Higher tier is eligible for prizes and/or trophies (I think I had figured out how to do with trophies). Maybe three tiered?
Is it legal with the USCF?
The reason why I asked is Bridge tournament do not have cash prizes but are reasonably well attended. Clearly players are playing for fun. But for whatever reason some Chess Players/organizer don’t understand that basic concept. So maybe multi-tier entry fee would help get Chess Players (who are cheap like me) playing more.
I doubt this will have much impact except perhaps in the large national events since the amount from each participants fees is quite small for trophies and such. At a guess, probably not more than $1 to $2 per entrant at the majority of tourneys.
Yes, it’s legal. There might be some complications if the tournament had a “based-on” prize fund, however. This has been tried a number of times. It’s had limited success in special cases, but what usually happens is that the decrease in income is not made up for by the increased number of players, and the organizer eventually drops it,
Massachusetts, c. 1973. MACA had a program called “SCRAP” (I don’t think it actually stood for anything), which allowed juniors to play in participating tournaments for $2.50. (Bear in mind that the standard EF at the time was $10.) It more or less died out when the guy running tournaments at the Boylston Club in Boston (by far the most active) dropped it because “It takes four of them to make one real player.”
Los Angeles, c. 1984. John Rykowski and Hal Bogner came up with “Honor and Glory” entries. You could play for $25, not eligible for any prizes. (Standard EF was around $60.) After a couple of years Rykowski lost interest (well, actually, he died), and Hal stopped doing. Perhaps he could comment on his reasons.
Los Angeles, 1999. The SCCF began running a couple of tournaments each year with a $30 base EF, $10 for juniors not eligible for cash prizes (trophies only). We’re still doing it, though it never really did what I had hoped (wean away some of those kids who get churned through the scholastic system). It has occasionally been suggested that we extend the offer to all players, but the numbers won’t work. We would need more than two additional players for each current player who chose the reduced EF, and that’s just not going to happen.
In Kansas, for some reason scholastic players are not eligible for cash prizes. I think it causes them to forfeit eligibility for scholastic tournaments or something. In any event, a lot of their events have two-tier entries.
Incidentally, I’m aware of a tournament in Kansas that didn’t have a two-tier entry fee, and when a scholastic player won money, the organizer would only refund his entry fee. I’m not sure if that was pre-announced, or if the player minded.
There are strange things that happen at Kansas tournaments.
Surely it should be the players’ choice whether or not to give up their scholastic eligibility. If students are allowed to pay a lower entry and not be eligible for prizes, that’s one thing (although, as I’ve noted, this can also cause problems), but it does not seem right for an organizer to simply declare that scholastic players cannot win prizes. It’s especially wrong if the player doesn’t find this out until after he has qualified for a prize!!!
Ken, my understanding of the situation in Kansas is that not only can the player lose his scholastic eligibility (for all HS activities) but so can his school if the event is a team event or possibly even if it is considered a school-sanctioned activity.
The Kansas situation is the result of very strict rules by the group that controls Kansas HS sports and other competitive activities. They’re aware of chess there, most states just ignore it.
I’ve always considered that one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ things. In Kansas they wanted more visibility for chess within the secondary school academic community, they got it.
I understand that. It’s still the player’s choice. This is the way eligibility works in other sports (say, in soccer) - there are playing opportunities that cause the player to lose scholastic eligibility but those opportunities still exist, and it is NOT up to the people running non-scholastic events to tell the school-age players that they can’t play (or can’t receive prizes). In my area, the non-school soccer is much stronger than the school teams and many players choose to NOT maintain their eligibility.
I support chess in the schools - but I value freedom of choice for the individual players more.
I think we were discussing non-scholastic events that offered cash prizes to the (adult) winners.
These would be unlikely to be “school sponsored events”. The OP reported that some organizers of these non-school events offered the possibility of a lower entry fee and no eligibility for prizes (OK, if still a bit problematic) and ALSO that some organizer has refused to pay a prize to a school age player, simply because that would cause the player to lose scholastic eligibility. Perhaps I have mis-understood, but if those facts are correct then I say that it’s not the organizer’s call to make. If the kid pays a full entry fee and wins, he should be paid. If that means he can’t play for his school anymore - well, that’s the school’s call. It’s possible, for example, that the student does not WANT to play for his school.
So…to bring this back to USCF - suppose a Kansas scholastic player comes to the US Open and wins a cash prize. Should USCF refuse to pay on the grounds that we think it’s preferable for the player to continue to represent his school?
I’m not sure that the rule applies to prizes won outside of Kansas. Perhaps Mike Nolan might know better. I’ve also heard that if a scholastic player plays in an open event in his “region” of Kansas at the same time a scholastic event is going on, he’s ineligible to compete in scholastic events for the rest of the year, including the state championship, and thus qualify for the Denker, Kansas being divided into regions for that purpose.
Ralph Bowman would probably be better able to answer the specifics of the current state of affairs in Kansas, but I don’t know if he’s ever even looked at the Forums. Someone on the Scholastic Committee/Council should know more about it than I do, but I’m not sure who among those individuals is active here either.
I remember running a team event some years ago for which a team from Kansas had to request permission from the state agency that governs HS sports in Kansas to attend because it was out-of-state and more than 50 miles away, so at least at that time they didn’t consider that their jurisdiction ended at the state line.
Ken Sloan asks an interesting question, but the answer may have to come from the ED/Board.
I doubt the ED/Board would have the authority to bar players from receiving cash prizes. Prizes amount to a contract between the organizer and the player. Now, if an organizer refused to pay a player the prize he had earned (and had every expectation of receiving), the USCF ought to do something about it. But the USCF is not in the business of enforcing third-party rules.
(I suppose an organizer could put something like “Scholastic players from Kansas (or Arizona, which has a similar rule) not eligible for cash prizes” in the TLA. I wouldn’t recommend it.)
I’m wondering about the Kansas situation and would like to know more. Hopefully, someone from Kansas who is familiar with exactly what is happening there will post.
Most (maybe even all) states have an organization responsible for administering interscholastic competitions. In Kansas it seems to be the Kansas State High School Activities Association. I checked out their web site and found no mention of chess as a sanctioned activity, nor is chess mentioned in their handbook. Their handbook does have a section on amateur status, pretty standard stuff for these types of associations. However, I’m curious how anyone could jeopardize amateur status in an activity that is not regulated or sanctioned. I rather suspect instead that schools that are having chess events are either assuming they have to abide by the KHSAA rules governing other activities, or that they are voluntarily doing so just because that model makes sense to them. But it seems to me that a USCF affiliate enforcing the amateur prohibitions of another organization (the KHSAA) is simply misguided. Especially if that other organization doesn’t even acknowledge chess.