Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (wlod) wrote:
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (wlod) wrote:
The class prizes (in mixed competitions) are wrong [...]

If under the umbrella of one event there are several parallel
tournaments held, e.g. open, for under 2000, etc, then of course
it's fine for the winners of each tournament to receive an award.

OK. Here we are agreed.


It's not ok when two players play in the same competition, and the
one with the weaker result "wins" more $$.

Why not?


I didn't write it earlier but let me do it now. Organizers in
principple can do whatever they please. Nevertheless, the prizes to
patzers are wrong. For instance, players below level D can hardly
make a couple of moves without hanging a piece. In my opinion prize$
should start at the expert level of play (regardless of the title of
the player-- it's the performance that should count), and not lower.

There don't seem to be prizes in British tournaments for players that
weak: the lowest is usually around the 90BCF mark, which is well above
the regular piece-hanging phase. (OK, they'll often fall for
relatively simple tactics but they're not complete beginners.)

Perhaps I'm arguing against you from a dramatically different
experience? In the UK, a typical class prize (in a separate section
tournament) would be maybe 60-150ukp for first place, 30-60ukp for
second, and $20-40 for third. Entry fees for a tournament would be
somewhere in the 20-25ukp range. From other posts in these threads, I
get the impression that the numbers (both prize values and entry fees)
in the US are considerably larger than this (say, by a factor of
ten?).

Rating prizes within a section are typically quite small: in a section
for people rated, say, 100-140BCF, there might be a prize (to about
the value of third place overall) for the best performance by somebody
rated under 120. I don't think that's much of an incentive for
sandbagging: the prize is little more than the entry fee.

Also, I get the impression that US tournaments have very fixed class
boundaries. In the UK, it depends very much on what the organizer
thinks are reasonably boundaries for the local population. In recent
tournaments, I think I've played (rated 107BCF) in sections for U-110,
U-115, U-125, U-130 and U-135 (the last one playing a class up). So
there's much less incentive for sandbagging because your carefully
manipulated rating of exactly 124BCF doesn't help you if the
tournament organizer decides to go for boundaries of U100 and U140
rather than U90 and U125.


Dave.

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