Prizes Then And Now

[Nigel_Davies]

Steve Giddins has reminded me that it was quite common for tournaments to have prizes of £500 in the 1970s and 80s and that John Nunn combined his research fellowship with winning the Grand Prix.

The risk reward ratio was certainly pretty good then, especially when you consider that travel hotels and entry fees were much lower. And this provided a strong incentive to work on your chess and beat off foreign invaders if necessary (their risk reward ratio would have been much worse through having to travel from Belgrade, which was very common).

I think the key point is that it is high prizes that will contribute the most towards the development of strong players, which is something that does not seem to be widely understood or accepted. Of course sponsorship would then be required after which the risk reward ratio would also improve in sections apart from the opens. But sponsors will want to be associated first and foremost with excellence, and not having a couple of mediocre players fight it out for their money in a stars barred event.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think the key point is that it is high prizes that will contribute the most towards the development of strong players, which is something that does not seem to be widely understood or accepted.

You also need a large number of entries. Take a look at the head count for those 70s and 80s Opens with £ 500 first prizes and ask whether such numbers could be attracted today with any frequency. You also have to recall that these tournaments pre date the 4NCL. If you need the numbers to get the entry fees to justify the pay day to the winning professional, the five weekends that amateurs will be using to play in the 4NCL aren't available for their participation in Congresses.

[Nigel_Davies]

You also need a large number of entries. Take a look at the head count for those 70s and 80s Opens with £ 500 first prizes and ask whether such numbers could be attracted today with any frequency. You also have to recall that these tournaments pre date the 4NCL. If you need the numbers to get the entry fees to justify the pay day to the winning professional, the five weekends that amateurs will be using to play in the 4NCL aren't available for their participation in Congresses.

I think you must have missed the bit about sponsorship. Chess was very popular with sponsors at that time.

[Roger de Coverly]

Chess was very popular with sponsors at that time.

I think the idea that if you used accelerated pairings, there was no upper bound to the number of people in a single tournament, marginally predated sponsorship, which only really kicked off after 1972. Having six rounds rather than five pushes the limit even for a conventional Swiss higher. For a while there was a virtuous circle. High prizes attracted large entries which was attractive to sponsors as well as helping to finance the prizes. But where did the entries come from? Only a handful were aspirant professional players.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I think the key point is that it is high prizes that will contribute the most towards the development of strong players, which is something that does not seem to be widely understood or accepted. Of course sponsorship would then be required after which the risk reward ratio would also improve in sections apart from the opens. But sponsors will want to be associated first and foremost with excellence, and not having a couple of mediocre players fight it out for their money in a stars barred event.

I agree that stars barred events are never going attract sponsorship. We need to look to the prestige events like the British, 4NCL congresses, E2-E4 events and the larger seaside weekenders like Blackpool and Scarborough. And to a lesser extent any event with an open. Although, as I suggested earlier, stars barred events may be hitting prestige events by providing more opportunities for lower graded players to play and thus giving them less reason to support (and subsidise) events with opens. But trying to prevent organisers from running stars barred events does seem a bit anti free enterprise.

So the question is what are the blockers preventing prestige events from attracting sponsorship? I suppose we come back to the `rag bag of amateurs`. And I'm sorry to keep labouring this but this is not the pre Regan era, when the ECF did have the feel of a glorified county association committee. In the time since people with professional and business backgrounds have come forward to run events; Sean Hewitt is one, Mike Truran is another and even Alex Holowczak I believe has a professional qualification (I might be wrong here).

[Leonard Barden]

High prizes attracted large entries which was attractive to sponsors as well as helping to finance the prizes. But where did the entries come from? Only a handful were aspirant professional players.

The answer, in the case of the Evening Standard congress and National Bank of Dubai Open, was that I advertised the congress in my daily Standard column every day for some two months, including information on how the numbers were breaking records the high prizes on offer, and the big names who were taking part. This brought in hundreds of extra entries. There were not just cash prizes. Almost all the major chess publishers donated large numbers of book awards, and there were also extras such as Cutty Sark whisky and Nina Ricci jewellery.

I also used my column to promote all the other major London congresses such as Enfield, Aaronson Harrow, and Lara, so that these too gained extra numbers. I used by Guardian and Financial Times columns to help,and persuaded Harry Golombek and Barry Wood to give mentions in the Times and Telegraph. All this, plus the general ambiance and belief that English chess was developing something special, created the atmosphere for the boom.

Now,alas, the Evening Standard column is only online, does not even feature under Chess or Leonard Barden in the Standard's general online topic index despite my pleas, and can only known to exist via a small direction on the printed puzzles page or in John Saunders's chess links. I think it's still pretty good http://www.standard.co.uk/staticpage/ch ... 39236.html but it can no longer help London congresses.

[Roger de Coverly]

I agree that stars barred events are never going attract sponsorship.

Whilst all Opens will have at least a couple of under something tournaments alongside them, it's quite rare for there not to be an Open or almost Open. Depending on where the grading boundary is set, it's often the smallest section. This poses a dilemma to Congress organisers as to whether to aim for each section to be financially self sufficient or to cross subsidise the prize fund in the Open.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Genuine "stars barred" tournaments were also tried for a while - especially c30-35 years ago.

They didn't really take off.

[stevencarr]

Genuine "stars barred" tournaments were also tried for a while - especially c30-35 years ago.

They didn't really take off.

I remember seeing Plaskett in one of those and realising he was a class act.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I'm not sure how many titled players this country has who are currently active in chess. But let's say that a tournament has a top prize of £1,000 with supplementary prizes of £500 and £250 and attracts two GMs, four IMs and eight FMs. With the best will in the world most of them are going to go away empty handed.

This and similar threads are short on straightforward bullet points about what needs to be done differently. Do we need more closed tournaments to provide opportunities, perhaps with set appearance fees (these could be supported by a weekender - an entry of 200 paying £25 each would bring in £5000 and if half of that went towards the main event it still leaves a hefty prize fund for the amateurs). And why are people not doing it? They scarcely need the ECF, whether or not it is run by a `rag bag` or (as I prefer) hard working, passionate volunteers.

[Nigel_Davies]

. And why are people not doing it? They scarcely need the ECF, whether or not it is run by a `rag bag` or (as I prefer) hard working, passionate volunteers.

There are very few people active in UK chess organization with the skill sets to know how to attract and keep sponsors, and only one with any sort of track record for this on the ECF Management Board (Malcolm Pein) if the ECF itself were to want sponsorship. In fact a case can even be made that the Board is likely to repel sponsors, especially in light of the recent troubles. So we're back to the 'rag bag of amateurs' being the problem, and most definitely not being any kind of solution.

[Andrew Martin]

To me, internet chess is also to blame for the decrease in prize money. We are simply saturated with chess, 24 hrs per day, 365 days per year. Just go to your computer and you can play day and night for free, listen to free commentaries, watch free videos , get immediate, free reports on tournaments with annotations. It is almost as if the professional chess community is cutting its own throat. This also explains the decline in club chess numbers. The net effect of computers and all this internet activity is that chess is being stripped of mystique.

There are still many good reasons to play chess: personal development, especially among young people and for sheer pleasure being the best two that I can think of. It's not doom and gloom, but do not expect prizes to rise anytime soon.

[Adam Raoof]

I'm not sure how many titled players this country has who are currently active in chess. But let's say that a tournament has a top prize of £1,000 with supplementary prizes of £500 and £250 and attracts two GMs, four IMs and eight FMs. With the best will in the world most of them are going to go away empty handed.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=7883

It doesn't stop them playing

Seriously, I would run closed norm events all year round if I had financial support. I used to run many events like this on a shoestring budget;

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 73094.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 32513.html

and about £5,000 per event would enable me to run a Festival style 10 player APA GM norm + IM norm + rated 30 player event on a regular basis in NW London. I don't think I would have problems getting players.

[Sean Hewitt]

There are very few people active in UK chess organization with the skill sets to know how to attract and keep sponsors, and only one with any sort of track record for this on the ECF Management Board (Malcolm Pein) if the ECF itself were to want sponsorship. In fact a case can even be made that the Board is likely to repel sponsors, especially in light of the recent troubles. So we're back to the 'rag bag of amateurs' being the problem, and most definitely not being any kind of solution.

I think there is a different, though not mutually exclusive, problem - the value of sponsorship to the prospective sponsor. I often hear that sponsorship is the solution to all of chess's woes, but people fail to realise that the decision to sponsor is a commercial decision for a trading company and that chess in the UK does not have the reach that it once had. There are fewer chess columns in newspapers (whether print or online). Crucially, chess is not on TV.

There will of course always be a few philanthropists prepared to put money into this event or that, but that is not sponsorship and should not be confused with sponsorship.

Sponsorship, in the truest sense, is about demonstrating to a company that there is a substantial return on investment to be had. I was able to do that for the British Championships in Aberystwyth, securing a five figure sponsorship deal in the process, but chess in the UK has very few opportunities for this. Apart from the British Championships I'd say only the London Chess Classic, 4NCL and UK Chess Challenge have the reach required. e2e4 can and do do this on an event by event basis, but I once calculated the value of independently sponsoring all e2e4 events for a year. It was about £1000 and even then, only (I suspect) to the right company.

It is worth considering how good you need to be at other sports to make a living from playing it. Tennis requires no less skill, dedication and effort to reach the top than chess does. Greg Rusedski reckoned you needed to be top 100 in tennis to earn a living from playing and even then your career is much shorter than a chess player. Remember too that tennis players have to pay all their own expenses from prize money. Putting that into perspective, the 100th best chess player in the world is rated 2650. The 1000th best player in the world (yes, one thousand) is rated 2500. Who is the 1000th ranked tennis player in the world?

I think the idea that prize money is the source of the problem misses the point.

[JustinHorton]

To me, internet chess is also to blame for the decrease in prize money. We are simply saturated with chess, 24 hrs per day, 365 days per year. Just go to your computer and you can play day and night for free, listen to free commentaries, watch free videos , get immediate, free reports on tournaments with annotations. It is almost as if the professional chess community is cutting its own throat. This also explains the decline in club chess numbers.

This might be true, but it might also be that it serves to increase interest in chess, just as wall-to-wall football on TV - until just over thirty years ago, there were no live league or cup games on telly bar the Cup Final - has served to increase interest in that game. Whether that translates into people playing is another point, but then again, given that the value of sponsorship in chess is related to people who will watch rather than people who will play, it may not be the important point here.