Chess One wrote:

Adorjan told me in his interview that maybe the top 30 players in the world
actually earned money by playing chess - he admitted that other opinion says
top 50.

From what I've seen, even American GMs can
afford to fly to tournaments, when they want to.
Let's say they want to play in a tourney in Las
Vegas; no problemo: they just hop a plane.

Perhaps GM Adorjan is suggesting that a GM
likely could make *better money* at some other
occupation than chess. The idea that they
can't "make money" is ridiculous; fly here and
I'll show you a guy who charges $35 per hour
for lessons, and three of him would barely make
one GM!

I keep using the term "fly there", because I
think this in itself refutes the assertion that GMs
don't make any money; if that were true, they
would all ride the bus (or hitchhike, as one
local USCF master used to do).


Or would you be happy just to be a GM even if it meant you were one of
the weakest GM.s in the world....

But to maintain the standard of GM performance if you are not paid for it,
means giving up much else in order to do so. Would you want to do that? What
if it were giving up everything else, still want to be a GM?

A lot of it is talent, by which I don't mean
study and hard work, but natural talent; in
other words, visualization skill and the
ability to figure out what the opponent is
trying to do, and just avoid losing blunders.
Oh, and the will to fight on, even after you
make one or two of those!


Me , i think id be happy just being a no name GM.....Then again if you
put that much of your life into being a GM then why not try harder to be
one of the best ?

Still for me a no name GM would be ok for me because id still be one of
the elate and that would satisfy me ...

Yes. It is understandable! I suppose the ultimate question along these lines
would be, "would you like to be like Fischer?" And there's the rub, as
Shakespeare said.

The idea that you can strive to be among the
top players in the world, not merely a no-name
GM, needs to factor in things like innate ability.

Some folks just don't /have what it takes/ to
reach the very top, while others do, but never
get there. From what I've seen, what are
called "weak GMs" simply don't have it in them,
which is why they get stuck; lucky for them, the
FIDE title is permanent, not rating-based.

I've seen people who talked about being a
"former master" or a "former expert"; people
who lost the highest title they ever earned due
to a decline, perhaps due to just getting older.
Looking at them it is hard to feel sorry for the
"weak GMs", who can choose to write chess
books (which people will actually buy!) or give
lessons, no matter how much their results
may decline.

But to train and compete for the world title
is a whole different ball game. Relatively few
have a real shot, no matter how hard they
might work. Some play knowing they have
no real shot at the title-- just to see how far
they can get, or for the opportunity to play
the big name players (in person, not on ICC!).


-- help bot