English Chess Forum

Noting some interest in the amount of prize money in tournaments, I thought it would be interesting to show how much a prize of £1,000 was worth in today's money. Inflation tends to be underestimated.

Here are the numbers, and it would be interesting to plug in some of the prize money from tournaments in the past to get a sense of how much it has gone down. If anyone wants to know why there are so few young players coming through, this pretty much explains it.

2010: 1,197
2005: 1,371
2000: 1,550
1995: 1,777
1990: 2,223
1985: 2,874
1980: 4,527
1975: 9,316

Source: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bill ... -1900.html

Nigel_Davies wrote: If anyone wants to know why there are so few young players coming through, this pretty much explains it.

I rather disagree. There are many players who for the sake of an arbitrary cut off are both over 60 and over 150. Any number of them, possibly most of them, have been playing since the 1960s, if not continuously. If they were above the standard that qualified them to enter Majors, their likely prize winnings were £ 50 every five years or so if they managed to sneak through the future IMs and GMs to shared second place in a tournament and perhaps the odd £ 10 or £ 20 grading prize.

The real driver was that sixth forms and universities were full of ambitious and keen players of various levels of skill. It helped that the seventies, unlike the sixties had regular weekend events for them to play in. If you have several thousand players rather than a few hundred, it becomes more likely that one or more of them will have the ability and determination to reach the standard of world class GM.

It takes work to become a GM, and this work takes time. A figure of 10,000 hours (see Anders Ericsson's research) is a pretty good estimate though perhaps some very talented people can manage on less than that. You also need to play in a lot of tournaments, many of which will be abroad. It's simply not a question of 'ability and determination', it needs financing. And the traditional way to finance this has been to win prizes as a semi-professional along the way, as just about anybody who has actually done this knows only too well.

Nigel_Davies wrote: It's simply not a question of 'ability and determination', it needs financing.

You can have the determination and the finance. You aren't going to get there without the ability. If you have the alternative ability to earn far more money than you objectively need, it's possible to adopt a mixed life style. You spend six months working and six months sponsoring yourself as a chess player. If it was solely a question of determination and finance, those prepared to do this would be GMs in no time. But they aren't. 2000 or 2100 is easy enough, but even the push to "same title as Stewart Reuben or the late Peter Wilson" at 2200 is very difficult

Another comparison point would be what the prize money was for lower sections in the 70s. Most congresses these days have equal prize money across all sections; even though most lower graded players (the odd shark aside) don't enter with the money in mind. Maybe there is currently a mentality that players of all strengths should have an equal payday, particularly if they pay the same or similar entry fee.

In theory, stars barred events excepted, there's nothing to stop top players entering opens up and down the country and sweeping up the prize money. One titled player was doing this until relatively recently. The money may not have the same worth but it is there.

Maybe there are too many events these days. I may be in the minority but if I enter an event it tends to be either one of the bigger weekenders (Blackpool, Scarborough, maybe Doncaster) or a 4NCL congress and the reason is that I want to be part of something big. I like being in the same room as strong players, even if I'm just hacking around in a lower section. I wouldn't enter a small event unless it is local to me. However I do wonder if we had these tupenny ha'penny events thirty or forty years ago - if players wanted to enter a congress they'd have to pool their resources for a big event like Hastings.

Andrew Zigmond wrote:However I do wonder if we had these tupenny ha'penny events thirty or forty years ago

The scrapping of adjudications in favour of quickplay finishes encouraged an expansion of events outside of major conurbations because organisers no longer had to resource adjudicators.

The thing is though, that what used to be large events, requiring accelerated pairings, have shrunk to small events, even where they have survived.

A couple of deceased major events in the South East are the Surrey Congress, usually run at Easter and the Ilford Congress, run over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. Arguably both were seen off by competition from e2e4 events in the same catchment areas which themselves disappeared.

In reply to Andrew, there were plenty of relatively small events in the 1970s and 80s. As a glance at chess magazines of the time confirms.

Matt Mackenzie wrote:In reply to Andrew, there were plenty of relatively small events in the 1970s and 80s. As a glance at chess magazines of the time confirms.

Matt, if you can post some sample prizes from different eras it would be very interesting I think. I have some old volumes of magazines but unfortunately they are inaccessible (in storage!).

The Gand Prix events of 1975 offered a 1000 cash prize to the winner. I do have the files to prove it but can't upload them.

MJMcCready wrote:The Gand Prix events of 1975 offered a 1000 cash prize to the winner. I do have the files to prove it but can't upload them.

Thanks, so that's over £9,000 in today's terms. Not a bad start if someone wants to do chess full time..

Yes although you had the likes of Portisch (rated 2635 in 75 I believe) flying in to battle it out for the cash.

Of course you'd a swarm of very strong (many ex) USSR GMs nowadays. From what I remember of the time break up of the USSR was cited as a very prominent reason it was getting notably less attractive to try and survive as a professional GM. Just so many more strong players about all of a sudden.

Seems exceedingly plausible to me.

Some of which is quoted here

Once the Wall came down, Western tournaments were flooded with hungry young grandmasters from the former Easter bloc and almost overnight it became much harder for a Western grandmaster to earn a comfortable living from playing chess.

I've just done some calculations. A congress (I won't specify which) is split into four sections offering a prize fund of £575 per section, £250 being the top prize each time.

The congress attracted 192 entrants paying roughly £25 each (I've allowed for the fact that the majority of entrants would be ECF members and that the congress derives no profit from those that are not but obviously I don't know exactly how many were juniors). That gives an income of £4800 and a prize fund of £2300. I have no idea how much of the remaining £2,500 was spent on venue hire and other costs and that's not the point anyway.

£250 is a good sum for most of us but not much to a professional and that's assuming they win the prize outright. The congress could try to attract more top players (IMs have entered in the past) by making the prize fund for the Open £1500 (for example £1,000 top prize and £500 in runner up prizes). This would leave £800 split across the remaining three sections so £266 per section.

The reason I've worked all this out is to follow up on my point as to how prize funds appear to have leveled across the ability sections. Assuming this congress is relatively typical should they be encouraged to alter their prize structure to encourage professionals? Would they attract less lower graded players due to the slashing of prize funds in the amateur sections? It wouldn't bother me but some players might kick up a stink at effectively paying to subsidise the top players (while possibly spending twice the entry fee on replica football kits for their sons to finance the likes of Wayne Rooney etc). Could the congress make a business case for attracting sponsorship and what might the sponsor expect in return? The fact that an inflationary bubble burst probably can't be changed now but is this where chess in the country has gone wrong?

I am not clear from the original analysis how many congresses in the 1970s offered £1,000 prize. I wouldn't imagine there were many, but someone with a stack of old magazines might of course prove me wrong!

Following up on the points raised by Andrew Z, we have made some changes to the forthcoming Shropshire Congress including an Open prize of £1,000. We already had a small differential for previous Open prizes compared to the other two sections, but that has now widened. We have not reduced the prizes in the Major and Minor as the increased Open prize is being funded through some new sponsorship.

We have attracted a number of titled players as a result of the changes we have made, including some professionals. I think that enriches the event for everyone, while also making a small contribution to the earning capacity of professionals and would-be professionals. Having said that, trying to earn a living from winning congresses is not something for the fainthearted and it is not in the least surprising that many strong players opt for a regular income in another profession and keep up chess as a sideline.