I am used to steep entry fees in US chess tournaments, but this one really made my day today.
I am referring to 2nd Annual Washington International Tournament held by Maryland Chess Association.
I quote from their web page:
A-Section Entrance Fees
GMs, non-US IMs, or FIDE above 2500 - Free
Non-US FIDE rated, US IMs and WGMs, or FIDE above 2399 - $199
FIDE above 2299 - $299
FIDE above 2199 - $349
FIDE between 2100 and 2199 - $399
FIDE below 2100 and USCF above 2200 - $599
FIDE below 2100 and USCF of 2200 - $799
$50 discount on all entrance fees if staying at the Hilton
$50 discount for all players born before 8/6/1963
$25 discount for all FMs, WFMs, WIMs, and non-US WGMs
All $25 more after 6/6/2013
All $35 more after 7/21/2013
All $45 more after 8/3/2013
All $70 more at-the-door
I especially liked the :
FIDE below 2100 and USCF above 2200 - $599
FIDE below 2100 and USCF of 2200 - $799
I am guessing those are designed to weed out folks like me: (not rated FIDE and USCF over 2200).
I wonder what other organizers think. Is that highest entry fee ever charged for someone to play 9 rounds of chess?
Some years back there was a US Championship Round Robin with one master playing and providing a chunk of the prize fund. It may not have been nine rounds of chess, but I think he paid significantly more than $799. I think he lost every game but put up tougher fights than people had initially expected.
More recently there was a year with ratings-based entry fees into the US Championship Swiss, and I thought the lower-rated levels were also significantly more than $799.
This is a completely different type of tournament. This is not your standard open Swiss. From my take this is a title norm tournament where there are heavy costs for the organizers and for each lower rated player there are consequences for it such as a lower average rating for opponent for a norm seeker which generally needs to be balanced out (in theory) with a much higher rated player.
I don’t see anything wrong with this model for THIS type of tournament.
Yes it is to discourage those rated lower than 2200 to a degree but also to help compensate for costs as well.
Oh, yes, we must discourage American masters and candidate masters from playing in tournaments. They so get in the way of running events for those striving for a diluted title. At $599, the organizers will have no problem keeping the hoi polloi out. Those people have such a bad habit of taking rating points and hurting the norm chances of the affluent aspirants. Heaven forbid that someone plays for the challenge and to improve their play by playing strong opposition. No, those people are dangerous. They should stay in their own neighborhood. Redline them with high entry fees.
I think the high entry fee is to discourage players rated under 2100 FIDE from playing (to help norm opportunities) but to maintain USCF Grand Prix eligibility.
See these posts about last year’s Washington International.
This is not your typical tournament. It has a specific reason for it which is to offer norm opportunities. Norm opportunities have specific requirements to meet and that is what the organizers are attempting to do.
If American masters and candidate masters (or you) are dissatisfied with the design of the event they have two options - don’t pay the higher entry fees thus voting with their feet in regards to the tournament, and/or go organize a norm event yourself to give the opportunity.
I can think of perhaps a third option for the American masters and candidate masters that want to play but can’t afford the entry fee that only the ‘affluent aspirants’ can - find local sponsors to pay for their entry fee. Why is it always up to the organizer to find a way to subsidize? Why can’t the players or those in the local community that want to see their players participate find ways to pay for the entry fee?
And the title of this thread is misleading - this isn’t to do with entry fees for a FIDE rated section. It’s more about entry fees for a FIDE Title Norm opportunity. There is a world of difference.
Klaus is right that the high entrance fees are there to keep the tournament eligible for Grand Prix points while discouraging players with FIDE ratings less than 2100 from playing in the A section. If they do decide to play, the extra entrance fee money can be used to bring in more high rated players. A major goal of the tournament is to provide players a chance to earn norms. Players without FIDE ratings or with low FIDE ratings can prevent a player from earning a norm. While you can play one low rated or unrated player, two of them makes it extremely hard to earn a norm. Last year I advertised that players rated under 2100 FIDE could not play. This meant that some masters would not be allowed to play and thus the tournament should not have qualified for grand prix points. This year I thought about giving up on on the grand prix but instead I adopted the current EF structure as a compromise.
This year we also have a B section where anyone under 2201 USCF can play that will be FIDE rated. So, this year the tournament is much more inclusive than last year’s tournament. I did allow a few under 2100 FIDE players to play last year and that was one of the few things people didn’t like about last year’s event.
Overall, the entrance fees are lower this year, the prize fund is significantly larger for the lower rated players, there is a B section, and there’s a $50 discount for players over 50. Overall, I’m trying to encourage as many people as possible to play in a European type event. I really don’t think anyone should be offended by there being an effective minimum rating to play in the A section.
This is very true. NM (now FM) Tyler Hughes just missed out on an IM norm at the 2009 US Championships as one of his opponents, although rated over 2300 USCF, was unrated FIDE. Since he got credit for only beating a 2100 for norm purposes, he just missed the 2450 performance threshold. If the game had been completely thrown out his performance would have been higher than 2450, but then he would have less than nine games (therefore no norm).
One option would be to make a tournament ten or eleven rounds, that way wins against low-rated players could be thrown out when considering norms (I believe that’s still the rule for FIDE norms). With “only” nine rounds, wins against unrated or low-rated players cannot be removed, which lowers the average opponent rating for norm-seekers.
Barring making the tournament ten or eleven rounds, which would pose problems of their own, I think Mike’s choice to make high entry fees for low rated FIDE players is best since he is trying to provide norm opportunities and the TLA does meet the requirements of the USCF Grand Prix. Certainly one can argue to change the rules for the Grand Prix (such as putting a ceiling on the entry fee of an event) but such a decision should not be made ex post facto.
That scenario doesn’t work unless the two lower rated games came at the very end (rounds 10 and/or 11) and that’s assuming that the norm was scored in the first 9 rounds.
If the norm was scored in the first 9 rounds (all conditions and score was met) then games after that can be discounted.
“1.42e
A player may ignore his game(s) against any opponents he has defeated, provided he has met the required mix of opponents, and provided that this leaves him with at least the minimum number of games as in 1.41, against the required mix of opponents. Nonetheless, the full cross-table of the event must be submitted.”
I read this to mean that this could be in any round, not just round 10 or 11.
What you are describing is:
1.42f
A player who has achieved a title result, before the last round may ignore all games played subsequently, provided
(a) he has met the required mix of opponents
(b) this leaves him with at least the minimum number of games as in 1.41.
(c) the full requirements would be met for the complete tournament.
I beleive this is not a European style event. European festival events ( I played in Biel for example, so I know quite a bit about them) are typically have corporate or other sponsorship and very reasonable entry fees. They are also reasonable top prizes but not huge prizes.
Prizes for amatures and lower master are pretty low. Typically leasure rate of 1 game per day.
Basically, the idea is to encourage partipation, have amatures play along the Grandmasters and have fun. For GMs it is an opportunity to win some money while typically have their expenses covered by organizers.
With encouraged partipation and with many titled players from different federations, norms are typically possible.
Getting players from multiple federations is easy, since there are many countries within reasonable distance from each other and there are economical commute options. Amatures In Europe like those kind of the events, they have a lot of vacations days that they need to spend anyway, they can play one game against GM in the round one and be happy if they can last 30+ moves.
US style events are on the contrary, kind of lottery style events, high fees, very high top prizes, compacted to 2 rounds per day, 3-4-5 per event. It is typically an opportunity for some good and lucky player to hit the jackpot. Norm are difficult, due to travel and other expenses for foreing titled player.
For a working folk like myself it is an opportunity to spend a weekend playing chess without taking many days off, when every vacation day is so valuable. American amature players typically do not care about seeing how GMs play or play against them. They are here for a chance to win money in amature events.
The only thing that both style events (IMHO!) have in common is that they try to encorage participation by appealing to one or another national mentality.
Mike Regan’s event IMHO discourages partipation in favor of encreased norm opportunities.
Time will show, but again IMHO any event that discourages participation is not sustainable financially or otherwise.
I check last year results and from I can see there were 55 players of those 13 (maybe more) were eligible for “no entry fees”. (Compare this to an open event in Biel, 2012 to see the difference) There were also some lower rated players, some of those will not be playing.
I suspect Mr. Regan is going to have less paying players this year, but there will be one or two norms achieved.
Good luck to you, Mr. Regan, but I will stay home…
No, the point of this tournament is to make available title norm opportunities. Title norms are subject to very stringent requirements on the nationalities of opponents, the average rating of opponents, and the number of titled opponents. With a “y’all come” approach, it is all but guaranteed that these requirements will not be met. There is indeed a recent example of a player whose performance in a nine-round Swiss was good enough to have earned the player a GM norm, except that player had only faced two GMs (and had to have faced three GM opponents to qualify for the norm). In that particular tournament, most of the GMs had a poor start.
Mikhail,
I’m confused as to what you are complaining about. Yes, we have a different culture and geography than Europe. Given those constraints we try to work with what we have. When I talk about Europe-like conditions, I’m referring to things like providing all the equipment for the players, Continental breakfasts, pairings posted early, and the last three rounds at one round per day.
Are you proposing a 9-round tournament with low entrance fees and low prizes with no minimum rating to play? How would that give players any chance to earn a norm or even know that they’ll get some games against high rated players?
I run plenty of weekend tournaments but this is not what the Washington International is. Yes, the entrance fee is higher than a European tournament with a large sponsor. It is still, on average, less than the World Open and we provide much better conditions just not the chance for class players to win the lottery. There clearly is a market for the types of tournaments that CCA runs. I’m trying to see if there is a market for a different kind of tournament. Time will tell if this works.
Yes, this tournament is not the best for players with USCF over 2200 but low or no FIDE rating. But every tournament can’t be for everyone. For example, I don’t like fast time controls but my solution is to not play in tournaments with fast time controls.
Klaus - you are correct in your interpretation of 1.42e.
I’m discounting 1.42e because of the likelihood of it actually occurring naturally in a tournament. There are so many conditions that have to be met, that aside from lottery level luck or pairing manipulation it wouldn’t happen.
You’d have to have met the proper mix of federations (assuming 1.43e wasn’t met), overall # title holders, # of title holders of the kind you are seeking (so playing at least 3 IM’s for the IM title or 2 GM’s, or 3 GM’s for the GM title, etc), AND then having the requisite score based on the ARO of the remaining 9 opponents. And that assumes the seeker also defeated the unrated / lower rated players that you are trying to have their result thrown out otherwise if it’s a draw or a loss it can’t be thrown out.
Looks to me like he actually is encouraging participation, just not from among the same pool of players you would prefer. He, and those who choose to participate, have a different goal for this event than you would.
Whether it’s financially viable is his problem, but whether it is nor not, I’d like to see us support folks who are trying to make good things happen for chess, rather than sitting back and taking pot shots at them. When the targets of those comments get tired of it, they won’t conform, they’ll just quit.
And once again, if you don’t like the conditions of the event, you don’t have to play it in. It’s not like Mike is forcing anyone to come and play. Organize one yourself with the conditions that you like. Or find a benefactor or group of benefactors to pay for the entry fee.
I once had a player that could not afford an entry fee to a title norm tournament. He knew what the EF was for his rating ($400). The player was a strong expert strength player (USCF) but his FIDE rating was low. He found 4 class players that he had played before in his local community and asked $100 from each one. He promised to give them analysis / annotations of all of the games and get them into a group and review each of the games during a 6 hour session.
He offered something up, instead of just having his hand out, and people were receptive to it. Would be nice if more people did things like that.
That is not necessarily the aim of every open tournament, even a festival event. The top section of this particular tournament is specifically geared toward offering FIDE norm opportunities. To do this, the field must be sufficiently strong, rating-wise, that the average rating requirement for norm performance is not put at risk. It appears to me that Mr. Regan’s EF structure is designed to ensure that.
Also, please note that norms are not as difficult to obtain in Europe as they are in the US. So an organizer who wants to put together a norm-friendly US Swiss has to address the possibility of low-rated players diluting the average rating of a norm-seeker’s field. There are really two ways to do this: charge a premium entry, or don’t allow them to play. You can also do a combination (like the Berkeley International - limit the number of, say, U2200 players and charge them a higher EF).
But not always - especially in an open event, if too many underrated players play up into the top section.
I’m not sure how this characterization came to mind. However, it is false. I’ve directed many US events where amateurs play up into sections where they have no realistic chance of winning money. They obviously do this for the challenge. There’s nothing wrong with this - except, of course, for the fact that their very presence may endanger a norm-seeker who is paired against them, because their rating is so low that it dilutes the average rating of the field the norm-seeker plays.
IMHO, this is also just not true. Strong players want to play in strong events with good conditions. It seems to me that Mr. Regan is trying to follow a trusted (but difficult-to-sustain) formula - give top players a nice venue, strong competition and some amenities, and they’ll come play. I think he should be applauded for this - there’s certainly a good deal of financial risk the organizer of any such event assumes, especially when you change a format. He’s betting that this change will work. It’s a pretty reasonable bet.
Mr. Regan’s event does NOT discourage participation. There are rating-appropriate sections for any player who wishes to play the Washington International. The “A” section is not rating-appropriate for amateur players below a certain rating level. Again, this is in part because one of the organizer’s stated purposes for this tournament is to help generate title norms. So, if a player wishes to throw himself into such a section, he can pay for the privilege.
Those lower-rated players can (a) pay the premium to play in the top section, (b) play in a more rating-appropriate section, or (c) choose not to play. In any event, they’re not being told they can’t play.
Keep in mind that, if Mr. Regan REALLY wanted to discourage participation, he could simply restrict the “A” section to players rated above a certain level. This is neither new (Lone Pine series) or uncommon (many events, including CCA’s Philadelphia International, charge a premium to lower-rated players, though admittedly not as steep as the Washington International’s premium).
This is, of course, the right of any player. I think he will have some success drawing players interested in fighting for norms, but not wanting to play “throwaway games”. IMHO, there hasn’t been a regular Swiss event in this country with a top section so focused on top-to-bottom strength since the now-defunct New York Open. Personally, I hope he succeeds wildly in drawing a top-notch field.
We could use more organizers like Mike Regan, and I hope players consider that when deciding whether to support his events.
My complain is very simple, I find the entry fee of 600 Washingtons to play in Washington International to be way over the top, but I agree this can be a matter of opinion.
I am all in favor of European tournaments, I played in them and I liked them. For example Gibraltar Open is a great event.
Can it be emulated?
I just do not agree that hard-core chess players (those masters and candidate masters, who worked hard to get there) should be subsidising those events.
I challenge all of those who came to defend entry fee structure of Mr. Regan to actually vote with your own money and play in his A tournament. I believe NONE of you will, but I was proven wrong before. I am sure your 600 - 800 Washingtons will be very welcome and put to a good use.
Now, I personally hope this model is not going to succeed and most importantly that there will be no copycats.
This is my last message on this topic. Feel free to voice your (dis)agreement, I just do not have time and desire to debate this any longer.
Mikhail,
I don’t think you understand. If I get zero entries from people paying $600 or $800, I won’t be disappointed. Anything above zero would be more than I expect.
It is unfortunate that your given your USCF rating, you don’t yet have a FIDE rating. This tournament is structured for players who need play FIDE rated players to accomplish their goals. Once you get a FIDE rating, the entrance fees become a lot more reasonable.