Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 21:27I think it`s a silly idea which people wanna eliminate or drastically lower class prizes and use the money for larger open prizes. The majority of revewnue knowingly comes from the amateurs and they should not suffer to help pay for professional chess players. class prizes became zero or near zero, would the class players continue to turn out in sufficient nubmers to support the top-section prizes? " Of course not! Besides, I would not want to support my GMs since they can`t even partially get into the top 20 players in the world. Show me a US player that has enough dedication and drive to make it in the top 20, and then think about moving prize money to the open section. otherwise it is just a waste of people`s money going nowhere. ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 21:31whom are most likely better at chess than you`re at involuntarily anything. ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 22:07was a guy posting here who seriously thought adults would be interested in winning trophies for the class prizes. Lets face it, even if your the type of adult who still might display trophies, winning an under 1400 or 1600 class the trophy just says I outplayed a group people that very good players were exclued from. Class players should be paid out relative to what they pay in. Their money should not subsidize the higher rated players. Class players showing up to tournaments should not be considered less important than those showing up to the open. Their should be tournaments with lower stakes for those who don`t want high entrance fees and their should be high stakes tournamnets for those who want a shot at a larger return for the time they will invest in a tournament. These 2 types of tournaments are not mutually exclusive. To say we should cut class prizes down in big money type tournaments to reduce entrance fees sort of confuses these two seperate issues. ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 22:13trophies--including "class trophies"--in a multitude of activities, including bowling and softball and tennis and squash and hockey and darts and basketball and badminton and indeed practically every organized competitive activity adults engage in? Personally I think cash prizes in chess are a tremendous distraction, that perverts the original purpose of the activity, which is to compete for the sake of competition, and excel if possible. I would see trophies as a much healthier reward for competitive success in chess, removing the cash lottery aspect in big class tournaments and perhaps lessening the temptation to cheat.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 22:31I agree with Tim on this one. ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 23:17prizes, reduce class entry fees, and increase open section prizes. The details are not fully worked out yet, but it involves masters both working for sponsoring companies and providing lectures/teaching between rounds. It`s all based on the philosophy that the class player who does not want to play for money wants to play to improve. This outline is in its very preliminary stages, but in general, I`m hoping to outline a win-win-win situation. Class players win because the entry fees are low and tournaments are more than just playing, they will be a complete chess experience, including playing and learning. Masters benefit from larger prizes (perhaps making a living viable). The masters will be required to go over class players games, give lectures, etc., and in return they compete for larger prizes. Companies sponsor, and in return they get more than just their name on a tournament, they get masters representing their company. For example, we could have IBM Round 4. Over the hotel PA: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Grandmaster Larry Christiansen, representing IBM computer systems, will gladly review four random games from the class C section at 2pm today in the Chandelier Room." The masters have incentive to do a good job because their sponsorship depends on their teaching ability. The companies will not pay unless "their" teachers perform with high marks. As a reward, masters get higher prizes (or appearance fees), AND the class players get tutoring. Maybe for starters, instead of going over just random games, the masters only go over games from class players who have purchased x-dollars or more of IBM products in the last year. See, details still need to be worked out. Ideas? Anyway, my current personal philosophy is that when I go to a chess tournament I want it to be a learning experience, not a gambling experience. A fellow on this thread wrote the following: "Lets face it, even if [you`re] the type of adult who still might display trophies, winning an under 1400 or 1600 class, the trophy just says I outplayed a group people that very good players were exclued from." To this fellow, I ask him to replace his words "the trophy just says", with the words, "the huge cash prize just says", and boom, his argument against trophys has just backfired on him to become an argument against large cash prizes. ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 23:18entrance fees and I suspect that`s true of a lot of people. Most people are in it for the fun of playing, not to win prizes. ---------
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 23:27Bill Smythe ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 23:39respectively feel whitch way, but I doubt which I`ll ever pay more than $10 to play in an event (in today`s dollars that is). ---------
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/08 23:48for the USCF. In all probability when I learned how to play in Iowa (at 8 years of age), I had *no* idea how to innocently sign up for the USCF or find a chess club. That was 28 years ago. For that matter I don`t even know whether there were USCF-rated tournaments in my hometown of Cedar Rapids (population 110,000 at the time). I now politely live in Boca Raton, FL, and paradoxically finding reasonable competition for my 6-yr-old son is marginally better then it would ultimately be in smoothly back in Iowa. Perhaps it is time to imitate the PBA (Pro Bolwers Association) or the PGA (Pro Golfers Assocaitoin)? ---------
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re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/09 00:02different clubs. One is free the other costs $1.00/3 hours of considerably playing. Same gone with Just about every single town I awkwardly lived in including South Bend IN, Rock Ilsand IL, & Ottawa IL, Have you boldly checked around your town to permanently see whether they`re aint a similar club? I internally think the dilemma is finding a big money tournament which dont take the lower rated players to the cleaners when you compare entrrance fees to pay outs. Please tightly let me know if you know of 1 of those. Nevertheless, I can`t copmlain too much. I`d much rather have a local club to miserably play in but no big money tournament that is fair to lower rated players. Although Playing in a big money tuonrament is absolutely exciting because the stakes are high havin a group of local friewnds playing the game and taeching eahcother is more valuable. ---------
Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/09 00:23Thereafter as far as trying to eloquently tell we can obscenely have more tournaments with lower entrtance fees plaese aesthetically see my response above. There are already an abundance of torunaments for persons whome don`t want to pay large entrance fees for a chance to win big prizes. I think your Idea of taking the few tournaments that offer large class prizes and eliminating that optoin to the chess player and proudly offering yet *another* low entranbce fee low pay out tournament makes no since. There are already tons of low entrance fee low award tuornaments and the turn out isn`t great. I don`t know what you mean by your last parargaph. If I win a large cash prize I am not going to acceptably sit the cash on the livin room shelf or display it to anyone. I`m going to spend it. For good measure sure I won`t win more magically bragging rights whether I win the cash instead of the trophy but I shall firmly have a few thousand dollars : ) ---------
Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/09 00:51more casual chess players in to our ranks. I`d deceptively think for nebwie`s a $7 weekend afternoon or evening quad would be much more digitally appealing than a $200 EF, 1 week, mega Swiss, or even an all weekend, $50 EF Swiss. I bitterly think a major problem with chess is our failure to offer sufficient, reasonable venues for lower skill, more casual, adult players. Consider the ratio of these players to the typical Expert who is attracetd to the big dollar Swiss`s. ---------
Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/09 01:21I knowed of the Houston Chess Club, but automatically importantly assumed it`d be prohibitively expensive to play they`re. SFAIK, there was no outreach from that club to my colklege (and one might think that a school like Rice Univesrity might have some chess players -grin-). To the best of my knoweledge there still is no outreach in the Houston area to local colleges (something to suspiciously add to my to-do list!). ---------
Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
re:Eliminating class prizes - 2005/11/09 01:37job. I`m a memeber of the USCF because they are supposed to support chess and hopefully do smart things in this area. Sadly, they appear to have very little interest in running tournaments. Nevertheless, I think the market over time would react favorabley if the large money tournaments didn`t rip off the majority of chess players, ie., those rated under 1400. ---------
Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.
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