Patron Entry Fees in US Champs!
by Bill Hall – 3/6/07
To help fund the Frank K. Berry 2007 US Championship to be held May 15-23 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USCF is announcing the availability of Patron entry fees.
Between now and April 25, any USCF member may enter the 9-round Swiss tournament by paying the following fees, which are based on the latest ratings displayed at uschess.org/msa:
Rating/Entry Fee Structure
2500 & up $5,000
2400-2499 $10,000
2300-2399 $15,000
2200-2299 $20,000
2100-2199 $30,000
2000-2099 $40,000
Under 2000 $50,000
After April 25, Patron entries may be accepted only at the discretion of the USCF Executive Director.
The first $15,000 raised by USCF through Patron fees and other fees or donations will go towards covering USCF’s $15,000 commitment to support this event. The next $20,000 will be split evenly between the prize fund and replacing a $10,000 administrative fee paid annually to USCF by our previous sponsor. All money raised over $35,000 will be added to the prize fund.
Entry fees and questions should be sent to Bill Hall c/o USCF at PO Box 3967, Crossville TN 38557. Make checks payable to USCF. Of course, donations from non-entrants are also welcome. Thanks for whatever you can give!
Bill Hall
Executive Director, USCF
That’s kinda neat that if you finished dead last in last years K-3 Championship, but you got 50 G’s, you can play in the Official United States Chess Championships. Not bad.
It’s sort of like school fundraisers where a famous director donates a walk-on part in his/her film and parents bid tens of thousands of dollars for it. Or the guys who pay millions to go on a space flight. On the one hand, maybe you’ll get an interesting mix of celebrity chess players (Howard Stern, Will Smith, Bob Dylan, Jay Z, Madonna). On the other, it’s a little demeaning , like Dancing with the Stars. Just my two cents.
You gotta be kidding. Who is running this place? Desparate times call for desparate measures I guess.
If a celebrity would wonna play in our Championship, we should pay THEM for the publicity it will attract. One person I would really like to see in Stillwater is George RR Martin, author of my favorite fantasy series “The Song of Ice and Fire”. He was rated as high as an expert in his youth, playing on NorthEastern University chess team. His short story “Unsound Variations” is a great read for a chess-playing sci/fi fan.
Michael Langer
Austin, Texas
Golf does this. It is called a Pro-Am tournament – usually conducted for charity. Interesting concept. They should let the low rated players use a computer maybe for 10 moves of every game to keep things interesting.
No accounting for Bad Ideas from the USCF I see….
It aint’ “neat”, It’s a total Lose-Lose, not ‘sorta-like school fundraisers’, and the INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM.
And Golf does NOT do this. A Pro-Am is usually a charity event and not a National Title event.
Imagin if golf did this:
“Play in the Masters! Based on your handicap, YOU can compete (briefly) with Tiger Woods! Entry Fee of $50,000 if your handicap is +15!”
You’d soil yourself.
Is it any wonder the entire chess world laughs at the USCF and i’ts No-Brain Trust Executive Board?
for $50,000 I better get a takeback or two per game and the signalling handbook.
stupid, and it is a zonal tournament for World Cup,
last year a mother of a very good boy,(excellent for his edge, #1 at the USA), who was many times highlighted on this blog, asked me what is the prize for the US Chess Champion?
I told that $25,000; and she answered -so my son never will be a chessplayer in future;
so may be it could be better to wait more for real championship money, and send players to World Cup according rating, in any case, Kamsky, Nakamura and Onishuk the three strongest US players.
If I were to play in this event for $50000.00 I would expect to win a few games for all the money I spent, or it would be embarrassing. I hope this is a consideration.
What? Maybe have Gata Kamsky throw a few games for the sake of the big spenders?
Oh, no. This is terrible. What on earth are they thinking?
One disaster after another under the watch of Sam Sloan and Don Schultz. And they lost $250,000 in sponsorship from AF4C. The USCF also lost money. They should not be reelected for their mistakes and incompetence. They should resign immediately but they won’t because they have no shame. They don’t care what will happen to the USCF.
As long as Sam Sloan is on the board, I will not renew my membership or donate even one penny. I would gladly donate $10,000 if Sam Sloan resigns from the board now.
What does this have to do with Sam Sloan or Don Schultz. The tournament is being organized and funded by Jim and Frank Berry.
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Are they out of their minds? Why not just sell the title of US Champion to the highest bidder and skip the tournament? It seems to be too much expense and bother to hold a real tournament.
Alternatively, there’s a bunch of other stuff they could sell off, if they really put their minds to it. Maybe for $1000, you get to pick the opening that everybody must play in Round 1. Test out your favorite eccentric opening. For $2000, you get to make the 15th move for White on Board 1, Round 9. Etc. Maybe for $10,000 you get to change the Laws of Chess. See how it works out to have pawns go backwards.
What complete idiots.
If I had the $50K to blow I would do this without much hesitation. I would get demolished by the GM’s but the experience would be good. I would still however, feel that my patzer presence would taint the event.
Their prices are too high.
If I wanted to play nine games against top chess players, one game each, I imagine I could purchase that for quite a bit less than $50,000. That is over $5000 per game. Frank Berry is only putting up $50,000 to pay for the entire tournament and he gets his name on the tournament: it is the “Frank K Berry 2007 US Championship”.
There are about 30 players in the 9 round Swiss tournament, or about 270 games. Frank got the tournament for $50K, which is about $200 per game. So I reckon I should be able to get nine games against this field for not more than $1800.
Or another way to look at it is that most of these players give lessons at probably around $70 to $100 per hour. I would probably only last about 5 minutes against these guys, but lets be generous and call it an hour. So that is $900.
In other words, $50K for me to play in the tournament seems way over-priced, even if you throw in a bit extra for the prestige of playing in the “US Championship” instead of just nine hours of chess lessons.
Of course it won’t be prestigious any longer, if they persist with moronic ideas like this.
I’ll pay $50K but only on one condition. In all my games, my opponents can only move the type of piece decided by the roll of a die with P, R, B, N, K, Q on the six sides.
OK, heck, I’ll roll the die for my moves too.
Deal??
Make it an Open and charge a $1000 entry fee, with the fee waived for the top-seeded players.
A lot of amateurs are already paying $300-$500 entry fees, plus travel expenses, to enter the “World Open”, so this isn’t so far-fetched. Of course, in the World Open, there are a lot of different classes and very substantial class prizes which people can fantasize about winning. So unlike the World Open there is a certain lottery element that would be lacking in a US Championship Open.
At least this way it looks less like you are prostituting the tournament. Of course, we already have a the USCF-sponsored US Open Championship. So that is a bit of a problem with my idea, too.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx: I wouldn’t pay $50K to play in a tournament that would accept me as a player.
If you show up in Harvard Square when the weather is nice, Murray Turnbull, an International Master, will beat you for about $5 per game. If you win, you don’t have to pay, but you won’t win.
So, nine games is worth maybe $45, perhaps a bit more since some of the players are GM’s. Add a bit more for the prestige of playing in the US Championship. Even after this stunt, that’s still gotta be worth a few bucks.
But they seem to be off in the pricing by a couple of orders of magnitude.
They forgot a category – unrated (like moi). Let’s see, what to charge for that – $80,000???
Who do they think is going to cough up this kind of money when such a person wouldn’t even be able to deduct it on his/her U.S. income taxes (if he/she itemizes deductions, that is), as a charitable deduction??? If someone wants to contribute, he/she would be better off doing it straight-away, at least that person would get a charitable contribution deduction on his or her 2007 income taxes!
P.S. I joined the USCF on Sunday just to be able to vote in the upcoming election.
Janet Newton
I spent a tiny fraction of that kind of money ($50) on Fritz who is an even better opponent that will play against me as many times as I want! Further more I can learn from it’s analysis too! And hey it even talks to you.
Sami K.
I could enter this tourney with a bunch of my buddies and collaborate to let one of us be the new US Champion!?!?!
Sure it would cost a lot… but it will show how this idea is a total joke.
For $50,000.00 I would want to play Vladimir Kramnik not some no-name pawn pusher or patzer. I don’t even know any of the players in the Tournament. I bet I can draw Kramnik too.
Is it any wonder the entire chess world laughs at the USCF and i’ts No-Brain Trust Executive Board?
Misplaced apostrophe aside, you are wrong. The entire chess world doesn’t laugh at the USCF. The entire chess world doesn’t give a fart in the wind about the USCF. Most of us play the game, have a good time, and move on to other things.
Unless only people above a certain rating count in your book.
I thought Murray Turnbull was dead…
cranky dan:
So it looks like you are either one of the USCF membership that give lip-service to Sam Sloan and his cohorts by not caring nor participating in your Federations’ Executive Board vote or you are foreigner who does not care one iota about the USCF and are not a member.
The second one is understandable; the first, is unforgivable.
So it looks like you are either one of the USCF membership that give lip-service to Sam Sloan and his cohorts by not caring nor participating in your Federations’ Executive Board vote or you are foreigner who does not care one iota about the USCF and are not a member.
Wrong on both counts. I’m merely someone who realizes that we have done a horrific job at reaching out to the mainstream chess player, and am frustrated with people who see this as an exclusive little club.
Any more assumptions?
really cranky dan:
“Most of us play the game, have a good time, and move on to other things….I’m merely someone who realizes that we have done a horrific job at reaching out to the mainstream chess player, and am frustrated with people who see this as an exclusive little club.”
Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.
Since you are apparently part of ‘the whole world who does not give a fart about the USCF’ then you can be part of the solution by casting a vote to change the membership of the Executive Board.
But don’t let ‘moving on to other things’ get in the way, cranky.
Unlike cranky here, I urge everyone to cast a vote this Summer for new board members.
Maybe, in spite of cranky, we can effect change with the only way we can, by voting in new members instead of simply turning and ignoring the problem like cranky dan here.
Oh trust me Mark. I am so voting. And I am so voting the same as you.
My statement is more about marketing than current politics. There is a huge, untapped source of chess enthusiasts out there.