Episode V - How much money does a chess grandmaster make?

Before I give you guys an update on Pyre’s progress, I want to take a look at salary levels in chess compared to SC2.

First a quick comparison of my chess earnings and Pyre’s SC2 income. Pyre was at some point ranked #1 on the North American grandmaster ladder. I used to be a 2200 ELO chess player.  This means that relatively speaking Pyre is much better at SC2 than I am at chess. 

I used to play chess semi-competitively for about 10 years until I stopped when I went to university. In those 10 years, I won about $2,500 in prizes. Mostly cash prizes at open tournaments, rapid, blitz or bughouse tournaments. But also many (worthless) chess books, and a digital chess clock.  Not bad for a kid in high school, but of course not nearly enough to consider myself a chess “professional”. In fact I am glad that it was always clear to me that my chess wasn’t nearly good enough to pursue a “professional” career.  

Pyre has made about $1,000 in SC2 so far. Approximately $800 in prizes (local LANs and WCS) and $200 from coaching.  Considering that SC2 only came out in mid-2010, he’s made his money a lot quicker.

Now lets take a look at what’s happening at the very top. The following two screenshots are from SC2earnings.com. I’m sure the numbers are inaccurate but they should still serve as a rough indication of where these people stand financially. According to the site, the figures are the combined earnings of the players from 2010-2013. Click on the images to enlarge.

It is clear that a handful of Korean pro gamers is doing very well. At the same time though, the difference between Korea and North America is quite significant. I think there are a lot of people in the community who will disagree with me here, but I think that in order to consider yourself a “professional” SC2 (or chess for that matter) player, you need to a) play SC2 full-time, and b) make enough money doing it to support yourself financially.  So if for example someone makes $12,000/year playing SC2 but still lives at home with his parents, I wouldn’t consider that person a “professional” SC2 player, even though $12,000 is certainly quite a bit of money.

Chess professionals also complain that their sport is underfunded, and FIDE, the world chess federation, is certainly not doing a great job at attracting sponsors.

In her excellent article “Making Money in Chess”, Russian Grandmaster Natalia Pogonina gives the following ballpark figures for chess grandmasters’ earnings:

Global Top      3:  >$1 million / year
Global Top   10:  > $200,000 / year
Global Top   50:  > $100,000 / year
Global Top 100:  ~ $50,000 - $70,000 / year

http://pogonina.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=579&Itemid=1&lang=english
(The article is a good read, and many observations apply to professional SC2 as well)

This of course also varies by year because the prize funds available to top players very much depend on the tournament schedule. For example, the prize fund at the 2012 world championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand (one of the weakest matches in recent history) was $2.55 million, shared something like 65%-35% between winner and loser.
Earlier this week, the FIDE candidates tournament kicked off in London to determine a challenger for Viswanathan Anand for the 2013 World Championship later this year. The candidates tournament is an 8 player double round robin tournament with a total prize fund of 510,000 Euro, with 115,000 Euro for first place (and much more at the coming world championship match) and 21,000 Euro for last place.

For winning the 2012 World Blitz Championship (a 2-day event), Alexander Grischuk received $40,000

So at the highest level, chess players make good money. It’s not so easy when you aren’t part of the global top 50 or so. Grandmasters who have to travel the world to play in open tournaments – because they don’t get invited to the prestigious round robin tourneys – have a hard time supporting a family.

The Gibraltar Chess Open, one of the largest chess opens in the world, awards the following prizes:
http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.com/prizes.htm

This, however, is an exception and most open tournaments offer far less money to the winner. Therefore it isn’t surprising that many chess GMs are forced out of their careers sooner or later.
There have been many (mostly second-rate) chess grandmasters over the years who quit their professional chess careers or abandoned the game altogether in favor of other more financially secure activities. Most recently, poker has attracted the attention of quite a few chess GMs, but there are other examples as well:

After several years as one of Western Europe’s strongest chess players, German GM Dr. Helmut Pfleger stopped playing competitive chess in the 1980s to pursue his medical career.  The funny thing about Dr. Pfleger (whom I lost to in a simultan exhibition many years ago) is that he looks very much like my dad, dresses like my dad, shares almost the same birthday as my dad, and has the same medical degree.
Currently, British GM “Lucky” Luke McShane (just over 2700 ELO) works as a foreign exchange trader in London and plays chess tournaments only when time allows. They call him “Lucky” Luke because in his career he’s had many important games where his opponents overlooked simple wins.

Current State of Pyre’s Game:

Earlier this week Pyre managed to get a 1500 rating on chess.com for the first time! He started playing chess seriously only in January, so this is clearly a pretty impressive result indeed. Congrats, Pyre! And again I must say I’m very satisfied that as his coach I seem to be doing a few things right, too. He’s now set his sights on 1700, and as I argued in one of my previous articles, this is where the real work begins. Since the beginning of the year, Pyre has learned the basics of chess strategy, and he started ridding his game of some fundamental tactical errors. Now we can actually start playing some “real” chess, which is something I am very much looking forward to. In particular, we will be looking at some positional games by Capablanca, Karpov, Steinitz and Lasker.

We’ve also started looking at pawn endings. Knowing just a few principles about basic pawn endings is a good way to noticeably improve one's results. In his seminal work “Beyond Good and Evil” Friedrich Nietzsche warned us that “when you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. I’m always reminded of this when I study pawn endings. Complex pawn endings are incredibly difficult and very often when I sit down to analyze them I realize that the more I look into them, the less certain I become about my judgment until at the very end I seem to doubt even my most basic conclusions. I’ll most certainly devote a future article to pawn endings.

The 2008 World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik

Here are a few positions from Pyre’s recent games that allow some interesting observations:
The avid reader of this blog will remember that Pyre's account on chess.com is 3hitu. I noticed that sometimes Pyre is shell-shocked and throws away games when things don’t go as planned and the opponent suddenly plays some tactical shocker. For example:

In position 1, Black has just captured a knight on g3. Pyre probably thought that the knight was protected, but realized too late that due to the pin and Black’s bishop on c5 the pawn on f2 can’t recapture on g3. Therefore, Pyre resigned, probably frustrated over this “blunder”. However, he overlooked that White can simply play d3-d4. This breaks the pin and attacks the bishop on c5 so that White is going to get the piece back.

In position 2, Black has just played Nc2, and at first glance it appears as if White’s going to lose an exchange. Pyre seemed to think so too because he lost his head and took on a7 in desperate search for some sort of compensation. However, he could have easily salvaged the situation by playing Nd4 instead, forking Black’s queen and knight, thereby forcing the exchange of the two knights. This would have allowed Pyre to continue the game. Up to this point he’d held his ground against a much stronger opponent pretty well.
The lesson from these two examples is that one shouldn’t give up too easily when something unexpected happens, for example overlooking some sort of tactical threat. It’s tempting to just give in to shock and frustration and simply resign the game, but with a cool head it is sometimes possible to save seemingly lost positions.

In this position we have a pawn race on our hands. Pyre’s problem is that White’s pawn is one tempo ahead. In this position Pyre played the very dangerous move Kd5 to support the advance of his pawn. It’s the right idea, however, unless it is absolutely necessary (and here it is not) one should NEVER put one’s king on a square that allows the opponent to promote a pawn with check. It didn’t matter in this particular case, but it is advisable to avoid this risk altogether. In this position for example by playing Kc5-d4 etc.

This is one of my favorite games of Pyre so far. In position 1, he’s clearly lost. There’s nothing he can do to stop Black’s distant passed pawns on the queenside. However, in this position Pyre tried a final trick and played Nf6!, inviting Black to take the knight. If Black simply ignores the knight on f6 and plays a5-a4-a3 etc., Pyre’s position is hopeless. However, Black took the knight and in doing so gave Pyre two dangerous passed pawns. A few moves later they reached Position 2 which was Black’s last chance to draw the game. After … Ng4+! Pyre played Kh8, threatening g7+. Black found the only move … Nf7+!, but after Pyre’s response Kh7 he played … d2?? and resigned after g7+. If Black plays the knight back to g5 with check instead, he’d draw by perpetual check because White is forced to move his King between h7 and h7. If White takes the knight on f7, his pawns are blocked and Black can promote his d-pawn. If White plays Kh6 in response to Nf7+, Black wins a tempo to play d2 because g7+ is no longer a threat.
Obviously both players didn’t fully understand this position, but nevertheless Pyre’s move Nf6! was very clever and for that move alone I think he deserved to win the game. I was very impressed when I saw this game.

And one example from my own games:

This probably won’t come as a surprise to a StarCraft 2 audience, but in chess it is typically favorable to have the initiative. In many cases, it is even recommended to sacrifice material in order to (re)-gain it.  As an illustration look at position 1 below: My position is clearly worse.  I’m a pawn down, my queenside is falling apart, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold on to the d2-pawn. On the other hand, the position of Black’s king has been compromised, and my knight would be very strong on f5 indeed.
Therefore, instead of defending a hopeless position, I decided to launch a counter-attack and much to my surprise after moves like Nh4 and Qg4+ we reached Position 2 rather quickly, with Black’s king spectacularly mated in the middle of the board.

In all seriousness though, teaching chess to Pyre has clearly shown me how lacking my chess has become over the years. I know I'm still a pretty good player, but not being as good as I once was is pretty frustrating. I’m not sure if I’ll ever achieve it, but I would like to take a shot at 2300 ELO at some point. At the very least though, teaching chess to Pyre has rekindled my interest in the game, and I haven't felt this excited about chess in a long time.

Episode IV - Pyre Wins His First Trophy

It was only 2 months ago that I started teaching chess to SC2 Grandmaster Pyre. Therefore I was very surprised when he emailed me the following picture:

Pyre won his first trophy at a local high school chess event. Though I realized his talent very quickly, I did not expect him to score so well at over-the-board tournaments so soon. Of course most of the credit belongs to Pyre, but it is very gratifying to see that as his coach I seem to be doing something right, too.
I'd like to take this opportunity and take a closer look at the current state of Pyre's game:

Current State of Pyre's Game:

I regularly go through the games Pyre plays on chess.com to look for things that spark my interest. The following six positions I think exemplify Pyre’s recent progress very well, and also indicate where more work needs to be done. Pyre’s account on chess.com is [b][red]3hitu[/b][/red]. What I find most significant about the following examples is that they show that [b]Pyre has begun transitioning from simply making moves to formulating and executing plans[/b]. The very fact that he is already making short-term and long-term plans is significant progress indeed even if some of his plans are ill-advised or tactically flawed. . This kind of progress is far more important than fluctuations in his rating. I really don't care much whether Pyre's rating is 1100, 1200, 1400 or something like that. What I care about is improvements in his game.

In this position Pyre “saw” the hanging rook on d6 and took it. He won the game soon after, but 34. Qg8 checkmate would have been better instead. This is a good – though extreme – illustration of Emanuel Lasker’s recommendation “when you see a good move, look for a better one”. However, this is not just a problem for beginners. I’m very familiar with this kind of mistake, too.  I frequently overlook excellent moves after finding a good one.
In this example, Pyre’s move didn’t change the outcome of the game. It’s really quite frustrating when it does.

This position is a good example of how Pyre’s ability to formulate and execute plans has increased since the beginning of the year. In this position, he is a pawn down, but has a very strong attack against Black’s king. Pyre played 20.Ng4 which is a move that I am certain he could not have made 2 months ago. The idea behind it is to distract the knight on f6, which is the only defender of h7, where Pyre is threatening mate. I was very pleased indeed when I saw him play 20.Ng4.

In this position, Pyre’s bishop is under attack, and I’m sure that until recently he would have simply retreated it to maybe d4 or f6. In the game however, Pyre played 23.Qh6, threatening mate on c1. An interesting choice I find. I’m not sure if he simply overlooked 23. … Qxh2 or whether he didn’t like the response 24.Qh3. In any case, I was impressed by the fact the he put some thinking into the position and came up with something other than an obvious move with the bishop.

In this position, Pyre got really lucky. Black had sacrificed a knight on g4, and Pyre was imprudent enough to take it. Note to Pyre: In these kinds of positions taking a knight on g4 is almost never a good idea if Black gets an open h-file in return. Mate is usually inevitable. In this case, too. However, Black was too impatient and went for 10. … Qh2+, a useless check that allowed Pyre’s king to slip away via f2. Had Black played 10. … g3! first to block White’s escape route, there’s nothing Pyre could have done to prevent mate on h1. As the great Bobby Fischer said: “Patzer sees a check, patzer plays a check”.

In this position, Pyre has a nice bishop/queen battery on the diagonal b1-h7, and he eventually managed to win the game through an attack on the kingside. This position, however, is significant because both Pyre and his opponent overlooked a great defensive resource for Black. Pyre now played 11.e5, which is the right idea at the wrong time, because it allows Black to play 11. … Nb4!, forking Pyre’s queen and bishop and thereby trading Pyre’s important bishop on d3. So when you line up your pieces on that diagonal, it is important to make a prophylactic move like a3 first to make sure no knight shows up on b4.

This position is from the same game. Pyre now chose to play 19.Kh1 in order to play Ng1 to open the d1-h5 diagonal for the queen, a plan that ultimately resulted in Black’s resignation. Of course this was not a forced sequence. Black could have done several things to prevent this, and Pyre could have found a better way to activate his queen – one without moving the knight in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, I was very pleased when I saw this maneuver because it shows that Pyre is really developing the skills to formulate sensible plans. This is because while one should always look for the best move, from a practical point of view it is equally if not more important to have a realizable plan even if that includes moves that are - objectively speaking - not the best.

Bad Manner

Thankfully there is not nearly as much BM in online chess as there is in SC2. However, I noticed there’s a special kind of BM that I frequently encounter when I play someone who's much weaker than me.
Here are a few examples:

I'd be curious to know how much BM other chess players have to put up with. In top level chess tournaments rules around BM are very strict and players forfeit their games if they even just refuse to shake hands. This is a clip of the famous handshake incident at the Corus 2008 grandmaster tournament between Nigel Short and Ivan Cheparinov:

In my next article in this series I'll take a look at typical salaries of SC2 professionals compared to chess grandmasters. Any SC2 GMs or chess professionals willing to offer their thoughts on this are welcome to contact me.
I will also talk a little bit more about the theory behind formulating plans in any given position.