have the option of playing up
I believe we should have the right to win cash prizes but at a graduate system
of say a higher percentage for the top sections and lower for the bottom sections
I think that we would need a anti sand bagging rule however, I would not be opposed
for lower sections to win free entery for future tournaments this would be a lot better
then trophies which you can not do anything with
Counter point... and I can't think of any way to not sound horribly offensive, but know that this isn't my attempt...
Get better and play in the cash sections? Anybody up there has worked quite hard and studied like it was their job and I think they deserve the lions share of any prize fund.
No that's not offensive thou I don not disagree that most of the prize fund should go to the top section however, there should be something better then trophies for the bottom sections
example free entry fee to the organizers future tournament and the right to play up in your next tournament say for the top 3 finishers kind of like Tata Steel
I now think 100% of EFs within any tournament section whether is be U1600 or Open or whatever ... 100% of those entrance fees should stay within each section.
Tournament/Event expenses such as the TD/Org fee, playing site, etc., should be deducted evenly across all EFs.
To expect one section to subsidize another is counter productive for the chess community in general ...and the vast majority of CFC memberships are purchased by those U1800!
I think that the moving up ceiling is too low 200 below is fairer.. I also think that anyone under 1100 should not be playing in a section higher than u1300. If you want to bring back older players get rid of these underrated kids give them a proper rating. I disagree with Lee. Trophies are fine but do not take our entries and give them to the elite.
Stock pile them and use them to pay rent but if we surpass the rent then give us a discount until our surplus disappears.
Elite players ca pay to play for their own prizes. Because we cannot play them then why should we subsidize them?
When answering this question I try to do so as a chess player, chess fan and lover. Doing it from the organizer's point of view is sometimes contradictory.
I tend to agree with Hugh Brodie's post on the other thread. Why reward mediocrity?
Disagree entirely with Neil that each section should subsidize itself and work as an independent tournament, when it comes to finances. Making tournaments this way would generate rather substantial prizes to be picked up by amateur chess players.
Sandbagging is only one concern. It doesn't have to be done through private arranged matches, or throwing games. It can be done through various ways, create various excuses from "I wasn't feeling that well" to "I changed my opening repertoire and testing it out didn't go well". Chess players are all grandmasters of excuses as to why they lost games. I've also seen players "abandon" tournaments (without telling organizers) when they no longer have a chance of winning, forfeiting a game in the process, further lowering their rating. Tossing a game is actually a very easy thing to do.
The other problem is players coming out of nowhere to play in these class section tournaments. It is not so uncommon for someone to have a chess passion, and current chess strength 400 points above their published rating from a decade prior. It is also not uncommon for poor little 30-40-something-year old to 'have never played a tournament game' or claim such, simply because they have not played a game in OUR tournament chess scene. Many countries have organized or disorganized chess, with no organized published records of such events. Tournaments scenes that DO produce reasonably strong amateur players.
In the top section of a tournament, you won't have that happen. Firstly, it is incredibly unlikely that some complete unknown person would appear out of nowhere and contend to a prize. Secondly, there would be a record of this person somewhere. Finally, he/she would truly earn the prize by beating the best.
In lower classes, the lower the more likely you'd have someone come in out of nowhere and take home the bacon. And for anyone willing to do the research, this is quite often what happens in tournaments with BIG class prizes. It's not usually Joe or Bob from the local chess club who outperforms himself and excels at this tournament. It's usually some guy you used to know 10 years ago, or just met, that comes out of retirement or abuses some outdated published rating. There were some attempts / examples of this at the 2009 Toronto Open, and this is not abnormal in some USA big-prize tournaments.
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I am not so certain why trophies or symbolic money prizes are such a deterrent. Amateur players should be, as Matt Nicholson hinted at, trying to improve themselves. Or just playing for fun. Results (beating your peers) should be reward and motivation enough. If you win two tournaments in a row by beating your peers, you WILL be playing in the next-higher section at the following tournament. The rating changes will dictate it.
Looking at the Guelph tournaments, which I personally quite enjoy, the system works fine. 4 Rating Sections I believe. Top section has cash prizes, lower sections have trophies. The tournaments are generally well attended and most people I chat with seem to enjoy it and look forward to the next one. Hal Bond invest in that kind of healthy and friendly atmosphere. Good playing conditions, good site, coffee, tea, water, snacks, all free of charge (or incorporated from the total revenues).
For me as a player, this is a model type tournament. I pay something like $50 or $60, get a few quality games in and my experience at the tournament is very agreeable. Chess strength wise, I happen to be at the bottom of the top section. Which means I get solid beatings from professional players and hungry up-and-coming juniors. I will never likely pick up any prize, but because I maintain a rating over 2000, will never get trophies either.
So what? -- I go to a chess tournament to play chess!
When you go to a movie, or a sports game, you spend $20-$200 for 2 hours of entertainment. Entertainment provided by others. You're just sitting there eating popcorn. Do you expect to win some money from that? No... you expect to pay for the ticket, for parking, for popcorn, maybe a meal after or a few drinks.
When you go to a chess tournament, you are the entertainer, as well as the entertained. You're paying $50-$80 for about 20-25 hours of it! For your own fun, to develop your own ideas and creativity, and put them into practice. If it's your thing, you can even have bragging rights over some great game you played. Whatever bragging rights you think you may have "because the Blue Jays smashed the other team" were probably not influenced by you at all.
Don't know for sure, but I imagine it's a little different for the very top players. As M. Nicholson mentioned, these guys have put in the time, the effort. They didn't get there overnight. For them the motivation to come out and beat up on weakies like us is probably different. The likelyhood that local IMs learn from smashing us from blundering something is pretty low. When they're paired against each other... it's work. It's not just a fun chess game. So the fact that they get their prizes subsidized, makes sense. After all, those of us who love chess and aim to improve, don't rush home to analyze Johnny vs Janey, second-last-board Round 4 game in the U1600 section. We learn by analyzing the contributions by top players.
Note that even the local top players don't exactly make a living from playing chess. Not even close. Why should we mortals be whining for a chance to play for big money? You want money... get a job! Minimum wage in Ontario is $11.00/hour. 16 hours means $176. No cost of entry, and it's guaranteed! It doesn't depend on your chess tournament results.
With all that being said... nothing wrong with symbolic prizes in the lower sections. My ideal format would actually be to reward the winner (of the lower sections) with double the entry fee. 2-3-4 places would get their entry fee back. That would be nice incentive enough for me. It would pay for my next tournament!
"Why reward mediocrity?" Hey, why not crap all over mediocre players? In fact, why should an organizer have to even put up with mediocre players? ("Quick!! Where's my hazmat suit and the bleach?") Just tell these hapless simpletons to mail in their cheques for the elite prize fund and then stay home.
On a more serious note, you make a lot of good points, Alex, but if you really feel strongly that class players don't deserve cash prizes then why not run all of your tournaments in the pro-am format (if you're not already doing so)?
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
I think we should borrow from poker and have all sections open to everyone but with different entry fees. So, for example, you have a tournament with three sections and entry fees of $100, $40 and $20. If expenses were say $20/player and each section had 30 players in it, the prizes would be $2400, $600, and $0. Only place prizes in each section.
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
Tom's suggestion about Open sections with varying entry fees is interesting. But wouldn't that encourage players to wait until the last minute to enter? A late entrant may feel he would have a better chance in a weak $100 section than in a strong $40 section. (of course - the TD could keep the entry lists secret until the start of the tournament(s))..
Nothing stops organizers from adding late fees, or outright preventing late registration. I don't think the problem is a very large one because generally the best players are going to play where the biggest money is, and that is where the entry fees are highest, assuming there is a pretty big gap between the EF amounts.
"Tom is a well known racist, and like most of them he won't admit it, possibly even to himself." - Ed Seedhouse, October 4, 2020.
"Why reward mediocrity?" Hey, why not crap all over mediocre players? In fact, why should an organizer have to even put up with mediocre players? ("Quick!! Where's my hazmat suit and the bleach?") Just tell these hapless simpletons to mail in their cheques for the elite prize fund and then stay home.
On a more serious note, you make a lot of good points, Alex, but if you really feel strongly that class players don't deserve cash prizes then why not run all of your tournaments in the pro-am format (if you're not already doing so)?
I have some questions too about this "rewarding mediocrity" debate:
(1) Why does Hugh Brodie assume the winners of lower sections are mediocre? Could such winners not be up and coming juniors who might be much better than their current rating?
(2) if mediocrity is so bad and not to be rewarded, why reward even Magnus Carlsen? Because he is, by comparison to any top-50 chess engine, most decidedly mediocre.
It's strange for it to be Hugh Brodie asking about rewarding mediocrity. He maintains an extensive database of games which includes all those thousands and thousands of games played in the lower class sections where blunders abound!
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
"Why reward mediocrity?" Hey, why not crap all over mediocre players? In fact, why should an organizer have to even put up with mediocre players? ("Quick!! Where's my hazmat suit and the bleach?") Just tell these hapless simpletons to mail in their cheques for the elite prize fund and then stay home.
On a more serious note, you make a lot of good points, Alex, but if you really feel strongly that class players don't deserve cash prizes then why not run all of your tournaments in the pro-am format (if you're not already doing so)?
Hi Peter,
There is nothing wrong with rewarding any class player with some prize. I simply feel that, as a chess player and lover, amateur players have no business playing with money as a top priority. Symbolic cash prizes are fine. As I mentioned in other examples of entertainment... it would be ridiculous to expect to win money from watching a movie or sports event. Playing in a chess tournament, for the amateur player, should be viewed as a form of entertainment, in my amateur player opinion. But because the concept has been introduced, all of a sudden it becomes a big topic of discussion and soon enough people expect such monies to be the prizes to play for. Money drives the world, it's no secret. It's a pity to see some players only come out because of it.
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As a chess organizer, I do not organize Guelph Pro-Am-style tournaments. The Hart House tournaments have the lower classes subsidize the top class prizes, and there is no real distinction between the lower sections when it comes to prize fund distribution, apart from often enough, size of the section. If a section has a larger number of players, it is reflected in the prize fund. With that said, a U1600 section winner at Hart House takes home... $500 (?). Nice prize, but not reflective of equal division of prize monies all the way across. Also not a large enough prize for someone to go through hoops, come out of retirement, or attempt something dishonest to attain it.
Our current wave of Hart House tournaments began in 2008 and followed the format of Bryan Lamb's Labour Day tournaments. They were the most successful amateur tournaments in Toronto at the time, and with the biggest crowd. Many small changes were made in our tournaments. A few from the very beginning, others slowly over time.
One of the best changes we've made, in my opinion, that I have not seen many other organizers do, is with unrated players. Players not registered with CFC or FIDE, get free entry at Hart House tournament. Of course this can only apply once per player since after their first tournament, they will have a rating. This is great for the player (who, experienced or new, gets a financial break), good for CFC (since we request the new player to purchase annual CFC membership) and fantastic for the organizer. The catch is, of course... the unrated player can play in any section of his/her choosing, but is not eligible for prizes. That way we won't get some nasty surprise by placing someone who clearly should have played in a higher section.
At the end of the day, the organizer is also trying to juggle a way to please and attract the crowd. No format is perfect for everyone. Both as a player and organizer, I actually value that there are different formats, parameters, conditions, fees, prize fund distributions, time controls, etc etc... by having different organizers doing things differently. People tend to vote with their feet. Maybe it is time that someone steps forward and attempts what some of the folks here are suggesting, for each section to subsidize its own prize fund. I would predict that the top players would abandon tournament chess, and all of our own chess community standards would decline, in terms of chess quality. Perhaps there would be overall rise in participation.
At Hart House, at least as long as I am around, we will continue to accept suggestions, recommendations and constructive criticism. We have made some changes because the crowd wants it. Most recently, adjustment of the time control. Already for some years now (although not fully consistently when entries are low), we also have a team prize. Neither of those two ideas were mine, but they're simple enough to implement and if everyone enjoys it, we are happy to make them possible. The time control change was pretty universal, but the teams prize was an interest primarily by juniors and parents, primarily "lower section" players.
If several players come together and want the same thing, I believe some organizers will try it. Then we can measure its success.
Chesstalk criticism is also something I am very skeptical about. Unfortunately a lot of the most vocal people are ones that play little to no chess, whatever their reasons. It's easier to comfortably discuss ideas in a forum, than it is to come out and play, let alone organize events.
(1) Why does Hugh Brodie assume the winners of lower sections are mediocre? Could such winners not be up and coming juniors who might be much better than their current rating?
If a player in a (e.g.) U1600 section thinks he is not "mediocre" (for lack of a better word), he is perfectly welcome to try his luck in a higher section.
It's strange for it to be Hugh Brodie asking about rewarding mediocrity. He maintains an extensive database of games which includes all those thousands and thousands of games played in the lower class sections where blunders abound!
Even strong players make outright blunders. At the Pere Noel tournament, I saw an IM (unintentionally) put a piece en prise; his opponent thought for 20 seconds of his 40 seconds remaining; took the piece; and the IM immediately resigned.
If a player in a (e.g.) U1600 section thinks he is not "mediocre" (for lack of a better word), he is perfectly welcome to try his luck in a higher section.
Even strong players make outright blunders. At the Pere Noel tournament, I saw an IM (unintentionally) put a piece en prise; his opponent thought for 20 seconds of his 40 seconds remaining; took the piece; and the IM immediately resigned.
Tournaments like the Pro Am do not give a lot of players even the choice of playing up
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