We need more prized tournaments !!!

On chess.com for most players the monthly tournaments where if you come 1st place you can win  a diamond membership are the only ones for many users. Considering, the countless profit chess.com makes we should have more prized tournaments to attract more players and make chess.com a more fun place !

Hope your having a good day, Space _ Astrobot 

But the problem is, creating more prized tournaments will increase more cheating, which is already a huge problem in online chess.

Cheaters will be attracted where money/prize is involved.

Good point

"The countless profit", LOL.

As to the subsequent point made re cheating and prize tournaments, I think it's good to have more "cheater bait" present on the website. You're very much correct, online tournaments for real rewards attract cheats like moths to a flame. But that might not be completely a bad thing, it increases the odds of cheaters being caught, and increases the odds of non-prize tournaments being "clean". Speaking just for myself, I am totally ok with that!

Im obviously not saying that cheating is ok, just that anything that pulls cheats out of the woodwork where they can be caught and their account closed..... that is a positive thing.

I dont know of a more powerful way to attract cheats than to offer a real prize for an online tournament (aside from giving a patzer a chance to take down a titled player, that's been a clear issue here in the past as well)

Proctor is something that uses staff for monitoring and isn't likely for tournaments without cash prizes

Why not use a bot for it to monitor the people that are playing in the tournaments?

+1 Even better would be defacto 'public shaming' when it comes to titled players (who are playing for $)....just give a list of fair play closures of their username/real name.

Most people will never take the time to notice and tie an player no longer playing with anything otherwise.

And...frankly, I have long thought people playing in Money Tourneys should put up...say $100 in escrow every year - they get it back at the end of each year if no cheating is detected...and can put it up again to continue playing for $ or just 'let it roll over' to the following year. SKIN IN THE GAME does wonder for deterring cheaters. Also...don't pay out $ for a good month or so to winners. No fair play violations at that point...send them their winnings.

That is a good idea, the don't give out the money for at least a month after, because then they could go through the people to see if they are cheating or not.

I don't know all the specifics but much of the monitoring of Proctor isn't likely useful with bots, at least nothing more than regular checking of non-proctor games

ok

From a theoretical standpoint, I absolutely love this idea and I think its a great solution (having members put up $$$ to be returned at some point if your games are judged to be fair and not helped with computer assist). You are 100% correct about having "skin in the game", etc. This idea was also mentioned in one of the chess podcasts, although im having trouble remembering which one, it was quite a while back) .

The problem is, from a practical perspective, this is a website filled wirh a very wide range players -- varying by age, country, and ability to pay.

I would totally join a club of vetted players, all of who have put up some sort of cheating deposit (perhaps theres a better name for your idea.... honesty deposit maybe!).

My understanding was this was kinda-sorta trialed by chess.com a few years ago when they had verified players who paid a fee and also agreed to increased scrutiny on their games. I think that got killed off due to a lack of interest though, which was kind of a bummer.....

I'm really just talking about titled players - who get free membership and get to play in the weekly prize tournaments on the site.

I see. Same sort of problem though, $100 to one titled player may be meaningless, whereas to another it's a huge amount of money. It's hard to make that fair.

They get FREE membership and FREE entry into prize money tourneys. Currently there is no actual incentive to not cheat, just individual ethics. Because some are lacking in that....they need to be incentivized. $100 (refundable) for a year worth of FREE entry into Titled Tuesday or other such tourneys where they can (I know most have no chance of winning) win $$$ should not be out of reach for many if any titled players. IF so...maybe they need ask for a pay raise wherever they work.
Maybe it all being FREE...gives the site more legs to stand on legally should someone banned for fair play try to take them to court...maybe that's it. If so...it's ironically helping create that which it would try to deal with on the back end(??)
A possible alternative is that all prizes be held for maybe 6 months before being paid out. The winners would have to continue to play of course so any shenanigans could be more easily detected....but that's all 'after the fact' and cheaters would lose nothing they didn't already have so it has less deterrent value. I do not currently know how the pay-out works, but it's clearly possible.

It boils down to 'skin in the game'.

when prize amounts become significantly more than the 'cheating deposit', it will lose any meaning for most titled players.

honestly the potential damage to overall reputation should be worth far more than any money held in escrow.