A new era for global chess players
by Paul Truong
About 10 days ago, Mr. Rex Sinquefield outmaneuvered Azerbaijan to bring Caruana to team USA. Today, it was announced that Azerbaijan has secured super GM Arkadij Naiditsch (born in Latvia, played for Germany for many years) for team Azerbaijan. In recent years, S. Karjakin and K. Lahno switched from Ukraine to Russia, A. Muzychuk (originally from Ukraine but played for Slovenia) back to Ukraine, Movsesian back to Motherland Armenia, etc.
This is very good for chess players. Top chess players (top 5-7 or so) can earn a hefty annual income. Unfortunately, too many strong GMs, even as high as in the low 2700’s, struggle to make a decent living. When they get older, invitations and good playing conditions are even harder to get. It is ridiculous for 2600+ GMs to compete for the top prize of 1,000 – 2,000 euros for a week long event. How are they supposed to live with that income?
Free agency changed baseball, basketball, football, soccer, etc. forever! Professional players can now seek the best financial deals. For chess players, it is especially important because there are many bad national chess federations with so much corruption and incompetent management. Chess players are usually punished and treated like slaves if they do not “conform” with the way how so many shady chess politicians.
This is a new era for the global chess players. They should embrace it for their own sake. This is my humble opinion 🙂