OTB Tournaments too expensive?

I would like to hear from you, what do you think?

Post elo rating (specify fide or other), how often you go to rated tournaments,  how much money you make in a month if any, are you student/school boy/ or do you have a job.  , how much your tournament cost you - fee tax, car fuel/travel fees, food, hotel fees etc..? How far/close is your chess tournament average?

Dont you think is too expensive overall.. how much you spent in a year for chess?

In my case we have lowest salary in whole europe (average 250-450 euro/month) and is pretty damn expensive to be active over the board tournament player. You have to travel if you dont live in top chess cities. Prize money not that much, fees are not small 15-25 euro at least + hotel fees, travel fees, damn it..  and only >2000 rated players really can affort to travel to big tournaments... Even small local fide rated tournaments are expensive, for example i ask a friend from Azia Bangledash he said fide rated tour there cost 5-6$... :-O Our federation does not really care about chess..

My favorite color is orange. That's all you're getting out of me, Bub. (And I might even be lying about that color.)

Dont worry i dont care what unrated & new accounts have to say most of the time:D

Unrated, but not new. :D

Would you like my social security number and bank account info also?

Yes, I believe he would.

Sure, post everything you want : )

Nat Federation pays for title fees xD

There's a 9 rounds tournament (90+30 time controls) close where I live, twice a year, the inscription costs 30 euro. Then you have the provincial Teams League (13 rounds), and you must only be federated (20 euro/year) and being a member of a club to participate. There are also zillions of blitz tournaments about 5 euro the inscription. Unfortunately I only have time to play about 5-7 classic games per year. :(

@OP

this is a legitimate question. don't know why only one is trying to answer seriously.

I live in germany and play 10 tournaments a year. 6 tournaments are near enough to go there with tram/train daily and my normal train ticket already covers the ticket costs. Those tournaments costs me 30-45 euro. The other four tournaments are further away and I'll need to stay at a hotel. Those tournaments cost me about 350 Euro each. I'm not rich and have only a normal job, so I don't spend much money for things that aren't related to chess and save almost everything for tournaments.

Yea time & exhaustion is a problem also. For example to play 7 games in 2 days 50+10 time control is a lot but what else..

our tournaments are normally with 90+30 +30sec increment time controls. So there are only 2 games a day. but yeah this is also exhausting. For example next week I'll play a huge tournament with 9 rounds from thursday to monday. At least its not far from me and I don't need a hotel.

That's huge! The tournament I refer to has only one round per week (Sundays). Of course this is only interesting if you live really close to the place.

it is huge: http://grenkechessopen.de/en/registered

I'm glad to live in germany where we have good possibilities to go to tournaments. But Spain shouldn't be so bad either, right?

@AdamovYuri:

I don't play chess because I want a title. I play it because I like to play it.

Including donations from my parents for open tournaments, of course (I pay all entry fees but they pay for hotels when necessary)...a year's worth of chess tournaments for me probably costs roughly $2000-$2500 in US dollars ($2500 is supposedly equal to 2200 euros). Ballpark figure, and sometimes it depends on the decision whether to pay for staying at a hotel or drive an hour to a tournament and back each day as well, for the ones in DC anyway. This is not including coaching, which I haven't really had in a while, to be fair, and paying for premium membership on chess.com and chess24.

I basically play in all major open tournaments in DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia (with the one exception thus far of the World Open, since I am often away during the summer, but this year I will change that) and in between, as well as some quick-rated regional events such as the Maryland Actions (in Rockville), Arlington Chess Club events, and FPCC (until recently anyway). I also went up to USATE in New Jersey and that was about $450, ranking among the most expensive ones (although Philadelphia Open and NCC aren't so cheap either). Next year when I start college I probably will not play quite so much, but I figure what I will do is plan way in advance which open tournaments I will play in and which I won't. I definitely still intend on playing...and also it depends a lot on how much my parents are willing to help me.

All in all, it's about what you value. I go to a free chess club nearby in Annapolis almost every Tuesday which does not have rated games, and so if all I wanted was to play casual games with friends then I would not need to pay a dime. But it's not the best competition for me (the fact that I'm only 1800 and the current club champion should be telling) and also it's not serious at all. And, importantly for me, it's not rated. So I pay the money to play real competition, and for the most part I really like open tournaments (especially Maryland Chess Association's open tournaments).

Is it worth it? Completely depends on who you are. My input may also change as I get older as well, since my monetary situation will evolve, of course.

For the record, Maryland Chess Association's tournaments are about $100 each, and there are four big open tournaments MCA runs each year. Then the Continental Chess Association open tournaments which I attend (Philadelphia Open, Atlantic Open, Washington Chess Congress, probably this year World Open and Continental Class) are each about $200 just for entry. There's also the Eastern Open, not affiliated with MCA or CCA, which is around $150. Then I probably spend another $200 on local tournaments in my area (spent more last year probably, but I haven't played in as many of those lately). So $400 on MCA events, let's say $800 on CCA although for me it varies a bit by year which tournaments I attend, $150 on Eastern Open and $250 on local tournaments, all combined putting me at $1600. Then I have to stay in hotels in Philadelphia for both the Philadelphia Open and NCC (even if I get the hotel rate, that's probably $250 for each one right there) and sometimes for the ones in DC or Rockville as well if my parents offer to pay for it. So that's how I estimated the amount.

Entry fees for chess events in which ordinary players can participate have risen in line with inflation, but prize money has not changed (in number of Euros or number of pounds or dollars) since the 1980s, yet its buying power has been enormously reduced.

When I won an open tournament in 1984 my prize was more than a month's wages.  The same amount now would be less than I can earn in a day.

It is true that these days the top prizes barely cover entry fee, transport, and accommodation.  You can only make a profit if you live close to an event.  Taking part is expensive enough even for someone in the high-income parts of the Americas and Europe, and costs are obviously prohibitive for someone in a low-wage country.  As for making a living, only the very best players can live on appearance fees and prize money.  Most GMs have to write about chess, give simuls and teach to make ends meet.

Yes it is a problem.  I don't have a solution,  other than bringing back the sponsors that put a lot of money into chess after the Fischer-Spassky match of 1972, but that have since drifted away.

I dont play fide tournaments because they are very expensive in India though i live near chess cities but India is a very vast country nearly big as a whole europe  also our goverment has no place for chess as a game to be played rather they prefer funds only to games like cricket which hardly 14 -15 countries play in which few are restricted to play world cup. If i talk about fee in tournaments its rage not less than 5000 or just few less than !00 us dollor.  Fee are even expensive than 30 euros.

i thought that i will find a way to become grandmaster due to my jugad mentality.

I find the entry fees are more than worth it to see the look of humiliation on my opponent's face when I check mate him.

In Kerala (India) where I live, unrated tournaments are inexpensive but rated tourn aments are like holy shi-. I am planning on registering and getting a FIDE ID. Basically, most unrated small tournmanets in Kerala with <150 players will cost only like 400 rs which is like 5 dollars. But there are really good opportunities like a Cure Guevara tournmanet in my locality where I walked and got 2nd in my category with a cash prize of 750 rs which equals like 9.15 USD. That was huge. You see, in India, I understand that face value of money is a lot less and so is earning so money is much more valued here. Spending more than 5 dollars for a tournament is hard. Transport is inexpensive in India via bus, etc. But rated tournaments. Holy cra-. There was the Capablanca Chess Festival, a highly known event in Kerala that cost an entry fee of 4900 rs with accommodation, travel and food. Overall easily 10000 rs equalling 122 USD. But the open category 1st has a prize of like 100000 rs which is like 1220 USD. But for the average bloke,nwho doesn't stand a chance at prizes? No way. The cheapest rated tournament I saw charged an entry fee of 1500 rs equalling 18.3 USD. Everyone here spends less because everyone here earns less. I am rated about 1400 chess.com. I don't have much hope for a chess career? But playing in tournaments, meeting people, occasionally getting prizes by outplayin my elo (a person rated 2000 chess.com calls me a chess genius), its an unbeatable experience. Sometimes we are ready to spend something for that even if we don't get anything in return.