Been wondering if there are any tournaments with prize funds.

Organizer can set start time for tournament (Recommend 2 months out).  Registrants who have not paid get kicked from tournament on that date.  Organizer kicks off tournament.

Prize fund can be set up like OTB tournaments...90% given out as prizes (gotta keep a little for time to manage tournament).  Prizes based on number of registrants but guaranteed to top 10% of places.  USCF rules could be used for payment.

Easy to do.  Yeah, you might say the organizer could just steal the money, but couldn't chess.com remove that players membership or warn players not to play in their tournaments?

I have ran hundreds of OTB tournaments under USCF rules and wouldn't mind giving it a try.  But, something tells me Chess.com needs to be asked?

Well I'm sure you've already considered this but of course, this is begging for cheaters.  On the other hand yeah, it might be fun.

VERY true...the cheaters are the problem...but, of course, isn't that the problem with all the tournaments and online chess?

Having rating requirements helps this a little and having chess.com check the prize winner's games for evidence of cheating...

The problem with that is now, chess.com could be taking away monies from someone...that's sticky...i bet Erik wouldn't want a part in that at all.

Maybe we have a limit to the amount of players to reduce the amount of the prize funds...BTW---I was thinking of $1 - $5 entry fees.

I have wondered about prize tournaments myself. not beccesarily money but like a year membership or chess.com chess set or something. just to make them a little more like an actual tournament.

I have seen free premium memberships...

ih8sens is right about cheating being the problem.  So, it can never be any high money events.

I know I'm joining this conversation a year late, seeing as how I just joined chess.com, but the semi-solution to cheating would be to require a minimum of X number of games played. That way if a player is going to sandbag, they would have to purposely lose consistently over a long period of time to keep their rating down, (which would be hard to prove), or they would have to lose a boatload of games  recently (which would be easier to prove).

Hey, thanks for joining the conversation.  Just saw your reply.  I was thinking of doing it the way online poker does it.  But, who knows.

This rating - it's a little problem. The big problem - players use chess program for the victory. 

Yes, Volonter.  But, I wanted to entry to be small enough that would cause the prize fund to be small because of limiting the number of entries.  Thus, the chance of getting caught might outweigh the winnings.

People will cheat if there is a prize, no matter how small. Some might cheat even if there is not a prize. Your best bet is to have a Engine allowed tournament, that makes it equal. They already do this on the ICCF something like 10 man tournaments with 40 swiss franc entry paid out to winner.