How much do professional chess players make?
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How much do professional chess players make? The average earning of a chess grandmaster is $3500 per month, and if they also coach, they can make about $4800 per month. How much each professional chess player earns depends on how successful they are.
The top 50 chess players in the world make more than $100,000 each year. This comes from playing for clubs and tournaments, appearance fees, and sponsorship.
Most professional chess players make far less than this or hardly make any money at all. They play chess as a passion or teach as a volunteer. To earn a lot of money through playing chess, you have to be a grandmaster or a title winner. Chess grandmasters can earn millions of dollars per tournament.
The net worth of the world chess champion Magnus Carlson is $8 million dollars. At the latest tournament, Magnus bagged $1.5 million dollars. It is not only the winner who earns money, but other professional chess players like Fabiano Caruana, Sergey Karjakin, Vladimir Kramnik, and Levon Aronian all earn $500,000 in tournaments each year. Even a person who loses in a chess tournament can still walk away with a lump sum of money.
There are even players like Hikaru Nakamura, who has a whopping net worth of $50 million dollars. Hikaru Nakamura is supposedly the wealthiest chess player today. He represents the USA and earns not only by playing in tournaments but writing books and columns.
Chess players also earn millions of dollars from playing for clubs. They get paid between $5000-$20,000 for competing in a club. Elite players also get paid lots of money just for appearances and performances in events and ceremonies. They also get paid for sponsorships.
Other ways professional chess players can earn money
Unfortunately, a lot of money gets paid to elite chess players, and players who never make it to international tournaments don’t earn any money. Or the money they earn is not enough to rely on chess alone as a living.
Playing in the world tournament is not the only way professional chess players can earn money, though. If the players have a high USCF ranking above 2500, they can earn money through chess coaching up to $50-$100 per hour. A coach with about 1600 rating or above can charge $20-$30 per hour. Please read this article for how much a chess coach earns.
They could also run their own chess academy or chess club or earn by writing content about chess. They can also create video tutorials about how to play chess and earn a constant income through your videos. Chess players don’t necessarily have to be grandmasters to earn this way.
How much do professional chess players make? Summary
How much professional chess players earn depends on how successful they are. The best player, Magnus Carlson, has a net worth of $8 million, while some players won’t earn anything through chess at all. On average, the top 50 players earn about $100,000 a year. And they can easily increase this if they are a chess coach, write content or do anything else related to chess that will earn them more money.
*All pics are from Unsplash.com
