Earn with Chess
Earn with Chess!
How can you play chess and earn through it as well? Is it really worth taking as a career? Is the money really good enough for living in an expensive time like this? All such ambiguities of yours get dispelled here!
This is 2022. And people love to invest and spend on the things people love. As a result, there are tons of monetary potentials in the things which were beyond imagination at the time. Amongst many other well sustained games of ancient times, Chess has a huge community of players and mass followers. This works as an incredible fuel for igniting the monetary potentialities lying in the market for chess.
Is It Really Feasible?
Yes! It is very possible and it’s been happening for quite a time. It’s never “building castles in the air” anymore if you want to make money by playing chess online. There are several online chess sites where players may earn money by competing in tournaments. However, according to tournament prize pools as of July 2021, internet chess appears to be significantly less profitable than real-world chess (particularly professional chess).
The chess website Chess.com held its first-ever cash prize event in the summer of 2020, with a prize pool of $4,500. Chess.com launched a fantasy chess contest with over $5,000 in prizes in October 2020.
Amateur chess competitions often have substantially larger prize pools. The prize pool for the 2021 U.S. Open Chess Championship, for example, was $50,000. Prize money in professional chess is significantly larger, typically in the millions of dollars.
Magnus Carlsen, a Norwegian chess grandmaster, collaborated with chess website chess24.com to host the Magnus Carlsen Invitational tournament in April 2020. This event was the wealthiest online chess tournament at the time, with a total prize pool of $250,000. [1]
Professional-level online chess prize amounts regularly reached hundreds of thousands of dollars as of July 2021. For example, Chess.com’s 2020 Speed Chess Championship had a prize pool of $250,000, which was $150,000 more than its 2019 equivalent.
The 2020 Speed Chess Championship was a multi-event tournament featuring a $100,000 prize pool for the 16-player Main Event. Eight of the sixteen players were invited directly to the tournament, while the remaining eight were chosen through a qualification process.
Grandmasters Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Levon Aronian (Armenia), and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave were among the sixteen participants in the Main Event (France).
Amateur events often have smaller prize pools, usually in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Now, How?
The question that might be arising in the back of your mind is “Now, how?” How would you do it? Well, relax! I know I have a reader of many types and they can be fit for different purposes. Keeping that in mind, I have mentioned five very independent and feasible ways of making money through Chess.
Taking part in Tournaments:
Magnus Carlsen, who is 22 years old, got $1.5 million after winning the 2013 World Chess Championship. Playing chess for money doesn’t get any better than that.
However, there are a number of smaller events where you may win good money. You may, for example, strive to win the global blitz championship if you enjoy quick games (which I do) and are a skilled player. This year’s tournament was held in Dubai, with ten $40,000 awards awarded to winners in several categories. If you keep exploring, you’ll find a slew of tournaments all throughout the country where you may win anywhere from a few hundred bucks to a million dollars.
Before you get too enthusiastic, keep in mind that only the top 50 chess players in the world, according to chess expert Natalia Pogonina, earn more than $100,000 each year. “A typical tournament won by a 2500+ GM carries a first prize of less than $5,000,” she explains. (A Grand master with an Elo System rating of 2,500 or more is referred to as a “GM.”)
Go to Clubs:
To get paid to turn up and play a few games, you have to be quite excellent, but according to Pogonia, this is one of the major ways “pre-elite grandmasters” make a living. For competing in a club tournament, they can earn anything from $5,000 to $20,000.
Selling Chess Supply and Books:
One must be rather excellent to be compensated for simply showing up and playing a few games, but according to Pogonia, this is one of the key ways “pre-elite grandmasters” put bread on the table. They receive payments ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 for participating in a club event.
Mentoring:
International masters and grandmasters, according to Pogonia, charge $20 to $50 an hour for online tutoring and courses. Even lower-ranked players, in my experience, charge at least $20 per hour to instruct newbies. Wyzant chess teachers charge between $35 and $50 per hour, with the website taking a 25% cut. Do you want to be a teacher? Take a look at Google Helpouts and Udemy as well.
Writing:
Finally, if you enjoy both chess and writing, why don’t you combine the two? You may write for chess periodicals, chess-related websites, create a blog, or produce a book that you can publish on Kindle.
Chess Websites with Financial Potential:
Amongst many, here are three very chess websites where players may earn money by competing in tournaments:
Chess.com
Chess.com sponsors tournaments with prize pools of up to $5,000 on occasion. Prize pools for higher-level tournaments, such as the 2020 Speed Chess Championship, might reach $250,000 or more.
Chess2Play.com
Chess2Play.com offers cash prize events as well as the opportunity for individuals to wager money against one another.
MBchess.com
Players above the age of 18 can compete in tournaments for cash prizes on this website.
Lastly,
Online chess looks to have a lesser earning potential than real-world amateur and professional competitions. This, however, is highly dependent on the tournament’s host and prize fund. But I reckon you know about those people who make tons of money with Chess. Then, why can’t you? I always admire the brave youth who are going their way to drive their career with Chess. The strategy of earning with chess is just like the strategy of the game: “Observe, think and take your shot!”
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