Dr. Stephen Jones asked the following question:
“Chess is a great gym for the mind. It develops the young, keeps the old in shape, makes friends, and is somewhat interesting. But, in America, is it a good profession?”
What is your take?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
You make me laugh.
Of course not.
It is a terrible profession.
A few people do ok at it but for the average person it is not a good profession. It is a good game however.
It is like being an artist. Hard to make a living as an artist. Harder as a chess professional.
A lawyer, business owner, doctor etc. These are good professions.
I stand a better chance of getting published.
Chess is not a constructive activity of itself, and in this country it is poorly rewarded. It may provide benefits for some, but it is a poor choice of profession.
Chess is just a board game. Yet people trick themselves into thinking they are doing something clever(myself included). Could you imagine a Risk, or Stratego professional. It sounds utterly absurd. Although I do envy the few elites that actually make good money. I guess Ill stay a Firefighter/Paramedic.
I speak frecuently with two GMs and a WGM.Today I was chatting with one of them.
Honestly the type of master that travels trying to win Opens and some money has a very bad life.It is hard for the masters in Europe and probably is harder in USA.
The option of these three masters is TEACHING and with them the joke about the difference between a cheese pizza and one GM does not work.
And in summer they can play some opens,just to enjoy a bit the fight.
Two of the three work in the University.The three were national champions in their countries.One of them works in USA.
Of course I do not want to give names,but I know very well about what I am speaking!
No contributor to human culture is a ‘constructive activity’. Music, singing, art, fashion, sport, all are to make life look and feel better, to test human ability and creativity.
Just making new and better bombs or more hamburgers to make people fat is not useful.
Chess does not have the marketability of professional baseball, football, basketball, tennis, and other sports/games in America. As it has a very small financial pool to draw from, and rewards mainly the most successful, often being a “winner take all”, unreliableuncertain pursuit rather than an occupation or profession where a certain level of proficiency and commitment rewards an individual with a steady, comfortable living in America, it is hard to envision a scenario where very many will ever pursue chess as an occupation.
Aronian (ARM)
Hello,
Certainly, whether or not chess is a good profession depends on the circumstances. For the chess-only professional it is indeed a shitty business, but for others – such as you, Susan, I think – who promotes, writes and teaches chess, I think it is a profession better than most!
By the by, it is almost an insult to speak of chess as “just a game” (and compare it to Risk!) – it is so much more. An exciting hobby, a social event (if you want it to be), and exercise for the mind!
Thanks for a great blog!
EuroGuy
The most consistent way for a chess professional to earn money is to write and teach.
Good teachers are not always good players, in fact one often mitigates against the other. To a certain extent, the same is true for writing too.
I would think that for players who are natural communicators, and can pass on their knowledge to others in whatever form, chess can just about provide a reasonable living.
Anyone trying to eek out a living from playing tournaments, had better be single and not have high lifestyle expectations…
A good example of a great communicator and excellent player is GM Larry Christiansen. Always entertaining in any format. I hope there will always be a living in chess for people like Larry.
Very few people can live a life off chess. You would have to be an exceptional player who gives lessons 10 hours a day. If any depression or war that effects the economy a little, almost all chess players that live off of chess will lose their job.
Of course. It beats working from 9-5 until you’re 95.
“If any depression or war that effects the economy a little, almost all chess players that live off of chess will lose their job.”
This proved untrue in at least one bombed country.
The best way to make money from chess is to publish about it (books, articles, videos, …) and try to grow the market for those publications, e.g., by trying to sell chess as a good way to develop transferrable character traits which will be ‘strengthening’ in some way.
Chess might be good for that, but I’m not convinced that it’s the only or even best way to do that. It doesn’t, for example, really teach social or team skills which are increasingly important.
Of course in the USA chess is no good profession. There is no chessculture there…
Baseball is a better profession there, or breeding cows on a farm.
This is almost like asking if basketball is a good profession for example.
Honestly do you think a lot of basketball player make a good living ?
No. Only a few hundreds good players in NBA made a good living.
You have to be great in any sport to make a good living.
From the USCF Issues Forum:
Now that the election is over, I can say what I really think and not care if I alienate half the voters.
Chess is a great gym for the mind. It develops the young, keeps the old in shape, makes friends, and is somewhat interesting. But, in America, is it a good profession?
The dark side of chess is its allure. For the extremely talented, there can be both internal and external pressures to become a chess professional. Externally, there is probably no greater entry on a chess teacher’s resume than “I taught grandmaster so-and-so.” The teacher would love for the student to become a grandmaster and may pressure him or her to do so. Internally – and I speak from personal experience – chess can be a comforting refuge. The talented young teenager is just like any other young teenager: insecure, anxious over his or her identity and future, and is probably already viewed as a complete nerd by classmates. But if they truly excel at chess, suddenly the talented teenagers are idols to fellow teenager chessplayers. Adults chessplayers respect and even fear them. And every chessplayer seems to want to be their friend.
I have very great respect for grandmasters and those capable of becoming grandmasters. As a Ph.D. and former visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study, I have met Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medal winners. Yet if I were to name the top ten most brilliant persons I have ever met, over half of them would be chessplayers.
The point of this thread is that, in America, anyone with all that talent, brilliance, and work ethic can excel at a great many other professions where the pay is ten times more and the respect, other than from chessplayers, is fifty times greater.
Moreover – and I welcome comments from grandmasters on this – there are other drawbacks to being a grandmaster, especially in America. Unless you are the world champion, there is always someone better than you. If you are young, you can delude yourself for a while that you will become world champion, but sooner or later you realize the truth. So ultimately you write books, teach some, and pick up some prize money at tournaments. Worse, as you turn 45 or 50, when your experience, wisdom, and judgment should make you very valuable to society, in chess you are all but over-the-hill. And I will bet that at some stage in your life you question the purpose of all of it. After all, chess is just a game and other things are indeed more important than chess. But, once you acknowledge this to yourself, you are washed-up. Your work ethic can never be the same. I have said about mathematicians and I say about grandmasters, the first time you rush your child to the emergency room is the last time you think that math or chess is all that important.
Again, from experience, I can tell you that it is tough going from an activity or profession where you are highly respected to beginning anew in some other endeavor where you are considered a snot-nosed, ignorant freshman. But if you are ever going to make the shift, the longer you wait, the harder it is.
So my thesis is, chess is a excellent game. It is good for the young and adults, but before anyone is encouraged to become a professional chessplayer in America, they should be carefully advised of the consequences and alternatives.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where the title of this thread comes from? (Excluding Harry, who I am sure knows.)
Stephen Jones
There is a grandmaster in America
ranked in the top 25 of all U.S.
chess players. If he were a pro
baseball player of similar caliber,
he would be easily set for life
financially. Because he is a chess
player, he has to solicit donations
to pay expenses for his chess
tournaments. Until elite Americans
can make a living playing chess,
it will be very difficult to pro-
duce a world championship caliber
player in this country. Only love
of the game probably motivates
our grandmasters to keep playing.
Do you guys know that Brian Lafferty was lying about this on the USCF forums? He claimed that he c&p Jones’ post and someone deleted it. Obviously, it’s still here. He also makes other wild claims over there. How come no one is doing anything about his despicable conduct?