The Chess Class Prizes System: In Need of a Change

Today, in these harsh economic times, chess can be a very profitable game. Tournaments such as the world open (300 dollar entry fee) give out prizes of about 400,000 dollars. These prizes are given out in a big division, but they are given out every 200 rating point groups. A chess rating is defined as a projection of how a player will do in a tournament. Rating goes up and down based on a player's result and the rating of a player's opponent. For example, if 2 players with the same rating play, the winner goes up 16 rating points. The prizes are given out so that the top finisher within a rating group gets a large sum of money. For example, the Under 2100 rating class prize is 30000 dollars at the World Open. This leads to players who are much stronger than 2100 intentionally losing games at smaller tournaments to get their rating below 2100 and then winning the big tournaments and the big money. Also, tournaments are set up so that the higher rated players have an easier road to victory. Therefore, a player with a lower rating has the odds stacked against them to get as many wins as a higher rated.

To stop this problem, I offer two solutions. For the sandbagging (bringing one's rating down) problem, there has already been a rule imposed that a person with a rating of 30 points or more over the prize section limit at some earlier time can only win 1/3 of the money. However this is not enough because 10,000 dollars is still a ton of money for someone to unfairly win. Therefore, a new rule should be implemented that is someone is 70 or more points above the section limit at some time they cannot win any money. This would decrease sandbaggers and make everyone's rating more accurate.

Second, prizes should be determined by performance rating, not score. Because higher rateds face easier opponents than lower rated within a section, performance rating should determine the winners. Performance rating is the rating that a player performed equal to at a given tournament. This way the players who played the best would get the prize they deserve and the deck would not be stacked against lower rateds because the amount of points scored (which is likely lower for them) would no longer be a factor