There’s no rule against teaching a female how to play, and then bringing her to an event as your partner. In fact, such an action would grow USCF in general, grow your local playing pool in particular, and make you eligible for mixed doubles prizes. As an added potential benefit, your own game might improve as a result of teaching another player. (Worked for me, anyway.)
In any event, players who do not have a mixed doubles partner are not being “penalized”.
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Actually, Boyd, i do teach but dropping 100 bucks on a students’ entry fee in these big-money events isn’t really an attractive option when they are just starting out.
I’d guess that most of these events have class-based sections where a student with a three-digit rating can still compete with similar or better chances (of scoring points) as an 1825 player in the class A section.
In one tournament one of my students was asked by a titled player to be his partner. If he had played better, they might have won more money rather than tying for 1st. When her mother told me that the GM had asked her daughter to play, I could only think of the words the knight in the Indiana Jones film said, “He chose wisely.”
At a Chicago Open, two of my young students, who are brothers, luckily managed to pick the right girls as partners. They two teams tied for 1st and 2nd for the mixed doubles prizes. All of the players were under 1200 in rating. Every time I look at who won this type of prize, the vast majority are low rated young players. Older players with well established rating plateaus in the middling range and high rated women playing in open sections rarely do well enough in their sections to have a chance at winning the mixed doubles prizes. Up and coming kids, especially if they are siblings, playing in different sections, have the best chances of success.
“Unfair”? Since when is the any pretense about chess tournaments being anything close to “fair” in their redistribution of entry fees into prizes for the various rating brackets? Answer is - Never. So although the fairness argument is legitimate, you cannot argue that fairness matters only in this particular case of unfairness.
I recall reading a long-winded screed on this topic by a Canadian IM. I wonder if grandmasters think international masters deserve to be paid? As for the overall topic…Why worry about what others are eligible for? Just go and play. Or don’t.
The main goals of chess tournaments are to a. at least cover expenses, if not return a sizable profit to the organizer, b. encourage by the prize structure as many as possible to attend, and c. to ensure most have an enjoyable time so they are likely to return to the event in the future. Trying to satisfy each and every player’s perception of what ‘fairness’ constitutes is not generally a primary concern.
Secondly, Boyd Reed is misquoted here. Looks like a typical political misquote, taking part of a sentence out of context. Clearly, what Mr. Reed stated is that there is no additional cost to register for mixed doubles. That this feature is merely an attempt by the organizer to make the event more enjoyable, and perhaps players more likely to attend frequently.
This is the long-standing argument I had with a WIM at a local tournament who hated the idea of class prizes insisting the only ‘fair’ thing to do was have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards. She never seemed to grasp the concept that by awarding class prizes that far more people play, which greatly adds to the amount “bumped” to the top, and
helps the organizer to remain in the black increasing the likelihood of future events.
That’s a deal! We’ve just officially made this a productive forum thread.
Dial it back even a little bit further. Start by inviting a woman you know to your local club. Or offer to teach a “chess for women” class at your local community center. Or figure out how to get girls to stay in the game past fifth grade.
The mixed-doubles prizes are a good idea (and I sometimes provide more points to the team than my higher-rated male teammates); however, it won’t be what brings more women to the game in the first place. What it does, perhaps, is to motivate more of us women to go to more CCA tournaments. Maybe when I look around the room I now see a few more women and girls than I used to.
This is exactly right. You can never please everyone. Most of the time the goal is to please as many players as possible.
And I still contend that if a vote/poll were taken when each player signed up, for most tournaments a larger percentage of players would vote for no Mixed Doubles if it meant a larger prize fund. (Again, close to 90% of males will always be out of luck in finding a partner, no matter how hard they try, based upon the typical male to female ratio.)
If enough males are so unhappy with not being able to find/recruit a female partner, to the point where they stop playing in the tournament completely, this is cause for concern. If an organizer/TD sees their overall attendance dropping, they most certainly would like to know the reason why. Without knowing what the “problem” is, how can they even begin to “fix” it?
For this reason, all organizers/TDs should always encourage all players to voice their concerns and opinions and ideas on what they think is ideal, whether it’s the time of day the rounds start, the time control used, the prize structure, etc. For example, it’s certainly possible that a very large percentage of players would prefer an earlier start time on Sunday, but simply aren’t voicing their idea and letting anyone know about it.
That’s all I’ve done here (voiced my opinion) in this forum, regarding Mixed Doubles, and several responses were “Well then, don’t enter if you’re not happy” or “Quit your whining.” Every organizer/TD here should be thanking me for taking the time to share my suggestion, and then kindly let me know the reasons why they feel Mixed Doubles is working, rather than simply telling me not to enter. One response to me was so rude the moderators later deleted it. Too funny.
There have been a couple of responses that mention the idea of recruiting females before the tournament starts, teaching them the game, getting your wife or girlfriend to play, etc. That’s a perfectly good suggestion. Thank you. However, the reality is, for most guys I think, that simply won’t work. Maybe I’m just hanging out with the wrong females, but the ones I know simply aren’t interested in all in learning how to play chess, let ALONE wanting to enter and compete in a chess tournament. And all my convincing in the world won’t change their minds. I’d have an easier time convincing a MALE buddy to join a chess tournament for the first time, providing that we could be on a Doubles team together.
Finally, I’m also not yet convinced Mixed Doubles is bringing in any extra females at all, despite that being the main goal. (Although it’s possible that’s to be expected, initially. Mixed doubles is still relatively new.) Looking at the list of names from several tournaments that didn’t offer a mixed doubles prize, compared to the ones that did, I see the same male to female ratio in each.
I applaud you for sharing your opinion. That said, I think you’re totally off base. It is unlikely that many players avoid playing in events because there is a mixed doubles prize (if you have evidence to the contrary, please share it), it is likely that at least some players do play because it exists, and even if it’s totally neutral it does raise some interest level. The delegates, myself included, overwhelmingly endorsed and encouraged mixed doubles. Your views have been heard. I haven’t seen much to suggest that the organizers who currently employ this prize are likely to heed your call. However, since 95% of all events don’t have them, there are plenty of options for players who want to avoid them.
And this has been my point all along. The most effective way to respond is to vote with your pocket book - or to organize your own events with a prize structure you like. Neither of those is meant to be a snide comment at all. I have frequently told parents at scholastic events that if they did not like something about the structure of the event for them to consider doing their own. They might find a market niche that was not being served. One group did just that and has had a series for decently successful events. That was good for everyone.
Beautiful. Had an organizer run a scholastic for over 200 players recently, and only charge a $ 5-10 entry fee. Now, anyway you
slice it, that kind of entry fee does not purchase much in the way of trophies-- at least not the quantity that is the standard in events that charge at least 3x EF. One coach spent the day screaming at my friend who was chief TD because there were not as many trophies. Now the guy also complained at other events that they were too expensive. i think some are born unhappy.
Excellent. I’ll gladly take you up on that. Woohoo! Productivity!
I’m relatively new on the chess scene, but I’ve always been mystified why there aren’t more women at the top. There are very few sports where women can compete with men on equal footing, so it’s rather astonishing that the higher end is so totally male dominated in chess.
I’ve been in the same boat as Mr. Collins in being unable to find a partner, but I’ve never even thought that the prize was a bad idea. Perhaps there’s another alternative that events could try in addition that would help promote entries and include more participants in the prize eligiblity.
