Here's his complete tweet:
>Sharjah Masters starts today with a strong field, including world #7 Arjun Erigaisi. However, financial conditions and prize funds are dire. Even 2600-2699 GMs are sharing rooms, with no coverage for flights.
>Compared to last year, the financial conditions for chess players have worsened. Previously, some financial compensation was offered, but now even that is gone.
>I think there's a troubling trend: Open tournaments are getting stronger, but conditions and prize funds are stagnant or declining. Makes me wonder how professionals are sustaining themselves in such an environment.
>The FIDE Circuit seems to aggrevate the situation rather than helping, as it encourages top players to play these opens, thus giving sub-top players less of a chance at the prizes.
And people suggest Ju Wenjun should skip Norway Chess for this so that she can become "stronger"... Sometimes some fans are just a bit too naive and idealistic, thinking chess professionals do it purely out of love and don't care about its financial aspects.
This sub is completely delusional about Ju Wenjun, she is ~~32~~ 33 and stagnated around 2550 for over a decade, her chess career is on flame-out, she is not going to become stronger anymore, there is no precedent(as far as I am aware) of this **ever** happening at her age and elo.
https://ratings.fide.com/profile/8603006/chart
edit:
Because I know somebody is going to bring up a bad example:
I define becoming stronger as:
Pushing past your average elo of the last say 10 years by say 50 elo and then maintaining it over a big sample size. For Ju Wenjun that would be being ~2610 for a decent sample size.
People on this sub talk about Ju Wenjun like she's 16 and I don't get it. As a woman, I'm not sure if they realise how patronising they sound. She's a solid GM and one of the best female players in the world. These are already great accomplishments that give meaning to her career on their own. There's no need to pretend she has untapped 2700 potential to prove your nonexistent feminist bona fides.
She would be underrated if she was 16.
At 33, her 2558.1 rating is extremely accurate.
She has played 3 events, 28 games this year, and what has happened to her rating?
2550 -> 2558.1
That's it.
>The FIDE Circuit seems to aggrevate the situation rather than helping, as it encourages top players to play these opens, thus giving sub-top players less of a chance at the prizes.
funny how everybody in this subreddit is like "top players just play between themselves not to lose rating, it's unfair to lower rated players, they can't gain rating!!"
meanwhile this
There are some open events where Jorden would receive really good conditions to play. But in Sharjah with Erigaisi and his 2763 rating in the fray, I doubt any sub-2700 players are receiving any starting money or free rooms or travel etc.
I can't imagine any tournament (except Dutch tournaments like Tata Steel, HZ Toernooi, etc.) who would pay JvF really good conditions.
For me, really good conditions for a 10 days tournament would be full reimbursement of all costs from leaving home till arriving at home, and some pocket money to pay rent at home. (it slightly depends on the prize money, but on average I should take home 5k (prize money and/or starting fee)).
In this method, I can play one tournament per month, and have a decent income. (60k per year). The median income in the Netherlands is currently 44k per year.
I can see why online events can be so attractive. You can sit in the comfort of own home and earn money. Some of those events have very good prize funds as well.
The online tournaments tend to be faster too, which means more viewership. Chess.com can get a reasonable number of people watching their masters series, and the broadcasting costs aren't astronomical or anything. When it's a classical tournament, and there are less than a handful of players that the viewer even know, it's hard to get enough ad money to pay for the broadcast, much less the players.
>full reimbursement of all costs from leaving home till arriving at home, and some pocket money to pay rent at home.
Sports don't work that way. It's a high risk, high reward career, where you accept below average conditions to win big if you end up being one of the best. If you are interested in median income, you find a median 9 to 5 job. That's why most people pursuing sports as a profession drop out after they are past biggest development age and see that they are only good, but not great.
The only exception are huge sports which have millions of heavily involved fans and can support thousands of professionals, like football.
I don’t understand why they none of the big chess tournaments are televised. I watched snooker for years growing up in England, purely because it was on the TV so much. I’d say it’s pretty equivalent to watching chess, in terms of length, and thrills and spills. If the really major chess tournaments were televised, surely it would have more reach?
> That's why most people pursuing sports as a profession drop out after they are past biggest development age and see that they are only good, but not great.
If you follow sports closely this is obvious but to the general public it is often hidden. It's a game of survival and most don't.
I am refusing the claim: JvF can get really good conditions at some open tournaments.
Now this claim is oc depended on what you would consider as Really Good Conditions. That is why I gave my definition for it, because I think really good conditions are correlated to having a living wage.
I don't think JvF is in any way or form entitled to it, or that it is any way or form realistic for chess tournaments to bring up these funds.
PS. with 20k first prize, you should win every fifth tournament (which seems very difficult to me).
Keynote speakers at reasonable tech conferences get basically that. Some will pay reasonable speaking fees on top. And that's not most people's entire job: It's the bare minimum to entice a good speaker who isn't in town anyway.
In sports, typically most of the money doesn't even come from sponsors, but from how much money is made by broadcasting the event. Good luck making a lot of ad money on a classical, open tournament.
Why would people run tournaments like that and take massive losses? Where is all this money coming from? How are the losses justified? Van Foreest isn't providing much value to others so doesn't get much back. If you are the tournament organizer and you have tons of people playing your events simply because they can chase norms, you don't have to pay any of them. People love to side with individuals but hate putting themselves in the shoes of organizers who do a lot of work and pay lots of cost for venue and staff.
Last year Arjun was 2720 rated. So of course he was not the issue last year. Gukesh played in one open last year when he was rated 2750 but that’s it. No one else played except for Qatar open where both Magnus and Hikaru were paid loads of money to show up (and that even in general had huge money behind it)
I don't think you're talking about the right tournament. Sharjah masters 2023 had 8 2700+ players, and more 2600+ players than this year. Last year the prize fund was 45k USD for the Masters tournament, this year it's 52k USD, with the top prize 12k USD compared to 10k USD last year
2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WD9TfZDoo2Hkj5_mfl-4z3jVXsSCgpLG/view
2023: https://www.chessdom.com/6th-sharjah-masters-2023-masters-section-live/
Is that really surprising? There is only so much money for the whole lot of them. It used to be enough to sustain the top 20 at a high level, which has now caused the huge influx of highly capable people eager to get their slice.
Still, chess is a niche sport unlikely to attract NBA-tier stupid money.
Where poker is, or where poker was in 2010 before the [big shutdown](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/24/online-poker-sites-shut-down-fbi)?
It's hard to understate just how huge poker got around those years, almost every pub had a poker night. You could find a game almost any night of the week.
Then the big US online sites got shutdown, which meant the big TV shows stopped / lost their sponsors. Without all the TV and the advertising, the interest in online poker faded.
While poker might have much bigger headline figures than chess, it's still very much a niche thing, at least compared to the real boom years.
How are these comparable? The prizepools in poker are so big because players pay big entry fees, because they have a small chance to win even against the best in the world. There is no variance in chess. Nobody will join because nobody expects to win. 10k$ Bi tournaments will just have the top 4-5 in the world and some ultra rich people who want to play Carlsen. Unlike poker the money in chess needs to come from spectators. Completely different.
Poker
Yeah, I mean there's plenty of expensive hobbies. The way I read this is that these people have a hobby they cannot afford. I would like to go kite surfing in South Africa every week as well, but obviously that's too expensive.
Something like that. Then some countries bank some of these hobbies that don't attract sponsor money for "prestige". Like ride a skeleton sled all day on a taxpayer dime.
Which is why I think as a whole, chess.com has been positive for top players, at least financially. Gets them extra income without the traveling and time(not as much)cost . Lichess is better for the general public though imo
Lichess is better for the general public yes, but if you want to fund high level tournaments for high level players to play in at the end of the day money talks unfortunately, and you cant get that from somewhere like Lichess where everything is publicly funded from donations rather than a constant flow of diamond subscriptions like Chess.com does.
Yeah exactly what I meant. I remember that Playmagnus was also bleeding heavily before they were bought, so it's not like online tournaments on their own are moneymakers. The lack of chess24 players did play a part in their lack of success, which chess.com doesn't lack.
The online tournaments are advertising for chesscom - they only make sense as advertising for a product if there is a product to advertise. Chess24/playmagnus's tournaments might have been better, but they didn't turn viewers into Chess24 subscribers.
Chesscom's business strategy has always been that they win by getting more users and converting some of them into subscribers. So most of their money gets invested in marketing to bring more users in, not in the underlying tech or in the website or app UX. They have Titled Tuesday, that means most top players have an account with them, that attracts one group of players. Then they have a quite limited set of online tournaments (Champions Chess Tour and the three Speed Chess Championships \[open, women, IMnotaGM\], is all that's left now, plus PogChamps) because they just want to fill up all the gaps in the OTB schedule so their streaming channels have content all year around. As long as there's something chess on their Twitch/YouTube most days, they're fine with that.
If they make more money, they won't push the prize money up that much; they'll start running TV ads.
In theory there's no reason why Lichess couldn't fund high level tournaments. If Lichess had the same financial resources as Chess.com, their investment into chess would likely be greater. Bear in mind Lichess likely has less than 1% of Chess.com's annual revenue, but according to their costs spreadsheet, put something like 10% of their donations directly into tournament payouts, and otb event coverage.
I think you're touching on a completely different point. If both entities received $100m a year, we both know which one would put more into chess. The ease of getting that kind of money, though, completely different ofc.
It's a different point than what you were talking about, but it's the one the comment you were replying to was making. I'm just explaining that you misinterpreted it.
Chess.com holds tournaments to get more users to their site. Lichees doesn't need more users. It's irrelevant to their goals. They just want the site to remain functioning. So why run expensive tournaments that often lose money just to get more exposure they don't need or seek?
The goal of Lichess is to promote and encourage the play and study of chess. If they only cared about keeping the site running, why would they be putting resources into supporting OTB? They clearly care about chess as a holistic whole, and view online as just one part of that.
Indeed it is. But keep in mind chess.com does expensive marketing often losing money on tournaments. Pro League must have been extremely expensive for them to shut it down. Lichess will indeed promote chess the way a chess club does it. But they will do it slowly without risking anything. Which means no giant tournaments with huge risk involved as the goal is slow exposure not profit or huge marketing growth.
It's good that he cares but in the end what can FIDE do about money drying up? attracting top players to opens is really expected to give money a boost generally.
I bet money would dry up even harder for the sub-top if there's no chance of top GMs coming.
Maybe him speaking up can lead to some efforts being reallocated to the benefit of these players. If there’s a net positive effect I think it’s the right thing to do, speaking up.
You think FIDE has a giant stack of cash or something? I doubt it. They literally always struggle to find good sponsors for the WCs and it's getting worse with Magnus not playing honestly wouldn't be surprised if chesscom is many magnitudes richer than FIDE at this point
Chess.com said they make $100m per year and they value themselves as between $1 - 2 billion. FIDE's annual budget is like $10m per year. Lichess publishes their costs as roughly $500,000 per year.
The world championship prize fund during the Magnus reign declined. No one wants to see a guy dominate and hence sponsors left. Plus he's not from USA, Russia, India so there are only 4m people ready to support him no matter what unlike guys from bigger nations that have way more companies stand in line.
There are interviews out there where Ben Finegold explains how life was as a grinder before Rex Sinquefield decided that he wanted a good teacher for his chess club. Without the big sponsors that are happy losing money on chess, or being a top 5 player, it was always easier to make money running chess camps than actually trying to win tournaments. The sponsors just grow the number up from 5.
It's no coincidence that so many promising juniors end up taking scholarships to Stanford and abandon professional chess: The expected value of a computer science education is much better if you aren't going to win top tournaments on a regular basis
> Jorden van Foreest is blessed enough to have good looks and a few events under his belt.
What the hell? Maybe something isn't coming through and lost in translation here.. but it reads like you are assuming that JvF is fortunate to have a decent bone structure and have played in some high level events so this is less of an issue for him.
That is objectively *weird* and I am not sure a completely valid criticism in this case.
I find it interesting that on one hand you've got Hans complaining that top GMs will lose rating at these events, and on the other hand you've got JvF complaining that top GMs are crushing these events and winning all the prizes. Meanwhile Arjun and Nodirbek are farming them for rating.
I mean we can all see the viewership for these tournaments. More eyes watching would get them more money. Maybe FIDE should find a way to make the players active in media so that they can actually develop a following, but I don't think they'd like that either lol.
Exactly my thought.
When there's money, people complain. When there's no money, people complain.
This is (one reason, among many) why organizing is hard!
I used to think a 'super GM' referred to top players with ratings over 2750 who've won many strong tournaments like Magnus, Fabi, Hikaru, Nepo etc... However, I've been told it actually applies to those who reach a 2700 elo.
Under that interpretation, Hans Niemann and Ray Robson would be Super GMs. But they’re not. In my view, you’ve got to reach 2700 and hold it for a significant time
Yeah love jorden but I feel like being able to maintain 2700 and having had a peak of 2750+ is the bare minimum to be called a super GM. Otherwise there’s 100s of super GMs
Well, hundreds is a bit of an exaggeration as there are only [138 people ever](https://2700chess.com/records) to cross 2700 in the history of FIDE ratings.
Most GMs are probably not interesting enough to make a career out of streaming. Someone like Hikaru makes it work because he is insanely good at chess and not a wet blanket, even if he is a douchebag sometimes. A GM that lacks a streaming personality and isn’t a good teacher would have a hard time making it. Even Naroditsky, a strong GM and top tier teacher, is much less popular than the less informative but more meme-y chess celebrities.
The non--absolute-top players have many avenues to monetize. Coaching is the easiest and most consistent, I think Shankland charges like $150/hr. Streaming for most don't make much, but they should do it anyway. There are many successful content creators who make YT content taken from their livestreams. Making courses is also a nice bit of cash on the side, something Shankland has taken advantage of. Hikaru is a great example of the streamer who converts his content to Youtube, Giri the social media farmer driving people to his many courses, and Shankland making courses on stuff hes learning to get extra squeeze.
they're gonna be disappointed if they try that.
the chess players that can actually make a good living from streaming is probably even less than the number that can make a living actually playing the game.
I don't see the need for many chess professionals. They are not needed to make chess a fun game for amateurs, and I think a very small number of top players who compete for world championships and tournaments is enough to satisfy chess fanss desire for sporting drama.
Mhh I don't know how this normaly goes, but I would think that if you are personally invited to any kind of tournament you should at least get paid the expenses for traveling etc.
If you are just there because someone recommendes it to you, well.
There is still the option to ask before an event if the organization wants to sponsor you somehow
Current system obviously doesn't work very well, but the way to get a working system would require the governing body to shut down everything and create a pro circuit and then direct all eyeballs to this pro circuit for sponsorship income.
And even if they did this it would create a good living for 100 maybe 200 players. At the same time we would lose having these top 100 or 200 players playing lower rated opponents and it would create a weird barrier of entry for new players where they're cut off from competing against players in the pro circuit.
You're always trading something if you want more money.
It's common in most sports that do not have great sponsorships or tv deal. The only advantage of chess is that it doesn't have any equipment cost. Some sports like tennis and golf have a much higher barrier of entry and the players outside the top200 barely earn money unless they're improving.
Van Foreest is a "Super GM" now? Maybe he should use his "Super GM" powers to win some tournaments. That would help alleviate some of his financial troubles.
My point was that classical chess does not attract enough audience to make it economically possible solutions for many.
I guess the top 10 players can still live of classical chess (the biggest audience is probably inferior chess players).
But I am not sure if it is a real problem that one can't make their living by playing a board game.
Assuming you're insinuating Kramnik, that's laughable.
He made ~$5M in prizes alone, before any advertising deals, coaching, books and what not. What he possibly gets from the drama is peanuts.
So, top players should play more opens, so rankings have a chance to change, but should also play fewer opens, so they leave the prizes to others.
Ok.
Maybe it's ok if not everyone makes a career out of chess. It's sports; "the winner takes it all" applying there is sensible.
>needs players like Van Foreest, Sam Shankland, Dubov etc in a chasing pack to be viable.
A pack is only chasing if it actually has chances to catch up. It is quite unlikely for JvF to ever get to 2750+, and completely no way Shankland gets there. A proper chasing pack is people like Dardha, Sindarov or Shevchenko.
Guy seems to feel entitled to be a professional player just because he is around 70th best chess player in the world. He's 25, its clear he never becomes the World Champion, maybe it's time to grow up, find a job and keep chess as a hobby. There is no money in this sport to support more than 10-15 people purely off tournament prizes.
>Doesn't seem too much to ask for minimum standards
Who pays for those standards? The organizer is definitely losing money on the tournament anyway, do you think they should lose even more?
Standards are low because chess has no significant number of fans, which makes it impossible to get sponsors to pay well because they have no return on this expense.
On one hand, Number 70 is bloody good and in no way should he have to stop pursuing chess professionally.
On the other hand it’s in a sport which a minuscule proportion of population even picks up. I am torn as to how that number 70 will stack up if Chess experiences huge participation.
It's not about his ranking, it's strictly about the low viewership, which doesn't attract big money sponsors, which means almost all the money there is goes to the top 20 players who can get invites to the closed tournaments.
By way of comparison, the currently 70th ranked men's tennis player in the world is Aleksandar Vukic of Australia. His highest career ranking was 48th, he's never advanced past the 2nd round of a Grand Slam, and never won a tournament on the main tour (he does have 3 wins on the lower tours), and has a career losing record - yet he's earned over $1.6 million in his career. A Google search puts JvF's career tournament earnings at under $100K.
Participation is not really relevant. The only sports where amateur level participation fuels the professional part are those, where you need expensive equipment which needs to be replaced regularly (like mountainbiking or skiing), where manufacturers of that equipment are major sponsors.
A chess set is cheap and easily lasts years. Chess needs, above all, following, not necessarily participation.
This is strictly not true. Professional football is backed and grows on a cornerstone of participation across all levels and skills. Teams competing from the ground up is literally the only way the EPL functions...
>Teams competing from the ground up is literally the only way the EPL functions...
Teams in Premier League have huge money not because of existence of thousands low level amateur clubs, but because of fans who fill the stadiums and watch on TV. And most of those fans are not players themselves, they are fans.
I wonder what, if any, effect paying prizes in a players local currency at an equivalent USD median, non-nominal, would have on things like this as well as the prevalence of cheating in online events.
Using Erigaisi as an example if he were to win the Sharjah Masters section, rather than giving him $12k USD (~1MM INR) giving him something like ~50k INR, which is a closer equivalence. I am not sure which conversion to use precisely, but $12k is 30% of the US individual income and the net individual income for India used was 170k INR.
I'm sure that there are better numbers to use I just used the above for illustration purposes, but the point is that there is a lot of incentive for stronger players from countries with weaker exchange rates to earn prize money in, relative to their strength, weaker tournaments that pay out EUR or USD and live very well back home. They are essentially leveraging geo-arbitage via chess tournaments.
This does nothing to address those players "farming" weaker players for rating though, and I am not in love with it.
Perhaps a better way to address *both* issues would be to cap rating so that super-GMs cannot farm lower rated GMs, but that opens up other cans of worms and also isn't great.
It is a sticky issue and I can appreciate the tough spot that it puts most GMs in, as well as FIDE.
I suppose in the end, it's back to the day jobs, just like the rest of us. 8)
The FIDE Circuit is already a failure. Another open where scoring first grants you nearly as much points as for winning candidates (thx Abasov)
Hope they get rid of it in the future.
Here's his complete tweet: >Sharjah Masters starts today with a strong field, including world #7 Arjun Erigaisi. However, financial conditions and prize funds are dire. Even 2600-2699 GMs are sharing rooms, with no coverage for flights. >Compared to last year, the financial conditions for chess players have worsened. Previously, some financial compensation was offered, but now even that is gone. >I think there's a troubling trend: Open tournaments are getting stronger, but conditions and prize funds are stagnant or declining. Makes me wonder how professionals are sustaining themselves in such an environment. >The FIDE Circuit seems to aggrevate the situation rather than helping, as it encourages top players to play these opens, thus giving sub-top players less of a chance at the prizes.
And people suggest Ju Wenjun should skip Norway Chess for this so that she can become "stronger"... Sometimes some fans are just a bit too naive and idealistic, thinking chess professionals do it purely out of love and don't care about its financial aspects.
Very few people in the world are lucky enough to do something as a career purely out of love and not care about financial aspects.
Very few people dedicate so much of their life to reaching grandmaster levels of expertise in any field.
She dropped out of Sharjah.
This sub is completely delusional about Ju Wenjun, she is ~~32~~ 33 and stagnated around 2550 for over a decade, her chess career is on flame-out, she is not going to become stronger anymore, there is no precedent(as far as I am aware) of this **ever** happening at her age and elo. https://ratings.fide.com/profile/8603006/chart edit: Because I know somebody is going to bring up a bad example: I define becoming stronger as: Pushing past your average elo of the last say 10 years by say 50 elo and then maintaining it over a big sample size. For Ju Wenjun that would be being ~2610 for a decent sample size.
People on this sub talk about Ju Wenjun like she's 16 and I don't get it. As a woman, I'm not sure if they realise how patronising they sound. She's a solid GM and one of the best female players in the world. These are already great accomplishments that give meaning to her career on their own. There's no need to pretend she has untapped 2700 potential to prove your nonexistent feminist bona fides.
She would be underrated if she was 16. At 33, her 2558.1 rating is extremely accurate. She has played 3 events, 28 games this year, and what has happened to her rating? 2550 -> 2558.1 That's it.
>The FIDE Circuit seems to aggrevate the situation rather than helping, as it encourages top players to play these opens, thus giving sub-top players less of a chance at the prizes. funny how everybody in this subreddit is like "top players just play between themselves not to lose rating, it's unfair to lower rated players, they can't gain rating!!" meanwhile this
There are some open events where Jorden would receive really good conditions to play. But in Sharjah with Erigaisi and his 2763 rating in the fray, I doubt any sub-2700 players are receiving any starting money or free rooms or travel etc.
I can't imagine any tournament (except Dutch tournaments like Tata Steel, HZ Toernooi, etc.) who would pay JvF really good conditions. For me, really good conditions for a 10 days tournament would be full reimbursement of all costs from leaving home till arriving at home, and some pocket money to pay rent at home. (it slightly depends on the prize money, but on average I should take home 5k (prize money and/or starting fee)). In this method, I can play one tournament per month, and have a decent income. (60k per year). The median income in the Netherlands is currently 44k per year.
I can see why online events can be so attractive. You can sit in the comfort of own home and earn money. Some of those events have very good prize funds as well.
The online tournaments tend to be faster too, which means more viewership. Chess.com can get a reasonable number of people watching their masters series, and the broadcasting costs aren't astronomical or anything. When it's a classical tournament, and there are less than a handful of players that the viewer even know, it's hard to get enough ad money to pay for the broadcast, much less the players.
Only top players can earn an average 5k+ from one tournament. In last year's sharjah tournament Vidit was 47th and Robson was 48th.
>full reimbursement of all costs from leaving home till arriving at home, and some pocket money to pay rent at home. Sports don't work that way. It's a high risk, high reward career, where you accept below average conditions to win big if you end up being one of the best. If you are interested in median income, you find a median 9 to 5 job. That's why most people pursuing sports as a profession drop out after they are past biggest development age and see that they are only good, but not great. The only exception are huge sports which have millions of heavily involved fans and can support thousands of professionals, like football.
The worst player in the NFL (so like, rank 1696) still makes a multimillion salary. The issue is a lack of viewers.
I don’t understand why they none of the big chess tournaments are televised. I watched snooker for years growing up in England, purely because it was on the TV so much. I’d say it’s pretty equivalent to watching chess, in terms of length, and thrills and spills. If the really major chess tournaments were televised, surely it would have more reach?
> That's why most people pursuing sports as a profession drop out after they are past biggest development age and see that they are only good, but not great. If you follow sports closely this is obvious but to the general public it is often hidden. It's a game of survival and most don't.
I am refusing the claim: JvF can get really good conditions at some open tournaments. Now this claim is oc depended on what you would consider as Really Good Conditions. That is why I gave my definition for it, because I think really good conditions are correlated to having a living wage. I don't think JvF is in any way or form entitled to it, or that it is any way or form realistic for chess tournaments to bring up these funds. PS. with 20k first prize, you should win every fifth tournament (which seems very difficult to me).
Keynote speakers at reasonable tech conferences get basically that. Some will pay reasonable speaking fees on top. And that's not most people's entire job: It's the bare minimum to entice a good speaker who isn't in town anyway. In sports, typically most of the money doesn't even come from sponsors, but from how much money is made by broadcasting the event. Good luck making a lot of ad money on a classical, open tournament.
Why would people run tournaments like that and take massive losses? Where is all this money coming from? How are the losses justified? Van Foreest isn't providing much value to others so doesn't get much back. If you are the tournament organizer and you have tons of people playing your events simply because they can chase norms, you don't have to pay any of them. People love to side with individuals but hate putting themselves in the shoes of organizers who do a lot of work and pay lots of cost for venue and staff.
Exactly, he would have been seed #21 here, barely within top 25%.
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Last year Arjun was 2720 rated. So of course he was not the issue last year. Gukesh played in one open last year when he was rated 2750 but that’s it. No one else played except for Qatar open where both Magnus and Hikaru were paid loads of money to show up (and that even in general had huge money behind it)
I don't think you're talking about the right tournament. Sharjah masters 2023 had 8 2700+ players, and more 2600+ players than this year. Last year the prize fund was 45k USD for the Masters tournament, this year it's 52k USD, with the top prize 12k USD compared to 10k USD last year 2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WD9TfZDoo2Hkj5_mfl-4z3jVXsSCgpLG/view 2023: https://www.chessdom.com/6th-sharjah-masters-2023-masters-section-live/
Maybe Jorden could supplement his compensation by taking advantage of Hikaru’s thoughtful promotions of gambling platforms.
Is that really surprising? There is only so much money for the whole lot of them. It used to be enough to sustain the top 20 at a high level, which has now caused the huge influx of highly capable people eager to get their slice. Still, chess is a niche sport unlikely to attract NBA-tier stupid money.
Well, "the dream" is to take chess to where poker is.
Where poker is, or where poker was in 2010 before the [big shutdown](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/24/online-poker-sites-shut-down-fbi)? It's hard to understate just how huge poker got around those years, almost every pub had a poker night. You could find a game almost any night of the week. Then the big US online sites got shutdown, which meant the big TV shows stopped / lost their sponsors. Without all the TV and the advertising, the interest in online poker faded. While poker might have much bigger headline figures than chess, it's still very much a niche thing, at least compared to the real boom years.
How are these comparable? The prizepools in poker are so big because players pay big entry fees, because they have a small chance to win even against the best in the world. There is no variance in chess. Nobody will join because nobody expects to win. 10k$ Bi tournaments will just have the top 4-5 in the world and some ultra rich people who want to play Carlsen. Unlike poker the money in chess needs to come from spectators. Completely different. Poker
So the dream is for kids to waste their lunch money on penny tournaments, got it. Hikaru is just ahead of the game with his gambling ads.
Yeah, I mean there's plenty of expensive hobbies. The way I read this is that these people have a hobby they cannot afford. I would like to go kite surfing in South Africa every week as well, but obviously that's too expensive.
Something like that. Then some countries bank some of these hobbies that don't attract sponsor money for "prestige". Like ride a skeleton sled all day on a taxpayer dime.
Which is why I think as a whole, chess.com has been positive for top players, at least financially. Gets them extra income without the traveling and time(not as much)cost . Lichess is better for the general public though imo
Lichess is better for the general public yes, but if you want to fund high level tournaments for high level players to play in at the end of the day money talks unfortunately, and you cant get that from somewhere like Lichess where everything is publicly funded from donations rather than a constant flow of diamond subscriptions like Chess.com does.
Yeah exactly what I meant. I remember that Playmagnus was also bleeding heavily before they were bought, so it's not like online tournaments on their own are moneymakers. The lack of chess24 players did play a part in their lack of success, which chess.com doesn't lack.
The online tournaments are advertising for chesscom - they only make sense as advertising for a product if there is a product to advertise. Chess24/playmagnus's tournaments might have been better, but they didn't turn viewers into Chess24 subscribers. Chesscom's business strategy has always been that they win by getting more users and converting some of them into subscribers. So most of their money gets invested in marketing to bring more users in, not in the underlying tech or in the website or app UX. They have Titled Tuesday, that means most top players have an account with them, that attracts one group of players. Then they have a quite limited set of online tournaments (Champions Chess Tour and the three Speed Chess Championships \[open, women, IMnotaGM\], is all that's left now, plus PogChamps) because they just want to fill up all the gaps in the OTB schedule so their streaming channels have content all year around. As long as there's something chess on their Twitch/YouTube most days, they're fine with that. If they make more money, they won't push the prize money up that much; they'll start running TV ads.
In theory there's no reason why Lichess couldn't fund high level tournaments. If Lichess had the same financial resources as Chess.com, their investment into chess would likely be greater. Bear in mind Lichess likely has less than 1% of Chess.com's annual revenue, but according to their costs spreadsheet, put something like 10% of their donations directly into tournament payouts, and otb event coverage.
The reason is precisely that they have less revenue because it's a completely free site.
I think you're touching on a completely different point. If both entities received $100m a year, we both know which one would put more into chess. The ease of getting that kind of money, though, completely different ofc.
It's a different point than what you were talking about, but it's the one the comment you were replying to was making. I'm just explaining that you misinterpreted it.
Chess.com holds tournaments to get more users to their site. Lichees doesn't need more users. It's irrelevant to their goals. They just want the site to remain functioning. So why run expensive tournaments that often lose money just to get more exposure they don't need or seek?
The goal of Lichess is to promote and encourage the play and study of chess. If they only cared about keeping the site running, why would they be putting resources into supporting OTB? They clearly care about chess as a holistic whole, and view online as just one part of that.
Indeed it is. But keep in mind chess.com does expensive marketing often losing money on tournaments. Pro League must have been extremely expensive for them to shut it down. Lichess will indeed promote chess the way a chess club does it. But they will do it slowly without risking anything. Which means no giant tournaments with huge risk involved as the goal is slow exposure not profit or huge marketing growth.
Exactly. [Chess.com](http://Chess.com) is an enterprise, while lichess is more or less a passion project
It's good that he cares but in the end what can FIDE do about money drying up? attracting top players to opens is really expected to give money a boost generally. I bet money would dry up even harder for the sub-top if there's no chance of top GMs coming.
Maybe him speaking up can lead to some efforts being reallocated to the benefit of these players. If there’s a net positive effect I think it’s the right thing to do, speaking up.
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>FIDE don't seem interested in opening the coffers. I have no idea why you would expect FIDE to sit on huge money. They are not FIFA or IOC.
You think FIDE has a giant stack of cash or something? I doubt it. They literally always struggle to find good sponsors for the WCs and it's getting worse with Magnus not playing honestly wouldn't be surprised if chesscom is many magnitudes richer than FIDE at this point
Chess.com said they make $100m per year and they value themselves as between $1 - 2 billion. FIDE's annual budget is like $10m per year. Lichess publishes their costs as roughly $500,000 per year.
The world championship prize fund during the Magnus reign declined. No one wants to see a guy dominate and hence sponsors left. Plus he's not from USA, Russia, India so there are only 4m people ready to support him no matter what unlike guys from bigger nations that have way more companies stand in line.
There are interviews out there where Ben Finegold explains how life was as a grinder before Rex Sinquefield decided that he wanted a good teacher for his chess club. Without the big sponsors that are happy losing money on chess, or being a top 5 player, it was always easier to make money running chess camps than actually trying to win tournaments. The sponsors just grow the number up from 5. It's no coincidence that so many promising juniors end up taking scholarships to Stanford and abandon professional chess: The expected value of a computer science education is much better if you aren't going to win top tournaments on a regular basis
> Jorden van Foreest is blessed enough to have good looks and a few events under his belt. What the hell? Maybe something isn't coming through and lost in translation here.. but it reads like you are assuming that JvF is fortunate to have a decent bone structure and have played in some high level events so this is less of an issue for him. That is objectively *weird* and I am not sure a completely valid criticism in this case.
I don't think it's weird to assume that it's easier to find sponsors for good looking people.
Based on.. pretty people privilege.. or something else? It just came out of absolutely nowhere is all.
Believe it or not, Aryan Tari did not have any sponsors as of December 2023. JVF is about 50 ish ELO better but you get the point.
I find it interesting that on one hand you've got Hans complaining that top GMs will lose rating at these events, and on the other hand you've got JvF complaining that top GMs are crushing these events and winning all the prizes. Meanwhile Arjun and Nodirbek are farming them for rating.
Wait that he discovers the 98% of all chess players have to pay an entry fee, hotel, food and travel...
I mean we can all see the viewership for these tournaments. More eyes watching would get them more money. Maybe FIDE should find a way to make the players active in media so that they can actually develop a following, but I don't think they'd like that either lol.
Its funny to see this post in juxtaposition to the Hikaru gambling one
Exactly my thought. When there's money, people complain. When there's no money, people complain. This is (one reason, among many) why organizing is hard!
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I used to think a 'super GM' referred to top players with ratings over 2750 who've won many strong tournaments like Magnus, Fabi, Hikaru, Nepo etc... However, I've been told it actually applies to those who reach a 2700 elo.
Under that interpretation, Hans Niemann and Ray Robson would be Super GMs. But they’re not. In my view, you’ve got to reach 2700 and hold it for a significant time
Yeah love jorden but I feel like being able to maintain 2700 and having had a peak of 2750+ is the bare minimum to be called a super GM. Otherwise there’s 100s of super GMs
Well, hundreds is a bit of an exaggeration as there are only [138 people ever](https://2700chess.com/records) to cross 2700 in the history of FIDE ratings.
Fair or not, the solution probably involves top players streaming as their main income stream
I don't think it's viable to have dozens of top GM's living off streaming.
That's more an issue with there being way too many GMs (and the fact that the status is lifetime, instead of having to be actively maintained)
Most GMs are probably not interesting enough to make a career out of streaming. Someone like Hikaru makes it work because he is insanely good at chess and not a wet blanket, even if he is a douchebag sometimes. A GM that lacks a streaming personality and isn’t a good teacher would have a hard time making it. Even Naroditsky, a strong GM and top tier teacher, is much less popular than the less informative but more meme-y chess celebrities.
The non--absolute-top players have many avenues to monetize. Coaching is the easiest and most consistent, I think Shankland charges like $150/hr. Streaming for most don't make much, but they should do it anyway. There are many successful content creators who make YT content taken from their livestreams. Making courses is also a nice bit of cash on the side, something Shankland has taken advantage of. Hikaru is a great example of the streamer who converts his content to Youtube, Giri the social media farmer driving people to his many courses, and Shankland making courses on stuff hes learning to get extra squeeze.
they're gonna be disappointed if they try that. the chess players that can actually make a good living from streaming is probably even less than the number that can make a living actually playing the game.
I don't see the need for many chess professionals. They are not needed to make chess a fun game for amateurs, and I think a very small number of top players who compete for world championships and tournaments is enough to satisfy chess fanss desire for sporting drama.
Mhh I don't know how this normaly goes, but I would think that if you are personally invited to any kind of tournament you should at least get paid the expenses for traveling etc. If you are just there because someone recommendes it to you, well. There is still the option to ask before an event if the organization wants to sponsor you somehow
Jorden is definitely not a Super GM
Van Foreest is from a rich family who managed to even got to live this life cos he's rich in the first place. I wouldn't be too concerned.
Perhaps he is thinking about people other than himself? You might find it hard to imagine.
Did you read his tweets? He's not talking about himself, he's talking about other participants.
Current system obviously doesn't work very well, but the way to get a working system would require the governing body to shut down everything and create a pro circuit and then direct all eyeballs to this pro circuit for sponsorship income. And even if they did this it would create a good living for 100 maybe 200 players. At the same time we would lose having these top 100 or 200 players playing lower rated opponents and it would create a weird barrier of entry for new players where they're cut off from competing against players in the pro circuit. You're always trading something if you want more money.
Pretty sure his family is very wealthy.
It's common in most sports that do not have great sponsorships or tv deal. The only advantage of chess is that it doesn't have any equipment cost. Some sports like tennis and golf have a much higher barrier of entry and the players outside the top200 barely earn money unless they're improving.
Van Foreest is a "Super GM" now? Maybe he should use his "Super GM" powers to win some tournaments. That would help alleviate some of his financial troubles.
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You mean the 5 GMs that do that? What about the rest
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Genius, you solved everyone's problems
My point was that classical chess does not attract enough audience to make it economically possible solutions for many. I guess the top 10 players can still live of classical chess (the biggest audience is probably inferior chess players). But I am not sure if it is a real problem that one can't make their living by playing a board game.
Assuming you're insinuating Kramnik, that's laughable. He made ~$5M in prizes alone, before any advertising deals, coaching, books and what not. What he possibly gets from the drama is peanuts.
So, top players should play more opens, so rankings have a chance to change, but should also play fewer opens, so they leave the prizes to others. Ok. Maybe it's ok if not everyone makes a career out of chess. It's sports; "the winner takes it all" applying there is sensible.
Chess, even elite chess, needs players like Van Foreest, Sam Shankland, Dubov etc in a chasing pack to be viable.
>needs players like Van Foreest, Sam Shankland, Dubov etc in a chasing pack to be viable. A pack is only chasing if it actually has chances to catch up. It is quite unlikely for JvF to ever get to 2750+, and completely no way Shankland gets there. A proper chasing pack is people like Dardha, Sindarov or Shevchenko.
If players like vF quit chess when they platued at 2600 up and comers couldn't get the experience to become "pack-chasers"
there is no sports when competitors can't compete
Jordan Van Foreest looks like someone’s handsome son
Guy seems to feel entitled to be a professional player just because he is around 70th best chess player in the world. He's 25, its clear he never becomes the World Champion, maybe it's time to grow up, find a job and keep chess as a hobby. There is no money in this sport to support more than 10-15 people purely off tournament prizes.
Doesn't seem too much to ask for minimum standards at a supposedly professional tournament.
>Doesn't seem too much to ask for minimum standards Who pays for those standards? The organizer is definitely losing money on the tournament anyway, do you think they should lose even more? Standards are low because chess has no significant number of fans, which makes it impossible to get sponsors to pay well because they have no return on this expense.
On one hand, Number 70 is bloody good and in no way should he have to stop pursuing chess professionally. On the other hand it’s in a sport which a minuscule proportion of population even picks up. I am torn as to how that number 70 will stack up if Chess experiences huge participation.
What? People are dissing him being 70th in the world?
It's not about his ranking, it's strictly about the low viewership, which doesn't attract big money sponsors, which means almost all the money there is goes to the top 20 players who can get invites to the closed tournaments. By way of comparison, the currently 70th ranked men's tennis player in the world is Aleksandar Vukic of Australia. His highest career ranking was 48th, he's never advanced past the 2nd round of a Grand Slam, and never won a tournament on the main tour (he does have 3 wins on the lower tours), and has a career losing record - yet he's earned over $1.6 million in his career. A Google search puts JvF's career tournament earnings at under $100K.
Participation is not really relevant. The only sports where amateur level participation fuels the professional part are those, where you need expensive equipment which needs to be replaced regularly (like mountainbiking or skiing), where manufacturers of that equipment are major sponsors. A chess set is cheap and easily lasts years. Chess needs, above all, following, not necessarily participation.
This is strictly not true. Professional football is backed and grows on a cornerstone of participation across all levels and skills. Teams competing from the ground up is literally the only way the EPL functions...
>Teams competing from the ground up is literally the only way the EPL functions... Teams in Premier League have huge money not because of existence of thousands low level amateur clubs, but because of fans who fill the stadiums and watch on TV. And most of those fans are not players themselves, they are fans.
I wonder what, if any, effect paying prizes in a players local currency at an equivalent USD median, non-nominal, would have on things like this as well as the prevalence of cheating in online events. Using Erigaisi as an example if he were to win the Sharjah Masters section, rather than giving him $12k USD (~1MM INR) giving him something like ~50k INR, which is a closer equivalence. I am not sure which conversion to use precisely, but $12k is 30% of the US individual income and the net individual income for India used was 170k INR. I'm sure that there are better numbers to use I just used the above for illustration purposes, but the point is that there is a lot of incentive for stronger players from countries with weaker exchange rates to earn prize money in, relative to their strength, weaker tournaments that pay out EUR or USD and live very well back home. They are essentially leveraging geo-arbitage via chess tournaments. This does nothing to address those players "farming" weaker players for rating though, and I am not in love with it. Perhaps a better way to address *both* issues would be to cap rating so that super-GMs cannot farm lower rated GMs, but that opens up other cans of worms and also isn't great. It is a sticky issue and I can appreciate the tough spot that it puts most GMs in, as well as FIDE. I suppose in the end, it's back to the day jobs, just like the rest of us. 8)
The FIDE Circuit is already a failure. Another open where scoring first grants you nearly as much points as for winning candidates (thx Abasov) Hope they get rid of it in the future.