I am for a $ 50.000,- prize tournement!

Would the entreance fee be still $50 or higher?

You would do better to offer more prizes, perhaps to the top ten finishers or even top twenty. After all, most of us stand little chance of winning the whole thing, so you could offer $1, $1,000, or even $1,000,000 and it wouldn't matter to 90% of the players (including me).

Also, I vote to scrap the 2003 tourney. Even if you started it today, the bulk of it would take place in 2004 and could even extend so long that it would make getting next year's played during the year and after the 2003 tourney is finished quite difficult. (sorry for the run-on sentence).

Thad

It would be nice to be able to offer prizes for a great many players, but the point of tournament play is to encourage you to strive hard to make it to the top tier. The top 20 finishers of an event like the World Open do get prize money, but they also have 500+ players per section paying $250 to enter.

By annoucing a larger prize fund at different internet sites, we could attract more players here, which is the objective.

I tried a $20 tournament here once with the winnings being a function of the players who register, and there was little interest.

So, I think I will offer prizes as follows:

$10,000
$5,000
$2,500
$1,000
$500
$200
$200
$200
$200
$200

For places 1 through 10.

The question is, what should the entrance fee be?

In my opinion, playing for money, mainly exacerbate greediness and consequently encourage the use of programs. Those programs killing the fun of play. In other words sleepying the imagination. How a sad future.
Chess and its variants are rare plays the fun is self-sufficient for enjoy and yet meaningless ratings points already could pertubate the fair-play of someone. Imagine when golden calf come in.