# "Based on" advertising **URL:** \ **Category:** Running Chess Tournaments\ **Created:** [January 4, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711 "2010-01-04T03:00:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Steve\_Immitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Steve\_Immitt](https://forum.uschess.org/u/Steve_Immitt)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/21 "2010-01-07T03:50:44Z")
> [@anjiaoshi](#): > > I’m simply inquiring why advertising that there will be prizes, while not specifying their exact amounts, is forbidden in TLAs. It’s actually not forbidden at all. You just can’t have a Grand Prix tournament with those conditions (at least in theory you can’t, but in practice you can really advertise just about anything at least once). But for a non-Grand Prix, you can say something like “prizes per entries” or even “everyone wins a prize!” ---
**Author:** ![rfeditor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aca169/32.png) [@rfeditor](https://forum.uschess.org/u/rfeditor)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/22 "2010-01-07T03:52:51Z")
> [@anjiaoshi](#): > > > [@Steve\_Immitt](#): > > > > > [@anjiaoshi](#): > > > > > > > [@Fromper](#): > > > > > > > > > [@anjiaoshi](#): > > > > > > > > > > The Boylston Chess Club runs [events](http://boylstonchessclub.org/Upcoming_BCC_Events.html#36) “based on entries” – no fixed number of either dollars or entrants. The club’s chief TD, Bernardo Iglesias, shared with me the formula that the club uses; it strikes me as perfectly fair, and yet there doesn’t appear to be any way to massage it into a form that would pass muster in a TLA, because it doesn’t guarantee any specific prize amount under any specific condition. Have greedy and dishonest organizers been such a problem in the past that this restrictiveness is necessary? > > > > > > > > Do you mean something like “90% of entry fees given back as prizes”? Just stating that, with percentage of money for each place, should convey the message without committing to a specific number of players or quantity of cash. > > > > > > No, the BCC doesn’t use a fixed percentage, either. It subtracts a flat TD fee, a club fee based on the number of entrants, and the USCF rating fees, then divvies up whatever’s left into a prize fund. The fund ends up being somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of total entry fees, but it floats. > > > > Some players might not want to travel to some far-away place, like Miami, for example, if they weren’t sure that there was going to be a minimum guaranteed prize amount that they could win. > > Understandable, but isn’t that the sort of thing The Market™ can sort out? Wouldn’t anyone who had such qualms simply choose not to make the trip based on the less precise TLA? > > Mind you, I’m not defending the practice of advertising a guaranteed prize fund, then not paying it out, which I’m guessing is what you’re alluding to by referencing Miami. I’m simply inquiring why advertising that there will be prizes, while not specifying their exact amounts, is forbidden in TLAs. As far as I know, it isn’t. What’s forbidden is to mention an amount and then pay less than 50%. If you don’t specify an amount you may not get many players, but that’s the organizer’s problem. There were definitely some serious abuses in the past (“$1,000,000 based on 10,000 entries!”). Miami was a recent and minor example, though the ED’s reluctance to enforce the rules gave it some legs. The fact that scam artists/fools won’t get another bite at the apple is small comfort to people who get burned. The current system (requiring 50% or proportional payout for tournaments advertising more than $500 in Chess Life) is a compromise, but it has worked fairly well for many years. I think Ken Sloan’s fixation on this is overblown, but he’s free to seek converts. ---
**Author:** ![Harold\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a8b319/32.png) [@Harold\_S](https://forum.uschess.org/u/Harold_S)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 4:07am UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/23 "2010-01-07T04:07:24Z")
anjiaoshi wrote: > [@](#): > > I’m simply inquiring why advertising that there will be prizes, while not specifying their exact amounts, is forbidden in TLAs. For small events, they’re not forbidden although players would like to know what they’re entering before they pay their entry fee. Tournaments under $500 don’t have a minimum guarantee. In the past some organizers would advertise things like $20,000 based on 250 entries while they had no expectation of getting anywhere near those numbers. At a minimum, I would say that practice was unethical. Having misleading advertisements leads to prospective entrants having second thoughts about ads for legitimate based on prizes. ---
**Author:** ![LVHQLSBS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c89c15/32.png) [@LVHQLSBS](https://forum.uschess.org/u/LVHQLSBS)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/24 "2010-01-07T12:30:08Z")
The font size question is interesting. We are talking about non-TLAs I believe. I can understand that the good news will get more space in advertising. (1) The fact that the bad news is there at all is to the credit of the advertiser. There is a difference between shady and dishonest, just like there is a difference between paying less than 50% of advertised and absconding with the entry fees. (2) If the “weight” of the disclaimer gets out of hand, I just hit the mental off switch. Like those radio ads where at the end some guy drones on for 15 seconds with all the caveats. I have to assume I will never get the deal offered. So if there were some super-small font size, unless I thought it was a joke, it would be a big red flag for me. ---
**Author:** ![KeithAmmann](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.uschess.org/keithammann/32/2606_2.png) [@KeithAmmann](https://forum.uschess.org/u/KeithAmmann)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/25 "2010-01-07T14:55:20Z")
> [@Harold S.](#): > > anjiaoshi wrote: > > > [@](#): > > > > I’m simply inquiring why advertising that there will be prizes, while not specifying their exact amounts, is forbidden in TLAs. > > For small events, they’re not forbidden although players would like to know what they’re entering before they pay their entry fee. Of course, now I can’t find whatever it was that convinced me that a TLA for a tournament based on entries had to include either a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage. 😕 I’ll take your word that it’s OK to run a TLA that says simply, “Prizes based on entries.” ---
**Author:** ![nolan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.uschess.org/nolan/32/174_2.png) [@nolan](https://forum.uschess.org/u/nolan)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/26 "2010-01-07T15:17:10Z")
Percentage payouts aren’t forbidden in large events, either, as long as Grand Prix status isn’t important, it’s just that people probably won’t play in them if there aren’t some fairly specific prize amounts listed. BTW, ‘the market’ doesn’t function efficiently for many players because there aren’t a half dozen or more organizers out there competing against each other, except maybe in the big metro areas like NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles. Even then, there really aren’t that many choices on any given weekend in those areas for events with $1000 or more in prizes. ---
**Author:** ![RandyShane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/439d5e/32.png) [@RandyShane](https://forum.uschess.org/u/RandyShane)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 9:28pm UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/27 "2010-01-07T21:28:18Z")
> [@anjiaoshi](#): > > > [@Fromper](#): > > > > > [@anjiaoshi](#): > > > > > > The Boylston Chess Club runs [events](http://boylstonchessclub.org/Upcoming_BCC_Events.html#36) “based on entries” – no fixed number of either dollars or entrants. The club’s chief TD, Bernardo Iglesias, shared with me the formula that the club uses; it strikes me as perfectly fair, and yet there doesn’t appear to be any way to massage it into a form that would pass muster in a TLA, because it doesn’t guarantee any specific prize amount under any specific condition. Have greedy and dishonest organizers been such a problem in the past that this restrictiveness is necessary? > > > > Do you mean something like “90% of entry fees given back as prizes”? Just stating that, with percentage of money for each place, should convey the message without committing to a specific number of players or quantity of cash. > > No, the BCC doesn’t use a fixed percentage, either. It subtracts a flat TD fee, a club fee based on the number of entrants, and the USCF rating fees, then divvies up whatever’s left into a prize fund. The fund ends up being somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of total entry fees, but it floats. The New Britain (Connecticut) chess club’s normal practice is similar – for the Tuesday multi-week tournaments, all entry fee money, minus rating fees, is returned in prizes. (The club is adequately funded by dues and our one weekend tournament, and the TDs (including moi) are unpaid volunteers, although we get free entry if we want.) Ideally, our schedule would be determined far enough in advance so we can do TLAs for all of our tournaments – hasn’t happened yet, though, although I’m going to push again for it. – Randy Shane ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.uschess.org/system/32/2_2.png) [@system](https://forum.uschess.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2024, 8:40am UTC](https://forum.uschess.org/t/based-on-advertising/11711/28 "2024-04-22T08:40:11Z")
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