Prize funds in the early 1900's

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  • Prize funds in the early 1900's

    I was looking at the prizes in GM-equivalent tournaments around the early 1900's.

    Hastings 1895: Pillsbury won 150 pounds out of the 500 pounds prize fund. His prize would be worth about $19,000 today.
    Cambridge Springs 1904: Frank Marshall won $1000 out of a $3000 total prize fund. With inflation, today's prizes would multiply by a factor of almost 30.
    Ostend (Belgium) 1905: Geza Maroczy won 5,000 Belgian francs in a 14-player double round-robin event - with 15,000 to 20,000 francs in total prizes. A Belgian worker could earn 5,000 francs for about 11,000 hours work - equivalent of $274,000 for the same number of hours worked today.
    Isaac Rice (1850-1916) allegedly spent over $50,000 at the time promoting his "Rice Gambit". Multiply that by 30. :-) (his house in NYC on W 89th St. - now worth millions - is now a Jewish school.)

    Maybe not accurate comparisons, but it shows that there was lots of money to be had in top-class chess at the time.

  • #2
    Missed this earlier. This could make the beginnings of a great article Hugh.

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