I’ve just always assumed that each section is its own entity in terms of prizes so if somebody is playing in two sections they could win a prize in each section.
Of course. I think Sloan was being facetious.
I don’t know of any organizer who would allow it, but what about the following:
A player pays 2 entry fees to play 2 games at the same time throughout an entire tournament. The idea is that since the player has paid 2 entries (without a reentry) that they are eligible to win 2 prizes. 
Best “Chess” Regards,
Larry S. Cohen
I agree, an organizer shouldn’t allow that. For one thing, a player could just pay 2 entry fees but still play only 1 game, and I certainly don’t think that should make him eligible for 2 prizes.
Or, if he did play 2 games every round, what if he had the only perfect score(s) going into the last round? Seemingly, he would have to be paired against himself. (With any luck, the colors would work. 
)
Bill Smythe
I don’t see anything wrong with that, as long as they are in different sections.
Alex Relyea
I’m not sure that’s what he had in mind. If a player were allowed to enter twice in the same section, I would think his two “identities” would have to stand on their own. Both would be paired. I suppose if some master went to a minor tournament with no real competition he might be able to get away with entering twice and winning 1st and 2nd, ability-wise. Of course, all the other players might drop out…
Only a sick mind would think of this. I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before.
So are we just talking about people playing multiple sections of the same tournament? Because when it comes to people playing in multiple tourneys at the same time, I can name plenty off the top of my head who do it all the time, myself included.
There are three different clubs here in southern Florida that hold “one game per week” or “two games per week” tournaments on different days of the week. Personally, I can only attend one of them regularly due to my work schedule, but I often take a bye in that tournament to go attend major weekend tournaments elsewhere. And I do know several players who attend more than one of those three clubs regularly, so they’re always involved in more than one tourney at once.
I think the original question dealt with playing multiple games at the same time. The most common way for this to occur would be to play in more than one section of a multi-section event.
As was noted, there aren’t clear rules as to when something should be advertised or submitted as a multi-section event and when it should be more than one separate event.
There used to be one chess cub that would send in all their tournament for a period of time (possibly an entire month) as one event, presumably to save a little on the ratings fee compared to submitting them as several independent events.
Aside from the fact that it delays when some of those games get factored into someone’s rating, one big disadvantage with that may be that it makes searching by event name harder.
It’s already hard enough to search for them due to a lack of consistency in event names. While this is nearly impossible to enforce on events submitted online by affiliates, even finding past USCF national events can be challenging because the same naming conventions haven’t been used over the years. (Try searching for all the US Opens since 1992 on MSA.)
This might be a touch off topic, although some players did play in more than one section, but in the recently concluded New England Open, we had a different chief TD running the scholastic sections. I submitted those as a separate tournament, under 68th New England Open Scholastic, as opposed to the main tournament which was submitted as 68th New England Open. BTW, I had one player in the three day event who finished his fifth round game early, so he filled in for me as a house player in the one day section for two of the rounds. He was apparently willing to play two games at the same time, but it never came to that.
Alex Relyea
That doesn’t seem to affect looking them up on MSA, so it sounds like a reasonable approach.
What difference does it make whether a player is playing in “multiple events” or “multiple sections”? Either way, he should be entitled to a full prize in each event (or section).
If he is playing twice in the same section, that’s another matter – he shouldn’t be eligible for two full prizes.
Bill Smythe