Below 2700, Chess Doesn't Pay

It depends.
Spassky earned $1,650,000 by losing his 1992 match against Fischer and he was rated 2560.
Dvoretzky was full time coach and writer, rated 2540.
Jeremy Silman rated 2420.
Roman Vidonyak rated 2442.

@lizani said ^

That's the conclusion of Nikita Vitiugov, the Russian grandmaster who moved to England after the invasion of Ukraine. He's quit professional chess and you can see more from his interview here

https://worldchess.com/news/below-2700-chess-doesnt-pay-englands-no-1-nikita-vitiugov-quits-professional-game

The original interview is on Sports.ru in Russian.

it does pay but not enough to make a living solely off playing,thats the harsh reality,i

@tpr said ^

It depends.
Spassky earned $1,650,000 by losing his 1992 match against Fischer and he was rated 2560.
Dvoretzky was full time coach and writer, rated 2540.
Jeremy Silman rated 2420.
Roman Vidonyak rated 2442.

Yes, but we can all agree that for most people it is not feasible. You mention the example of Spassky, but he was the WC of that time, just that the ratings were lower in general.

"for most people it is not feasible"

• agreed.

"Spassky, but he was the WC of that time"

• No, he was world champion in 1972. In 1992 he was an elder grandmaster, penniless from 2 divorces. Fischer played the 1992 rematch so Spassky got money to live from.

Some more examples:
Keene 2510
Alexandra Botez 2044
Daniel Naroditsky 2647
Levy Rozman 2421

Don't forget to factor in the cost of living. For Vitiugov, in London, a cheap rental will be $2000 a month.

"... Many aspiring young chess players dream of one day becoming a grandmaster and a professional. ... But ... a profession must bring in at least a certain regular income even if one is not too demanding. ... The usual prize money in Open tournaments is meagre. ... The higher the prizes, the greater the competition. ... With a possibly not very high and irregular income for several decades the amount of money one can save for old age remains really modest. ... anyone who is unlikely to attain a high playing strength should on no account turn professional. ... Anyone who does not meet these top criteria can only try to earn his living with public appearances, chess publishing or activity as a trainer. But there is a lack of offers and these are not particularly well paid. For jobs which involve appearing in public, moreover, certain non-chess qualities are required. ... a relevant 'stage presence' and required sociability. ... All these jobs and existences, moreover, have hanging above them the sword of Damocles of general economic conditions. ... around [age] 40 chess players ... find that their performances are noticeably tailing off. ..." - from a 12 page chapter on becoming a chess professional in the book, Luther's Chess Reformation by GM Thomas Luther (2016)
https://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/LuthersChessReformation-excerpt.pdf
"... Though being a chess pro might sound romantic (it certainly did to me when I was young), the romance quickly melts away when you realize that you’re broke, starving, and living in a hovel. Iif you live in America, then you can forgot about health insurance ... way, way too expensive. Other than the top 10 or 20 grandmasters, most of the rest will never make a lot of money. As a result, grandmasters usually have to teach chess and write chess books. It wasn’t what they wanted to do when they started out, but when reality hits you in the face, you have to bow to it.
Of course, being a grandmaster and teaching students and writing books isn’t that bad. But you would make far more money and have much more security if you went to university and got a great career. ..." - IM Jeremy Silman (2016)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/can-anyone-be-an-im-or-gm

@thefinal_move said ^

Below 2700 you can live off chess with coaching, videos, books...

still dont think its enough to become a full time thing

It kind of depends, some coaches do become quite popular and stuff, but yes the general consensus is quite clear, chess doesn't really pay below 2700, and that is very unlikely to change soon, even as chess gets mo...

There are several coaches in my town who do it as a full time job.

There are only 32 2700+ grandmasters.
There are more than 32 chess players making money from coaching, books, videos, websites.

The economics don't really work that well. Some sports like football generate income from supporters but that doesn't really exist in chess so you don't have packed stadiums or TV deals to fund it. Even golf somehow miraculously gets TV deals that allows good prize purses.

Some people can make a living from online courses or writing books but it's quite a limited demographic and I think it's getting more and more crowded. Tournaments don't really make a lot of income if funded by participants in tournaments as it's essentially a zero sum game where weaker players subsidise top players. The only exception is if a wealthy sponsor runs an event and in that case it's often top 10/20 in world that monopolise spots since if you want a prestigious event like Rex Sinquefield why get the person ranked 100th in the world when you can get a top 10 player instead at a similar cost.

In GM tournaments last year a realistic estimate of total prize funds is around $20m. According to FIDE website we have 203 players who are 2600+. So that means assuming all the prize pools are claimed by 2600+ players then it's $98k per player. From that you then need to deduct travel expenses, accommodation, coaches etc and I would imagine a player would be lucky to have half of that left over. Then you can also add that #1 would be likely to get more than # 203. If we assume the person ranked 203rd gets half as much as average then from a $98k average you're down to around $25k and if living in London where it costs $2k a month that's practically all gone on rent alone.

That's why it's been widely recognised that outside top 100 it's pretty hard to make a living from chess and probably outside top 50 is also very hard. It's a shame but a lot of the people who are able to become GMs are quite talented and often find using same skills in other fields is financially a lot more lucrative.

@rbhoopathi04 said ^

Below 2700 you can live off chess with coaching, videos, books...

still dont think its enough to become a full time thing

It can be... I know 3 people who are well below 2700 (one in the FM, two in the IM range) who make (or in one case made, he is retired now) a decent (not rich, but middle to upper middle class) on chess. They win an occasional cash prize at a tournament, but that is a bonus that they dont really count on. Their incomes comes from a combination of private coaching (both lessons, and accompanying students to tournaments), teaching group courses (at schools and chess clubs), and writing/reporting about chess.