Problems with US Chess

Recreational/casual players still play just for fun. Once you enter the tournament scene its no longer just for fun.  Most tournament players play blitz for their "fun". 

 About 2000.

 I play in tournaments just for fun.  I look at a tournament as a place to play all day long, with agreed rules, against people that will include at least some that are roughly the same ability as me.  Fun.  It's still intense competition, but for me, that's fun.

That might be part of why I have an aversion to cash prizes and  high entry fees.  If people are seriously attempting to win money, the attitude changes.  It's no longer competition for the sake of competition.

ETA: On further reflection, this really does sum up the aspects of the Chess scene I don't like.  If a group of people were to get together and play an unrated Swiss, it would be a group of people engaging in intense competition purely for the joy of the game.  If you throw in ratings, people have a goal of gaining points, and that's a bit less "pure".  If you throw money on top of that, the whole set of motives changes.  The other elements beyond the game, ratings and prizes, to me, are distractions.  To other people, that's the whole point of the exercise.

 I agree. It wouldn't be worth the stress if it was just for the money, and not fun.

Where I live (close to the Mississippi River), sandbagging has an entirely different meaning. 

I thought a tourney player would know what they are playing for, maybe I was wrong or you arent an otb tourney player ? 

Taking things seriously is fun.

the congress below had a £9,000 prize fund, only £800 given to the top dog

>:)

The Barceló Lancashire Open (Full Crosstable)

The Imperial Major (Full Crosstable)

The Median (Full Crosstable)

The Intermediate (Full Crosstable)

The Minor (Full Crosstable)

The Standard (Full Crosstable)

Ha Ha... using a laptop as my DM screen while we play D&d right now.

I wonder how many players rated 2000-2300 make any real money playing chess anywhere. U.S.A., Europe, or Asia. I would bet the numbers are very very small.

 Correct.

There are several FMs, IMs, and GMs on this site. Maybe they could give us a ballpark figure of how much they made PLAYING chess. We don't need names just "IM Eur. $15000 yr." I don't think I will be saying "WOW!!! I wish I could make that kind of money" very often.

I think the point of the OP was not that ordinary master players want to make a living out of chess.  The point was that they want to have *some* incentive to show up at tournaments, beyond just the love of the game.  When you reach that level, it's not *just* about the love of the game anymore.  There is a LOT of work that you have put in and need to continue putting in.  The ordinary master wants it to be worth his time to put in that work, to at least some small, tiny extent.  Otherwise what's the point?  Try telling every single ordinary master that they should only play for the love of the game and nothing more, and you will instantly have no masters at your tournaments anymore.  And we would all be the worse off for that.

Of course, try telling ordinary tournament players that they should only play for the love of the game and nothing more (and oh, by the way, they should pay all these fees too) and you will have *fewer* ordinary players at your tournaments.  And the masters will be the worse off for that.

It's the basic dilemma of how to fund tournaments when all you've got is entry fees.  You want to pay everyone, but the money is too thin to go around.  So who do you give it to, and in what proportion? 

Thinking about the OP, the answer is fairly simple.  Prizes aren't really rewards for great play.  Prizes are gambling winnings.  This is especially true at anything  below the peak level. 

After all, why does anyone ever win cash for a UXXXX section?  There are better players than they are, playing at the "low end" of the next section up.  How is it fair that a U1400 player takes home cash, while a guy who entered the tourney rated at 1401 goes home empty handed? 

 I've always had the impression the OP has contempt for anybody below 2000, and believes they aren't chess players at all.

Eh, this is terrible, and quite interesting.

Money, if anything else shows how popular something is and the lastability of something is. When you compare these $0-$200 prizes for top level play(that can take decades to reach for us normal folk, btw) compared to the near 100k prizes, and 200k+ salaries in Starcraft[SC] it's pretty pathetic, and shows how chess is dying as a game, and a lot of this has to do that it conflicts with what the mass's love, chess is just boring to watch except for us super chess nurds while starcraft is like watching a warzone develope.

The masses like things stupidfied, competitive, social, graphical, gory battles, tons of action etc, etc, anything that doesn't require imagination, and starcraft delivers! All you need to become decent in SC is read a few articles of strategy, builds, actions per minute[apm], and work on your micro that'll take a couple of weeks at best to become a competent player ready to make some doe, have some fun, and impress.

Comparatively compared to the boring, minimalistic, scientific game of chess that take years, dozens, dozens on books, millions of tactics to become a decent player you're doomed to impress no one, make very little money, be very anti-social. It's really no wonder why chess is dying with the masses, but I still love it for I don't even know why!!

In that case you are mistaken. I started off about 13?? myself and it took me 11 years to break 2200. I respect all who love the game of chess, regardless of their rating/strength/level. My complaint is that it seems to me that the better you get the less chance you have of winning a decent prize in US chess competitions. It would suit me fine if tournaments went back to just giving trophies or books or chess stuff ( clocks, sets, boards , etc ) instead of cash prizes as cash prizes have ruined chess imo for many who play basically simply because they love the game. Today entry fees are 2 and 3 times as much as I paid in the mid 70s, hotels cost twice as much or more and meals out also about twice as much as then. The prizes offered, even if you do win, rarely even cover all the expenses of one of these tournies unless you win in something like the world open. 

Umm once again those who earn that tip top money in SC2 or even SC are the very tip top of their art, if it can be considered an art. I would say that it would be the 99.9999th percentile making that of money or anything even close to it, which oddly enough looks like the same percentile in chess that make big money

Reb, here's my question -- who told you that prizes at tournaments were meant to be more than the token prizes that books and clocks used to be?

The move away from giving away "stuff" for these prizes and to giving cash happened because people were tired of winning their 4th copy of "Bobby Fischer's My 60 Most Memorable Games." And when you already own a better chess clock than the one given as a prize, the prize isn't worth that much. So instead of giving a book and a clock, they started getting the cost of the book or clock or whatever.

And the idea that just because you're a master means you get money is kind of amusing all on it's own. We don't have a huge chess culture in my part of the country, but there are still about 15 people who have various titles. In any given tournament, 4 or 5 of them will show up. There usually are only prizes for the top 3. I'm sure you can do the math.