Cannon Fodder Discount !?

Running Chess Tournaments
1

Greetings from Asheboro,

I have given the idea of offering discounts to certain people
(such as scholastic players) a lot of thought. During the thought
process, I’ve come back time and time again to the CORE problem
at our tournament:

Often, lower rated players are forced to play someone they have no
chance of beating. This is especially true of younger players.

Here is my new idea: A “Cannon Fodder” discount.

Our tournament charges a $25.00 entry fee. My idea is to give a $5.00
per game discount for players who are completely overmatched. This
would NOT apply to those who “choose” to play up.

For example: We have a 900 player show up, and the next lowest rated
player is 1403. He would get a discount totaling $15.00, paying just $10.00 to participate in three rounds.

Important points about my proposed Cannon Fodder Discount:

  1. Discount is per game, so one might get overmatched in just one
    game, or in two, or in all three.

  2. Discount would not apply to anyone who qualifies or chooses to play
    in our Championship Section (top section). This section is for 1700 &
    Up. It would apply to anyone below 1700 forced to play in our
    top section due to no other sections being available.

  3. Discount would not apply to anyone winning any type of prize.

I have not decided whether to give an immediate cash discount, or credit toward a future tournament. Credit toward a future tournament would
help encourage people to return, so I am favoring that method.

Also, what should the point spread be to qualify? I’m thinking 300 points or more might be the right idea.

I might also need a better name than Cannon Fodder Discount. Perhaps
Unfortunate Pairing Credit? Ideas are appreciated.

I don’t think this would have the effect of undercutting my prize fund much. My intention is to lure back or recruit lower rated players who
don’t like paying with no legitimate chance of winning.

The concept seems extremely FAIR to me, and I don’t see that there could be many objections.

What do you guys think? I sincerely appreciate your opinions and ideas!

Sincere Thanks,

Tom Hales, Organizer

The Asheboro Open

2

I’m not sure how that would work, as I don’t understand the difference between cannon fodder and playing up, as you have defined them.

Also, I’m not sure I like the idea of an event where I don’t know whether or not I make a profit until after the pairings are done for at least the first few rounds. However, that probably means I wouldn’t do it, not that someone else shouldn’t try it.

I think I prefer just setting the entry fee based on the rating, an idea that has been proposed before but I don’t know if anyone has used much.

3

We have a similar “cannon fodder” problem at our community chess club events. What we’ve decided to do in future club events is go with accelerated pairings even when the number of rounds would not require them for the number of players involved. That way the 1400s can be paired down in round one instead of facing experts and the 700s can play 1100s instead of 1500s.

For our club events there is no entry fee and only a trophy to the winner (and to the top junior in our club championship tournament). The annual dues more than covers the cost of the trophies and rating fees and the TDs are playing TDs that are working for free.

A player that is truly stronger than the USCF rating might indicate would get easier round one and two pairings, but after that is paired with the group that the player should be paired with. A lower-rated player that is rated correctly ends up avoiding the round one crunching that you would like to see the player avoid.

One thing that makes me leery of a discount for a specific rating range spread is that some of the lower-rated players may be lower rated because their ratings are old, and thus you may be giving a discount to a player that is actually much stronger than you might think.
Our club belongs to a chess league (league-rated but not USCF-rated) and last year saw some of the players that were active in the league finally play in some tournaments and have their performances match their league ratings, which were multiple classes above their very old USCF ratings.
In Illinois you also see many players reach high school and stop playing USCF tournaments even though they play in the high school competitions. When they graduate and return to active USCF play it usually takes a little while for their USCF rating to increase the hundreds of points that are needed to match their high school association rating. High school players that remain active in the USCF often have both ratings within a few dozen points of each other.

4

Hi Nolan,

Playing up would mean choosing to play in the Championship (OPEN) Section, even though you don’t qualify based on rating.

I don’t believe it would be possible to not make money, since for every
discounted round there would defacto have to be a full entry.

What I am attempting to do is twofold:

  1. To eliminate the injustice of a player being paired against those they
    have little to no chance of beating (due to a small turnout, for instance)

  2. To encourage lower rated players to attend, and especially to help
    parents who want to bring their chess playing kids. If these kids get
    reasonable pairings, they will still receive no discount.

As turnout among lower rated players increases, those qualifying for a
discount would decrease.

I have talked to two people so far who love the idea. One is the parent of a 700 rated player who stopped coming since his child had no realistic
chance of success. To him, that rebate of $15.00 would buy their gas and
food for the day. The $10.00 our tournament gains only increases the prize fund for those with a realistic chance of winning.

This discount will be need-based, to correct an unfortunate pairing
situation. I have already decided that credit toward future tournaments
would not have the same impact, and would be harder to manage.

In the past, I think a lot of players below 1400 have tended to avoid our
tournament. If there is only one section, they have zero chance of winning. So they don’t come back–and next month we still have just one
section.

Well, these are some of my thoughts. I hope I haven’t been too long-winded.

Sincerely,

Tom Hales, Organizer

The Asheboro Open

5

I’m not understanding your problem.

You say that you have “a lot” of players under 1400 who avoid the tournament, and at the same time, you say that you have to run a single section since no U1400 show up. If you actually have that many players, just make the U1400 section EF $10 instead of $25. If you don’t have that many players, then it is a moot issue.

However, you are expected to have a “hopeless” matchup for your first few rounds in most tournaments unless you are up at the top of the rating for that group. You would be giving a lot of 300 point differential discounts in the first round for a 1705 playing a 2025, etc.

Rob

6

I’ve always considered it a privilege to play somebody much higher rated. I still remember my first game against a master (nearly 30 years ago!), the opening I played, the result of the game, etc.

This is the kind of match-up players SHOULD be asking for. It’s their best chance to learn, gain rating points, have a memorable game, etc. Giving them a discount sends EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE MESSAGE!

These days my only chance to play somebody that much higher rated is if I PAY somebody to play me (though hopefully I’ll get lucky at the US Open).

7

Greetings from Asheboro!

Some explanation might be in order to make my situation more clear.

The Asheboro Open has a slightly different format than most Swiss tournaments. We use a system I call “smart sections.” The goal of
smart sections is to allow flexibility in a smaller Swiss tournament.

There are some fundamental beliefs we subscribe to here, which make
some solutions off limits.

First, and foremost, is that all players are created equal. If we have
two sections, the prize WILL be the same for both sections. In other words, prizes will be equalized among sections.

I have seen and attended tournaments where there is a top section of 10 players, and a second section of four players. The organizer paid a top section prize based on 10 entries, and based the other prize on 4 entries.
Our philosophy in Asheboro would be to base each section on 7 entries.

That being said, we have a cutoff of 16 players in order to have two sections. I am considering lowering this cutoff to 14 players, divided 8-6 or 6-8 depending on ratings. That would help our situation some. If we have two sections, it will help avoid some pairing absurdities.

The reason we set our cutoff for two sections at 16 players was to keep prize funds high for top players. Technically, a tournament with 12 people could be divided into three sections of 4 people, and become a round robin. I believe that small sections=low prizes=low turnout. I have seen this before in other tournaments, and I’m trying to avoid that in Asheboro.

Our last tournament had 13 paying players, and two house players. My assistant, John Davis, served as house player in round one, while I served as house player in rounds two and three. The prize fund was as follows: $150.00 1st place, $75.00 2nd place, and a $25.00 class prize. About half of the players in this one and only Championship Section had a legitimate chance of winning. In fact, three were former winners. Second place was also very much up for grabs.

Then there was the one entry that bothered me, a 1076 player. He was about 12 or so, and his father brought him to play. The next lowest player was rated 1516. He got crushed in three games, of course. Did he really learn from these games? I doubt it. When someone is rated that much higher than you, you often can’t even figure out why they beat you except “I dropped a piece.” Why they dropped the piece (their positional errors) is beyond their comprehension.

I enjoy playing up, but if I enter a tournament where everyone is 500 points higher than myself–that enjoyment may quickly turn to frustration.
I don’t think most higher rated players like playing down either–since they have little to gain and a lot to lose.

The ideal at The Asheboro Open is to have at least 3 sections, but we have not often accomplished that.

When there is only one section in a tournament, that favors the highest rated players. Two sections will tend to favor the high and medium ratings. Even with three sections, it is hard to address the needs of 1000 rated players.

For a lot of parents, cost is an issue for their kids participating in tournaments. Heck, this is an issue for a lot of adults as well! Everyone wants to feel like they get an fair deal.

I’m hoping that by offering a discount to folks when they get completely overmatched, it will make more lower rated people feel like participating. As more lower rated players participate, they will face each other making discounts less and less necessary.

We could advertise a cheaper under 1400 section, but that would mean the under 1400 folks would not be eligible for the same prize money (otherwise it’s unfair). Since the equalization of prizes is a cornerstone of our philosophy, that wouldn’t work for us.

An important part of this discount idea is that anyone who qualifies for our Championship Section (meant for 1700 & up) does not qualify for a discount. Why? They know going into the tournament that they will be potentially paired against 2000+ players. They are in the section they showed up for.

Other players, however, must make the trip “on spec” not knowing if there will even be enough players to make more than one section, thereby giving them a reasonable chance of winning. As ratings go down, this becomes more and more of a problem.

So this is the idea behind the “cannon fodder” discount, to help address some of the unfortunate realities of smaller weekend Swiss tournaments, and hopefully work toward correcting the problem (lack of lower rated players).

Will it work? I don’t know, but we’re seriously considering giving it a try.
I’ve plugged this formula into The Asheboro Open 1-12, and it never results in a problem. In fact, I have recognized more and more how we went from 45 players at TAO I, to 15 players at TAO XII. We are losing
more of the lower ranked players than any.

My apologies for being so long winded–but I thought some explanations were in order.

Sincerely,

Tom Hales, Organizer

The Asheboro Open

8

I’ve always wondered if having “performance” prizes would give incentive for folks who otherwise would have no chance of winning a section. Basically, calculate (performance - current) for each player, and give prizes to the top 1,2 or whatever fits the number of entries. You would have to do the performance calculation, but presumably there’s a formula for that somewhere. It doesn’t work for no losses or no wins as I recall, but those folks are going to be either winning a normal prize or not in competition anyway.

Any numbers on the reliability of ratings versus rating?

9

I think both WinTD and SwisSys can do a post-event performance rating calculation, but I don’t know how well they handle unrated players. (The actual ratings formula uses a multi-stage process to estimate the rating of unrated players and then compute a preliminary post-event rating for everyone before computing the final post-event ratings.)

Also, the performance rating is only going to be as good as the pre-event rating data you have. If you have rapidly improving players whose published rating is too low compared to their current strength, that will affect the performance ratings of the people who play them. This might be one time when using the latest ratings from MSA would have some merit, though those can also be somewhat out of date depending on how many events your players have been in that haven’t been rated yet.

With the ability to rate events within an hour or so, it might almost be feasible to use the preliminary (pre-rerate) ratings from an event for some prize purposes.

10

I think you’re trying to solve the wrong problem. If you make the tournament experience all about the chance of winning a monetary prize, you will continue to lose players at the bottom of the ratings. Even if you split the tournament into two sections, the bottom 1/4 of the players still have little chance to win a prize. (as players at the bottom drop out, that bottom 1/4 will gradually move up in ratings until you get to the point that nobody below 1500 is playing in your events – where you are now). The only tournaments that can consistently revolve around the prize fund and EF money are the big money class tournaments.

If your tournaments are about giving players a chance to improve then you won’t have any trouble keeping the lower-rated players (of course, they won’t STAY lower rated). The incentive for a higher rated player is the chance at winning a prize. The incentive for a lower rated player is the chance to play someone better and improve.

Your player rated 1076 should be thrilled to play several games against players rated 500 - 700 (or more) points higher. Most B- and C-class players would be happy to spend as much time with him as he would like after the game (especially if the game ended quickly and there’s a lot of time until the next round). I’d have to pay as much as $50 an hour to get a 700 points higher rated player to go over my games with me! (maybe more if I insisted on lessons in person) BTW if your B- and C-class players AREN’T willing to spend much time with him, then THIS is the problem you ought to be working on. Try to encourage an attitude of “noblesse oblige” on the part of the higher rated players.

People are funny, sometimes. They will think that something is worth whatever it is that they have to pay for it. If you have them pay less for games against 500 point higher rated opponents, they will place a lower value on those games. I almost think you’d be better off charging them a premium for playing somebody that much better. These are their best chances (at a tournament) to improve their skill and their rating! DON’T ENCOURAGE THEM TO PLACE A LOWER VALUE ON THIS EXPERIENCE.

If you feel that you have to give all the player’s a chance at a prize, then I recommend a “performance - rating” prize like Charles Allen mentioned. I think the “discount for tough games” is as wrong an approach as you can get.

11

I think that you are caught between a rock and a hard place.

If equalization of prizes is a cornerstone of your philosophy, then you have an uphill battle. It is hard to attract the top rated players without their prize fund being subsidized by the lower rated players. I have NEVER gone into a tournament expecting to win money. I have gone in to play chess. I agree with the statement about playing higher rated players: I learn a lot more from a loss than a win. Plus, I still vividly remember the one time I beat an expert. (The tournament had some G/45 and some G/90; he thought we had shifted to the G/90 and used a lot of time in the opening. BUT I STILL WON!)

I think that you are on the right track to try to make it cheaper for the scholastic players and the weaker players. But it still seems like a “test” of a cheaper section would be a better way.

However, it is your tournament, and I wish you luck.

Rob

12

The attitude that it’s somehow unfortunate to be paired way up (rating-wise) seems at least as prevalent among adult players as it is among children. I agree with the earlier comment that TDs should strive insofar as practical (and insofar as it doesn’t conflict with a TD’s other duties) to guide players away from such ill-informed and self-destructive attitudes, rather than acting as an “enabler” by simply accommodating them.

Why do we play in tournaments, anyway? If our only goal was to never suffer a loss, we could limit our play to events where we were the highest-rated entrant. If that proved impossible, then we could choose to play only informal games against friends we knew were weaker than ourselves.

At the adult level, getting paired way up can mean playing against a former World Championship candidate. For instance, someone I know once confessed he had offered a draw in a winning position in the penultimate round of such-and-such event, because, “If I won I’d get stuck with Kamsky.”

To my mind, getting “stuck with Kamsky” or another GM (or even an IM) is a privilege to be strived for, not a punishment to be avoided. Defeat at the hands of an elite adversary carries no loss of honor, self-esteem, or even rating points. In fact, you can win even by losing, if you give the GM a touch game.

What’s more, there is always the possibility (however remote) that you won’t lose, but will draw or even win – a bit of glory to share with your grandkids someday! For legions of weekend warriors like myself, that is the best shot we’ll ever have at achieving a sliver of immortality.

Last year, for instance, Chess Life published a game in which a Class B player beat Hikaru Nakamura in a blitz tournament. And here’s a game Chess Life published (April 2005) where a 14-year old with a 1192 rating (playing Black) beat someone rated 1933: 1. e4, c5; 2. Nf3, e6; 3. g3, Nc6; 4. Bg2, Nge7; 5. d3, g6; 6. Be3, Bg7; 7. c3, d6; 8. 0-0, 0-0; 9. Nh4, Rb8; 10. f4, b5; 11. Nd2, f5; 12. a3, a5; 13. Rc1, Ba6; 14. Ndf3, b4; 15. ab, ab; 16. Ng5, Qd7; 17. ef, ef; 18. Qb3+ c4! 19. Qa2 Bb5 20. dc, Ra8; 21. Qb3 Ba4; 22. Qa2, Bc2; 23. Qxa8, Rxa8; 24. Rxc2, bc; 25. bc, Ra4 26. c5 dc; 27. Rd2, Qa7; 28. Rd6, Ra6; 29. Rfd1 Ra1; 30. Bc1, c4 ch; 31. Kh1, Bxc3; 32. Nhf3 Bb4; 33. Rd7, Rxc1!; 34. Ne5, Qxd7!; 35. Rxc1, Nxe5; 36. Ne4, fxe4; 37. fxe5, c3; 38. Bxe4, Qd2; 0-1.