How are they awarded, at what point are they handed out - and can you exchange them for cash?

Why don't u just ask erik?

How boring would it be if everyone just asked erik?

Note to erik: You don't have to answer that.

Mygame5377 wrote:

Why don't u just ask erik?

yeah, yeah, ask me! i just sit around waiting answer questions! all that energy and effort i put into creating an entire Help section and hiring 2 fulltime member support people - that was all just for legal compliance. what i really love is answering questions for each and every single person.

(just kidding - kind of :D - i don't mind answering really tough questions or things that can't be answered by the community, by search, or by Member Support. but sometimes people ask me first instead of taking some time to do it right...)

Thanks. I appreciate the humour, but I couldn't see a Help button (I'm not very good on computers!). So tournament points in the standings are simply the amalgamation of your points in each tournament - there's no extra points for winning, or being second or whatever?

The second part of my question was at what point they are distributed - at the end of a tournament or at the end of any individual game within that tournament?

Sorry if I'm a bit slow this evening but they've changed my tablets.

http://www.chess.com/tournaments/help.html#points

Thanks very much. I couldn't see the bit which mentioned at what point those points are distributed, but I'm sure I've wasted enough time for now.

Not quite. You could ask what amount of points you get when you'd finish first or second.

Or how about the idea of minus points?

See? Very good! You can always waste more time if you really want to. Go ahead then, ask erik!

OK.

Eric, how about a system of minus points for players who join a tournament and then withdraw, or who hold up everyone else by playing amazingly s-l-o-w-l-y, or, most irratatingly, who insist on beating me?

Perhaps the number of minus points could be worked out by taking the player's height in cms, dividing it by their weight in kgs, multiplying it by their age and then taking away the square root of their rating?