This is one open section, probably simplified for illustration.
Counterplay: Letters to the Editor (official uschess.org version)
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Responses at USCF Forums | Chess Life Articles | Counterplay: Letters to the Editor (first in thread)
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This example seems absurd to me. If it’s a five round tournament, there would have to be enough players to create three perfect scores. It seems unlikely it could do that but only yield one 4.5 and one 4. And it’s equally unlikely that a tournament drawing that many players wouldn’t have a few more tougher players. It’s believable that some TDs would still be foolish enough to make the class prize higher than the place prize, but usually TDs who are that unaware tend not to draw big turnouts.
I’m not just nitpicking the example here. As noted in Chess Life, it is possible to create oddball situations where we don’t think the result was optimal. Creating such an example that is also plausible, however, is a tougher trick, one not accomplished by this example.
Mulfish:
I heard of a tournament once where the open section had four masters show up for three prizes. They played a quad and agreed short draws in all their games. The TD wasn’t happy but he wrote the checks and they were gone before the first round was finished in the other sections. So it would have looked something like this:
1st $200
2nd $100
3rd $50
p1 2400 1 1/2 pts
p2 2300 1 1/2 pts
p3 2250 1 1/2 pts
p4 2200 1 1/2 pts
It hardly even seems possible, let alone plausible. I am sure Mr. Schuyler could have used a real-world example to illustrate his point, but it shouldn’t be necessary. His example will do, even if it doesn’t look much like any tournament you ever saw.
Yup you are right. And 
as illogical and absurd as it seems, p1 and p2 share part of a prize that they are not really eligible, the $60 for U2000.
(I must keep one thing strongly in mind whenever it comes to anything dealing with the USCF, logic has no place here, logic does not belong here, logic? what is logic? Wasn’t that something that some dead Greek guy came up with? Aristotle? Who cares right? Aristotle didn’t play CHESS! Perhaps logic and its derivative words should be included in the phpBB exclusion list.)
I don’t think I agree with you on this … that most players understand or think it’s a illogical. Probably many do and just as probably many don’t. There are enough of them that don’t that will cheat or sandbag to be in a position to win a large class prize.
Also, it’s an incentive to get lower rated players to toady up their hard earned cash to enter a tournament. Why else would a C player plunk down a substantial amount of money, the cost of travel, food and lodging to play in something like the US Open or World Open? I doubt there would be many of these players at such tournaments if the only thing they got was a rating.
It’s hard to argue with this.
Yes, on further reading in these forums, I no longer think that most players understand the current system of prize division well enough.
Cheaters and sandbaggers may or may not have a good understanding of how the prizes are supposed to be divided. I don’t think that matters much though.
There is something in what you say, but since so few class players actually win a prize they are certainly not playing only for money. And since many dedicated adult class players have not seen significant ratings improvement in years, they are also not playing only for rating, at least not in the short term. Why else, indeed? … What motivates players is important, but not for Mr. Schuyler’s topic. I will just say that chess is more than class prizes and rating points.
This is neither absurd, nor illogical. The 1900 player should fervently wish that the prize fund had been intelligently designed.
Absent complete abandonment of the “one player, one prize” philosophy, prize funds should be designed so that prize divisions are (viewed as) fair and equitable in all cases. Simply put, this means that prizes should be different and that class prizes should be less than place prizes.