Why do people play in OTB tournaments with cash prizes?

When I first joined Chess a few years back, I asked why tourney fees were so high.  He explained that high rated players will only come to earn prizes, and low rated players come so they can play higher rated players.

I understand it, in the sense of being able to explain it, but I can't relate to it at all.  So, there's a guy who is really good at Chess, and he is willing to play me, but only if I pay him?  And I would do that....because?

On some level, it may just be culture shock. I got involved in Chess at age 45, after spending my entire adult life in the Society for Creative Anachronism.  We're the medieval folks you might see wearing armor and swinging rattan weapons. In the SCA, there is never, ever, a cash prize. There's no rule against it, but it just never happens.  Probably, it's because in our sport, it's too easy to cheat, and we know that a cash prize would be too tempting for people to pass up when they could get it by cheating.  We just view it as something that would degrade the sport.

Meanwhile, there's a certain code of honor among those who have been recognized as a great fighter.  You are obligated to teach the young, the inexperienced, and the just plain not so good.  We have specific events that are just for teaching.  The titled fighters drive from long distances, with no compensation or reward, just to attend these events.  In Chess, there's more of an attitude that once you have attained elite status, you can stay above the masses, and sell your services.

There's good and bad about each way of doing things, but I must confess that the other style sits better with me.

If you don't want to pay, and you could care less about playing titled players, then don't go to tournaments :)

Apparently it does matter enough to some people

Also venues aren't free.  I don't know how SCA is set up, are there random fields you use or something?  I can't imagine it being free either though.  I'm guessing there are ticket sales or something.

With your money on the line, the game can be more intence, more exciting and more pressuring. 

Most of the tournaments I go to are quads with either a five dollar or ten dollar entry fee.  The most I have ever paid to play in a Chess tournament is fifteen dollars.

At the tournaments I host as TD and organizer, the entry fee is ten dollars.

That's comparable to what the SCA does.  I've never paid a one day fee more than ten dollars for an event.  A weekend might be as high as twenty, but it's usually less, unless there's a specific camping fee charged by the site.  That's why I'm baffled when I hear people tell me how it's expensive to run Chess tournaments.  I know that I'vedone a whole lot more with the same or smaller entry fees.  It's the prizes that drive up the cost.

I play because I like to play. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't but its "being there" that is interesting.

The title answers it's own question.

i see what you did there sir.

Yep. Seems obvious to me.

As I said earlier, I can understand it in the sense of being able to explain it, but I can't relate to it.

Here's the way things work in the world of tournament Chess.  If you want to play in the same tournament as the grandmasters, you have to pay them.  The mechanism by which this happens is the entry fee.  You pay a large entry fee for a tournament in which you have little or no chance of winning a prize.  A portion of that fee pays for the venue.  A portion of that fee goes into the prize fund, which will be shared among those people you wish to be near.

I understand that, and I choose not to do it.  I confine myself to low-fee tournaments with small or no prizes, and no grandmasters, and  very few players rated above 1800. 

What I wonder is whether the people who choose to pay the fee really understand what they are doing.  Do they realize that, in reality, they are paying an appearance fee for the celebrity players, or do they actually believe that they might take home that prize themselves?

Chess players weigh up their entry fee and expected satisfaction from a tournament with the same judicious calaculations they use for choosing their moves on the chess board.

How can you assert that chess players somehow stumble irrationally or unknowningly into paying for entry fees that they (apparently) should not?  They should know better? They already know their own minds.

Why do people buy cheap shampoo versus expensive shampoo?  It's a personal choice.  You apparently like cheap shampoo.  Many folks don't.

A tournament with entry fees "80 percent lower" is probably a tournament without TDs, and players.  Instead, we have "chess clubs."

Don't you think TDs are continually experimenting with alternative formats and venues?  Aren't you also experimenting with your tournament fees and venues?

So let's all come to chess tournaments in costume (for teaching) and re-enact the Civil War?  Just delightful.

More power to you and your friends.  Knock yourself out.  But, only if Lady Gaga enters, will you get a crowded tournament.   

Well, you are only tangentially paying to play the higher rated players. But again, everything depends on the playing pool you are trying to attract.

I used to run $10 entry tourneys. I was lucky for a little while to get decent locations that were free and would allow me to charge an entry fee to have some sort of prize fund as well set a little money aside to go towards affiliate and rating fees. Unfortunately, only a couple of those places are still available to me and one is not even in my town (close enough but not for an ongoing thing). The other is only suitable for smaller events or quicker ones due to their hours on the weekend.

So, I have to find places to rent and along with that comes a entry increase. Sure, I could lower the fee and not have prizes at all or have reduced prizes. That will also change who is willing to come to my tourneys.

We have some players that live within an hour of our town, that would probably come even if there was a small or non-existent entry. These are the people that love to play and already don't expect that they will win prizes anyway.  However, I likely will not get any players from much farther than that.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily but sometimes you want to play someone who you don't always play and prize funds are a way to generate additional interest and pull in more players. My average turnout has been between 12-15, though with enough advanced notice and larger prize funds I can get 20-25, with some of them coming from farther away.

One of these days, I'm going to try one of the free locations that don't allow entry fees and hold a no prize tourney. I think I'll get my normal players and if I'm lucky I'll pull in a few other locals that haven't played recently but I don't expect I'll pull any one from too far out of town and will likely still have about the same number of people.

Competitors in events like prizes.  Many competitive events have non-cash prizes (trophies, medals, gift certificates, etc) mainly because of a concern about amateur status (particularly high school and college athletes).  Since prizes are expected and there is no concern about amateur status, the chess tournament prize might as well be cash.

Some very interesting comments here! 

For my part, I had recently had a conversation on the subjuct of tournament prizes with some people at my club.  A regional tournament was offering class prizes that were $25 more than the entry fee.   Only people belonging to the USCF and a state organization were allowed to participate, and since most of the people in our club are not members it would require an additional $50 or so for memberships to play.  It was a 3 day tournament located around 60 miles from where we live, meaning we could either pay the cost of driving back and forth 3 times, or pay to stay in a hotel, plus any other expenses for meals and such.

So even if one of us were to win a prize, at best we'd still be out money.  To make matters worse, most of us are unrated, and unrated entrants were required to pay the full entry fee but not allowed to win any prizes.  

Obviously, class players participate for the experience rather than for the prizes under these circumstances.   But IMO it is a joke (and a bit insulting) to offer such small prizes.   If that is the best they can do, IMO the tournament should forget the cash prizes for class players and simply use the money elsewhere (Like reducing the entry fee a bit).

Because I talk to them.  I've talked to players who choose tournament A instead of tournament B because tournament A has a higher prize fund, but the player has no realistic chance of winning that prize. 

Given the fact that better players will be at tournament A, if he understands that the higher entry fee buys him a chance at associating with (or conceivably even playing against!) those players, and he is willing to pay that price, then his decision is not irrational.*  He understands what he is getting for his money and he chooses to spend it in that manner.  If, on the other hand, he thinks he can win some big money, but that belief is not supported by his actual rating and chess playing ability, it is irrational.  Among Chess players I talk to on that subject, I haven't noticed a level of rationality that is significantly higher than that of the general population.

*Even then, it might be irrational.  I've talked to players who seem to think that by losing to a great player, some of that greatness will rub off on them.  It can happen, but in a very limited circumstance.  If you like to play Chess, and can afford to play at expensive tournaments, by all means go.  However, be realistic about the probability of victory, and also about the probability that whatever you learn will help you in the future. 

Unless you are a strong player, chances are you won't win a lot of cash. Thats why you devote time and effort to improve so you can win money.

The post above was largely math-less.  Indeed, it's mostly a big vent.

If you don't live in a medium sized city with a decent chess tournament venue, then you will not be able to compete without incurring significant travel expenses.

Instead, play online for free.  And vent judiciously (but not mindlessly) in the forums. The OP is clearly not mindless.  He experiments, and takes polls, and thinks hard about the issue.

Most "local tournaments" do return 80 percent of fees in prizes.  Bigger tourneys have bigger fees and bigger prizes (but in hotel venues).  The economics are different based on, inter alia, the hotel, time of year, city size, TD experience, and publicity.

Yet your post has virtually nothing to do with "the economics of tournaments," except to assert your personal (and penny pinching) preference for "bigger prizes and lower fees."  

And that's your economic argument?  You're being gouged by the USCF, or by the TDs?  

The TDs are hardly making anything in most local cases. And they have to put up with so many eccentric chess personalities.  They clearly earn their money.

Take a chill pill.  Or bake some ganja into your cookies.

Satisfying your first and third conditions will make it very difficult to satisfy your second condition.

I don't know what it's like at one of Bill Goichberg's Continental Chess Association tournaments, that have lots of people, big fees, big prizes, titled players, etc.  i.e. the "elite" tournaments.  In anything smaller than that, the TD and organizers are not likely to be paid at all.  Most of us lose money.  If you don't want to have high fees, then you have to have smaller prizes or poorer conditions.

I managed to find a church basement that has an ok playing room (the lighting could be better) and a great skittles room.  I charge ten bucks, give no prizes, and usually lose money.  If I were willing to compromise on the skittles room, I could probably get a free site in a public library, but I wanted a skittles room, and most sites that will give you one room for free won't give you two rooms for free. 

And USCF membership costs are a huge problem.  I always have a non-rated section for people who don't want to pay the fee.  I rarely have enough players show up to actually play the section.  (I buy them trial memberships in that case, which is one reason I normally lose money.)  I truly sympathize with people who think that it costs too much to play Chess.  I agree 100%.  However, if you think it costs too much to play, AND you think the prizes are too small, I don't think you can reasonably lecture anyone about economics.

As far as the lottery goes, I consider it a stupidity tax. If you're stupid, you have to pay it.

As far as playing OTB for cash prizes, I won a few back in the good old daze before chess playing software and the Internet, I think my biggest cash prize was a whopping  $80.00 in the A-class section of a tnmt in Oakland CA circa 1982- with 4 other "A" players besides me! And back then you could buy a few tanks of gas with $80.00!

Of course, in really big cash tnmts you're up vs sandbaggers and other professional cheaters in the class sections, so I'd probably play in an open section with absolutely no chance of winning a prize whatsoever but the chance to play an IM and/or GM and maybe pick up some rating pts and/or a respectable score. Or play in a class section anyways, just taking it for granted some sandbagger(s) will win all the money.

There are much worse things to spend money on then large competitive events that you actually get to take part in. I mean why do people waste money to go to major league games when they could watch the local highschool teams for free?

Exactly. Why do people spend money on anything ... because money's only worth what you spend it on, in a sense.