I was reading a bio of the great British GM Tony Miles in which he played a match in 1975 in Luton, UK.
He and his opponent Stewart Reuben both only needed a draw to place in the prize money. The arbiter reviewing
their game (an exact duplicate of a very well known game) called the draw bogus, and gave them a double forfeit.
Question- have any of you made similar adjudications in a USCF or FIDE match?
I remember a few years ago, a few GMs were accused of the same stunt by several spectators, and others negatively
affected by their drawing in regard to prizes. the Millionaire Classic, now since dearly departed, had a rule against GM
draws, and organizers and arbiters were not at all pleased with a very quick GM draw at the top of the charts.
What are the thoughts of this audience?
Rob Jones
I’m not sure how you can stop it. If you remember, at that particular Millionaire the draw occurred due to threefold repetition. You can argue whether or not the draw was intentional, but it skirted the rule against early draws because the laws of chess superceded the tournament rule. Some people were ruminating that they would file high-end level protests with FIDE if that draw was not allowed to stand.
Ajudicating a game like that would take a lot of evidence that the rule against prearranged draws was violated. Otherwise I’m sure there would be a formal protest.
Everything else, you can’t stop two players who both want a draw unless you change the rules to disallow all draws in any form (including stalemate). I don’t think that you can rate a tournament with those rules though.
The answer: Prizes by score instead of place. And with decreasing differences as the score goes down. For example, in a 5-round event, the difference between the prizes for 5.0 and 4.5 should be greater than the difference between the prizes for 4.5 and 4.0.
For example:
5.0 wins $400
4.5 wins $200
4.0 wins $100
3.5 wins $50
3.0 wins $20
That discourages two players at 4.0 after 4 rounds, paired against each other in round 5, from drawing, as they would win a total of $400 ($200+$200) for a draw, but $500 ($400+$100) for a decisive result.
Let the punishment be inherent in the crime.
Bill Smythe
We had a very well known and generally successful major tournament organizer try the dollars for points idea several times in the DFW area. It was a total flop for him, losing
thousands. And others on a local basis who thought it a supreme idea for their local clubs also had remarkably poor tournament attendances. I have seen very little evidence
that such ideas attract participants to chess tournaments.
Rob Jones
Plus score events tend to appeal to only some players, because there’s a limit on how big the top prizes can be compared to the entry fee. But like quads, I think they can have a role in offering players a variety of types of events.
We are having a one-day Plus-Score this weekend with $400 for 4-0 in the top section, $1000 guaranteed to top finishers. Had turnout been low, the guarantee would have diminished the Plus-Score formula, but that seems unlikely to be a factor. Even with accelerated pairings, we will probably pay out more than $1,000 in the top section.
I could imagine a two-day 5SS with $800 for 5-0.
A three-day 6SS (accelerated pairings, of course) might have an entry fee of $99 and pay out $1600-$800-$400-$200-$100-$50. Assuming at least 64 players, organizer-TD, and cheapish space, this would be at least modestly profitable. If the accelerated pairings worked too well, the players might revolt 
Plus Score tournaments are base on total points scored. That does not automatically stop a pair of players from agreeing to draw a game ahead of time. Do remember there are rules about prearranged results. However, another way to avoid the issue is to have some prizes based on total wins. Only wins, not draws, count towards the “Wins” prize(s) that is available. The idea is to stop any possible prearrangements, but also it is to encourage fighting chess. I did do this once for a round robin tournament.
Larry S. Cohen
Recall Mr. Smythe’s prize list. Two players with perfect scores in the final round would share $400 for a draw but $500 for a decisive result. That is a serious disincentive, and few players will pre-arrange a loss.
Alex Relyea
It is an incentive for two strong players who share expenses and prize money to prearrange the result if they are playing against each other in a last round. With a draw, each gets $200. However, if the game is “won” through agreement, then each will get $250. Have seen enough “team play” in big tournaments to know that this might occur in a plus score system. If the plus score tournament is small enough, a player might throw a game just to make the organizer pay out more money.
The beauty is that, with prizes by score, if two players pre-arrange a non-draw (or a draw for that matter) in the final round, no other players are affected. Everybody else’s prize remains unchanged.
By contrast, with a traditional prizes-by-place structure, if the players agree to a final-round non-draw in a dead drawn position, that could propel the “winner” into a tie for first place, at the expense of the other player(s) in the tie.
Bill Smythe
It comes down to this - the type of tournament, amount of prize fund
offered, or the structure of these prizes, neither encourage or discourage integrity. Either one has this or not. Trying to force what cannot be forced is usually futile.
Rob Jones
Haven’t we gotten rather off topic? This is not exactly the first thread on prize funds or score-based prizes either.
It seems to me on topic, 100%. Because the TD in the above mentioned Miles incident was trying to enforce what really, most of the time, is very difficult to
enforce in the game of chess - integrity.
Rob Jones
Isn’t that example wrong? I thought with the plus score format there isn’t any splitting of prizes. With two perfect scores they would both get the first place prize amount.
The point is that a pre-arranged draw guarantees them first and second place in one scenario, which is worth more than two prizes in the plus score scenario. You are forgetting they will evenly divide multiple prizes. And we are discussing informal prize sharing at this point, where players pool money after it is awarded.
I read that too quickly. I see what he means now.
To summarize, even if a pair of players collude to get more money it only affects the organizer and not the other players. And if the collusion is found out with a 0F-0F final result applied, the organizer ends up making out better because the top prizes won’t get paid (in the above 400-200-100-50 scenario the payout for the two players would be 2x100 instead of either 400+100 or 2x200).