Does anyone know why the US Championship qualifying fee ($75/event) was dropped for the tournaments that qualified the current Championship participants?
I believe every player that plays in an event for a qualification spot is now eligible to participate in the US Championship if they finish high enough but previously (at least for a couple of years) you had to pay a fee to be eligible to qualify.
I can see reasons for dropping the fee such as too costly or the chance of only a few people paying the fee therefore having a “lower” rated player qualify and the most obvious reason for having it must be the extra income to offset costs.
Also, do the tournaments that have qualifying spots pay a fee for that privilege that could go towards the cost of the US Championship itself or did someone (AF4C, USCF) just pick the tournaments in some way such as those with the biggest number of entrants?
I think part of the problem is that you can’t have a qualifying fee for a championship that hasn’t been officially announced. In fact, I haven’t seen an official announcement from AF4C that certain tournaments even were qualifiers. All we saw were statements by the USCF President Bill Goichberg. These statements promised a broader news item from AF4C in the near future–one that never came.
I would hope that the AF4C was in agreement with these statements by Bill Goichberg, but I doubt they were legally binding. Hopefully there will be some sort of 2006 US Championship organized by AF4C. One wonders what might happen if the USCF and AF4C can’t come to terms on the rumored controversial changes in the championship format.
This wasn’t part of the problem, as the first qualifier, the US Masters, actually charged the $75 fee; then AF4C decided to eliminate these fees. It may be relevant that at about the same time the fees were eliminated, they decided to have a $100,000 prize fund rather than $250,000.
AF4C posted nothing about the Championship on its website since the previous Championship, and made no announcements except for two I made which they authorized.
They were not binding, but when made, I believe AF4C intended to do what was announced. They moved very slowly in 2006, but in mid-December through early January 2007 finally seemed to be making progress, appointing an organizer, scheduling the final (online) qualifiers, setting a new approximate opening date, and preparing a proposal to send to USCF. This proposal was never sent as their main sponsor lost interest after viewing internet postings and apparently deciding they didn’t want to be associated with USCF.
As is well known by now, AF4C will not be part of the 2007 Championship, however its President Erik Anderson is donating $25,000 to USCF which might be used as part of the Championship prize fund.