I assume very few people in the world make a living playing a game or sport including the few hundred GM's in the world. I will spend thousands of dollars on my kids sporting activities during their childhood. I even travel to out of town marathons that I have no chance of winning. I do this for fun and personal fulfillment, not because for some plastic trophy. I assume it is the same for those in this chess tournament.

@ tombaralo - I certainly wasn't 'mocking' chessplayers.  I appreciate that a $10,000 prize fund isn't much when compared to other sports, but it seems a decent sum for a relatively small 9-round Swiss Open chess tournament played over only 5 days.

I think most of the players in the SPICE Cup are there to enjoy the event, improve their play (and hopefully gain title norms in some cases), rather than winning money.

The relatively poor financial rewards for most chess pros is a wider issue, and IMO is ultimately FIDE's fault.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand (I'm new to chess) if the author of this article is mocking chessplayers with this phrase: "With a guaranteed $10,000 prize fund there is plenty to play for!"

The prizes from the site are: Prizes: $10,000 guaranteed ($4,000 – $2,000 – $1,500 – $1,000 – $500 – $250; Under 2400 FIDE $500 – $250)

Those who are not GM needs to pay 100$ EF, which will be refunded at the end of the tournament.

The rates for the rooms are 89$ a night. The tournament is 4 days, which means someone would pay 376$ just for the hotel, I don't know how much they spend for food and transportation. But to me it seems that if one is not within the first 4 places, he/she will have to take out money from their pockets. I remember the job I was doing, while I was in college, and I was paid about 11$ hour, which would mean that if I went to work for 4 days, I would make the same amount of money the 5th would make, without having to invest a lot of money.

It seems to me that if these chess players would just play poker, or play another sport, they would surely make much more money. But let's also accept for a moment that the first 6 players are happy with the money they receive (after all maybe some 2600 rated players can be happy with 500 bucks), what about the other 37 players who didn't make 1$?

If that phrase was not for mocking, I wouldn't advertise the state of extreme indigence in which chess players live, because that would do a disservice to the game.

Eugene keep it up man!

Robson's game was nice Rh3!!