lol,this reminds me of that movie "the color of money"
CHESS HUSTLERS
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it would be interesting if two hustlers where going for first. a grandmaster level game at the 1200 level would be suspicious to say the very least
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Um, there are amateur events that have a FIRST PLACE cash prize of $8000-10,000? Really? How many players would enter? And is it winner-take-all because most tournaments, especially an amateur one, I would suspect would pay out multiple prizes, so more people have a chance to finish in the money?
Would you really get 100 players entering at Under 1200 and another 100 players at Under 1600 or Under 1400 at $100 each, competing for a winner-take-all prize of $10,000 with the tournament staff taking no cut from the entry fees to cover prizes? I SERIOUSLY DOUBT you could find players under 1600 (or even under 2200 USCF) for that matter, who would be willing to pay $100 to play chess for a day or two with less than a 1% chance to win a prize!
In Hawaii, I think the State Champs only costs like $50-70 to enter and even less with pre-registration, and it's a 2-3 day event. The main problem with finding enough players is that everyone has to have a current USCF membership, which not a lot of people are willing to pay for. Then you lose a lot more people due to the high entry fee. Then you lose EVEN MORE players due to scheduling conflicts, i.e. I didn't play because I was out of town, and others didn't play because they couldn't take time off work or their weekend to play chess for 2-3 days. All in all, you're lucky if you get a few dozen players for an open event, and expect way less for specialty events like blitz champs, etc. It may differ in states where chess is more popular.
More realistically, you could sandbag something like the "Philly World Open" or whatever, and win a 1st place prize of maybe $800-1,000 if you're lucky. But playing chess for 2-3 days and cheating at it in order to win $800 doesn't seem like much of a big pay off. The hustler would pay for like 1 month's rent at his apartment and like, that's it. Plus, he or she would be now have a USCF rating, although most likely a provisional one if this is his or her first time hustling, and their provisional rating would be quite high. And after 25 games, it's a permanent rating, so there goes his or her Under 1200 days. And I'm pretty sure that if you're running a legit, cash-prize tournament in the US, it has to be USCF sanctioned.
Is sandbagging dumb, childish, and unethical? Yes, all of the above. But I doubt there are that many sandbaggers. The prize pay-outs don't give them enough incentive to do it. And I'm pretty sure that your average chess community would tar and feather a sandbagger and run him outta town, so he'd have to be willing to travel to keep up his cheating and winning. All in all, it's too unfeasible. But yeah, some probably do get away with it from time to time, but I doubt there are many multiple offenders.
And as KingAlex24 pointed out, the hustler has to hope he doesn't meet other hustlers in the tournament. If the prize is big enough, then that's a very likely possibility. If it attracts one shark, then it probably will attract multiple sharks.
Below is the prize fund for the 2008 World Open.
http://www.chesstour.com/wo08.htm
The sums are large with some provisions to limit a sandbagger's winnings.
"Prize limits: 1) Players with under 26 games played as of 7/08 list may not win over $1500 in U1200, $2500 U1400, $4000 U1600 to U2000. Games rated too late for 7/08 list not counted. 2) Players who were rated more than 30 points over section maximum on any supplement 7/07-6/08 have a prize limit of $2000. 3) Balance of any limited prize goes to next player(s) in line. "
As you are all aware, in a few weeks of time, Philadelphia will host a big chess event called world open.
There are many chess players out there that are licking their chops. Those are players of low rating, perhaps as low as sub 1200 USCF, but in fact they can play at grandmaster level. So they pay apx. $100 to enter the under 1600 or 1400, or even under 1200 category, and they have a really nice shot at winning it all, and scooping up $8000, or even $10000.
Is this tournament sandbagging a fair play or should tournament directors find a solution and consider it illegal(ish)??
Some of these hustlers may say that it's the thing to do, with this economy, when times are tough, they destroy their own rating, by smartly throwing games at various chess clubs, then they enter the big event and walking home with serious cash...