I subscribe to Chess Life.  They are listed in the back of the magazine.

As you might suspect, they are also online, at their website.

http://www.uschess.org/tlas/upcoming.php?STATE=CA-S

Write to Randy Hough and ask him to add you to his e-mail mailing list, of upcoming chess events in Southern California.

Convince your family to take a chess vacation. We've done that several times as a family. We will spend 3 or 4 days at a chess tournament and then tack on 1 or 2 days for sightseeing. If you find a tournament that is close by, you can commute from home. I played in the Manhattan Open and met some high school kids who were commuting each day by train from Westchester. Finally, you could share a room with some friends. When I was in college, we often crammed 6 to 8 of us into hotel room to save money. Even if the hotel cost $200 per night, if you split it 8 ways, it comes down to $25 per night.

The World Open is probably one of the more expensive tournaments to enter. Nevertheless, your total cost is less than many kids spend on their prom. I personally would prefer to spend my money on a chess tournament than on a stupid dance, but maybe that's because I am a chess nerd. :-)

richie_and_oprah wrote:

one needs significant disposable income to be surelast time i played in the world open it cost:~ $350 to enter ~ $800 for 7 nights at the hotel~ $350 travel expensesi managed to finish tie for 6th place and won $650 which gave me a net loss of almost 1k  

Thats a lot of money.

Consider it a long life time investment of $1000 that will never come back. That's a lot of noodles.

Sorry, Saturday and Sunday are for relaxation. Mon-Fri is for working. I can play a tournament when I sleep.

This.  The other advantage is you will have some chess buddies who can split the cost of some travel if you want to go to a bigger out of town tourney.  I even ended up flying to Germany with 2 friends from my chess club to see the Anand Kramnik match.  

What's it like to go to one of those matches? How did you feel when Anand won?

The weekend tournaments in my town cost $20-$30 for entry fees and last two days. They are a ten minute drive from my house, and have free parking. If I don't pack a lunch, that's another $7.50 for a bacon double cheeseburger with fries and ice tea each day. 

Half the time I win back at least my entry fee.

go to he chess palace in westminster, ca.  they have small tournaments and give half of the tournament fees to the winner.  small play but nice people.

I live in rural queensland (australia) and so the nearsest tournament is 2 hours and its not very flash. After that you would HAVE to consider a hotel. But in the LA, you would have SO MANY tournaments around you. Why do you require a hotel??? Not saying your lying, but I can't believe tournaments cost $350. Top tournaments in my state only go up to $70, and it's about that throghout the countryeven for top level players

How do chess players afford tournaments? I can't and I'm a middle class person.

Middle class?  Is that before or after govenment?  Before taxes and government you have about twice as much money (don't forget that employers pay much of your taxes).  Then there is hotel, gas, airline, airport, cell, and a thousand other taxes, regulations and fees that directly or indirectly affect your situation.  Perhaps you are rich before taxes and poor after them?

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I have a fair guess on how Carlsen managed.

He lived in a city with an active chess scene. Actually, I do not know how the chess scene in Oslo is, but I used to live in a Swedish city slightly smaller than Oslo. Even there we had over 20 chess clubs, with regular tournaments, leagues etc. Usually of the kind where you play one round per week.

So, see if you local chess clubs have weekend leagues / tournaments.

I just want to find weekly or even monthly meetings with rated events that aren't necessarily tournaments (which are maybe four times a year). 

Chess is like any hobby, it does require money and the question is how much one wants or is able to spend.

Hunting/fishing requires licences and equipment

Travel we know costs money

Photography requires a certain amount of equipment.

I'd say just keep playing online, and don't put that much money into tournaments. Better off spending money on chess materials like books
(read this thread: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-books-in-cbh-format), free reader here: http://fritzload.com/Download/ChessBaseReader/Setup.msi

Coaches are worth paying for too, so many times I've been slapped around in games by kids with coaches. Ultimately, if you are able to pursue it further, you'll probably get a commercial chess program and database as well.

Actually, it's pretty simple.

Let's say you are talking your local 5-round tournament that typically goes across 3 days (Friday Night, Saturday, and Sunday).  First off, as mentioned before, most of them offer a 3-day (Play round 1 Friday Night) or 2-day (Play round 1 Saturday Morning) and then merge round 2 Saturday Afternoon.  Secondly, most offer at least 1 half-point bye provided it's committed before the tournament starts, so once you claim a bye, you are locked in it.  Can't look at your results and say "Oh, I need a win, remove my bye" - Doesn't work that way.

Since you are talking a "local" tournament, but maybe not local enough to drive both ways each day (if it's an hour or less each way, I'll drive instead of get a hotel room), it should be close enough to where you are driving rather than flying.  Therefore, if the hotel rate at the event is too high (i.e. $99/Night), then go to www.hotels.com, and stay at another hotel nearby.  Make sure you actually read the reviews.  Don't just look at the number of stars.  See how legit the reviews are.  Someone says that the blanket was made of a material that they happened to be allergic to, and gave it a 1-star rating because of that, ignore that bullsh*t.  But in the Atlanta area, I saw one hotel that had 16 reviews, 14 of them 1 star out of 5, and 12 of those 14 mentioned bug problems.  Uhm - I ain't staying there!

Typically, unless you are talking extremely high-priced areas like New York, San Francisco, Boston, etc, you will find a few decent hotels (Clean, Servicable, but no "frills", just your basic Bed, TV, Table or Desk, Bathroom, etc) for $50 to $70 a night.  When you start seeing Weekly rates, AVOID AT ALL COST!  Super cheap hotels are probably that for a reason also.  However, I've stayed at places like a Hampton Inn in Lawrenceville, GA (30 minutes from Atlanta) for $61 a night before, and the hotel was better than any hotel in Atlanta that cost twice that.

You have to do research and think outside the box, like a chess player, to get the bargains.  That tournament in Atlanta at the end of 2012, I paid about $135 for the hotel for 2 nights, a $50 or so entry fee, and maybe $50 in gas.  Ate cheap (Fast food, breakfast joints, etc), and spent maybe $50 on food  Under $300.  First place was around $400, so win it an you are ahead.  I placed, but didn't win it, and the whole weekend cost me maybe $50 to $100 dollars.  You can easily spend more than that just eating out for dinner every night in restaurants!

Can a middle class person afford full weekend tournaments 52 weeks a year?  Hell no!  But I can easily do 1 a month.

Another little trick - I have a friend that lives about 70 miles away from me.  We often room together, getting 2 doubles instead of 1 king.  Splits your hotel costs in half!  I did that 2 weekends ago.  Entry fee $60.  Hotel room for 1 night (drove down Saturday Morning) - $55.  $115 plus food and gas costs.  Won $105 for finishing 4th (1st Under 2200).  So $10 plus food and gas costs.  That's cheap for a full weekend of entertainment.  In this case, becasue we were splitting, we stayed at the site of the touranment, so had we stayed elsewhere, I might have come out slightly ahead before Food and Gas costs.

Once again - be creative - it works out for those that put in the effort!

A local weekend tournament around here costs about £50 (£20 entry, £15 travel, £15 food). You must be entering some big expensive tournaments.

This is how Carlsen did it: his family made many sacrifices:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_v9mTfhC8

What about chess in London? I am going to study there. If you know any chess clubs, let me know.