How do professional chess players think ?

Op didn't seem to get that a professional should be worried about making money out of their profession

Ah.

The good thing these days is that there are so many more ways that professional players can make money in chess, which is nice.

I’ll try to give a reasonable example using four different GM friends of mine...

Hikaru Nakamura: All Hikaru does is play. Yes, he has sponsors and makes money like that too, but his main profession is strictly to play.

Josh Friedel: Josh plays quite a bit. But he also teaches, writes some articles, makes some videos, etc. Josh dabbles in a bit of everything.

Mesgen Amanov: Mesgen doesn’t play at all anymore. All he does is teach and sell his video lesson courses. Mesgen’s primary income comes from coaching.

Eric Hansen: Eric is one of the new breed of GM’s. He plays a little, and writes a tiny bit, but doesn’t really coach at all. However, he’s on the leading edge of making chess a legit e-sport. He streams a lot. Whether it’s blitz/bullet on Twitch, or covering events like the World Cup or Norway Chess on streams.

So the answer as to how people can become chess professionals is far more complex than its ever been. But with a lot more opportunity.

I chuckled a bit for post #19 regarding Deep Blue. Deep Blue would surely lose; even in Deep Blue's claim to fame win, Kasparov was better. In fact, Kasparov did win the match. This only made history because Deep Blue won ANY games against a world champion. Furthermore, computers have advanced far since then. Magnus would probably win against Deep Blue - but likely not against Stockfish, Komodo, or Alpha Zero (at least in one try); luckily for GMs, computers tend to be viewed nowadays as training tools rather than as opponents.

As far as professional "thinking" versus the commoner "thinking", it is primarily how much chess based knowledge/patterns they have. I am far from professional, but watching any titled player gives you the impression of how talented they are. GMs and IMs combined make up less than the top 1%, there is a reason they are this good. Now I just need to figure out how to benefit my play from these reason(s)

Kasparov won the first match (1996), Deep Blue won the second (1997)

Yeah, I was referring to the famous 1996 match. At that, Kasparov lost that "famous" game because he "challenged" Deep Blue's tactical ability; after that loss, the rest of the match had Kasparov only playing tactically after he was sure he was positionally setup. 1996 was when chess engines finally earned some real recognition. Now it is safe to say how much computer chess has advanced (better than people is still debatable, but certainly time controls matter); at longer time controls humans still seem better than engines. Of course, it is also significant to note how even a computer like Deep Blue could be improved enough to win a match they lost - just a year ago.

 

So can I! 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. Ng1 Ng8 3. Nf3 Nf6 ....

haha, @madratter7 you genius. But I think we both know what he means

---

what does this mean?? Can you please tell me..

Quite true that it's more complex than before, but it's still not easy, unless you're in the very top. It's not exactly as if they can take out a pension plan and feed it with their revenue from books, coaching, prize money, sponsorship/product endorsements, e-sport/commentary/streaming activities. Also, many of them are nothing but niche markets or not really that lucrative. Commentary is typically only attracting 'capacity' audiences (= reasonable revenue) for the biggest events, and that market's is cornered by something like ten, fifteen or so IMs and GMs - of very varying didactic ability it has to be said. Writing books is not really that profitable if you consider the amount of time they have to spend if they want to publish quality work.

In my view, the best bet is probably the sponsorship/product endorsements/advertising, but even there it's difficult outside the absolute top class category of players. Carlsen, for instance is sponsored by Arctic Securities, but they're not putting one Norwegian öre into helping the Norwegian national team compete in Olympiads and European team championships (for a while the insurance giant Norske Veritas did, but I'm not sure they still do). This despite the fact that they've now got a seriously good team with Carlsen plus two young and promising 2600+ (Hammre and Tari), the old world class veteran Agdestein who's still able to compete with the very best given sufficient preparation, not to mention a wave of other youngsters.

 

Writing is certainly not profitable 😊

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned as a chess journalist it’s that 😊

Some of the guys who do OK do have retirement plans, but the real issue is your standard 2500 GM who doesn’t coach much and ekes out a living from playing.

They’re stuck with little ability to save and at a certain point they’ll have a hard time making money playing too.

The top guys (let’s say top 10-15 or so) do insanely well. They make really good money.

But once you’re down to 20 and below it’s hard to make a good living just playing.

 

Ya know, the very first, and so far only, GM lecture that I went to was Sam Shankland this year.  And he talked very briefly about this.   I know he gave what you just said some thought.  And he said he's a Professional Chess Player.  He wrote a book, and he plays in tournaments for cash prizes.  Does some coaching too.  

 

But like you said, how long does that last?  

 

It bothers me a bit.  I love chess, and I'm a chess dad.  Do I really want to encourage my son to play this game that doesn't have much of a financial future?

This is why I find it the Grand Chess Tour so obscene. Every year they shower the top ten or so in the world with insane amounts of money for each tournament in the series, more than most players can expect to earn in a year or maybe even two. Furthermore, given that you also have the regular high-profile tournaments like the Wijk aan Zee, and the Candidates, we get the same 15 odd players playing each other all the time. I wish they would radically alter the format to four or six big opens with generous prize money and an automatic an invitation to anyone rated E2600+ (with a substantial entry fee for anyone rated below that, since there are always players who are prepared to stump up the cash to get a tough challenge), in order to spread the largesse a bit more.

Having said that, in Europe, quite a few players earn a few hundred bucks a pop playing league chess, but it's definitely not enough for a nest egg. However, it's precarious because from one season to the next the big sponsor or patron may decide to call it a day.

 

Encourage him by all means, there's nothing wrong with loving chess, but encourage him to get a good education as well. In the US there are chess scholarships to be had at various universities, and if your son turns out to be talented, it would be a great move.

 

"... Many aspiring young chess players dream of one day becoming a grandmaster and a professional. ... But ... a profession must bring in at least a certain regular income even if one is not too demanding. ... The usual prize money in Open tournaments is meagre. ... The higher the prizes, the greater the competition. ... With a possibly not very high and irregular income for several decades the amount of money one can save for old age remains really modest. ... Anyone who wants to reach his maximum must concentrate totally on chess. That involves important compromises with or giving up on his education. ... it is a question of personal life planning and when deciding it is necessary to be fully conscious of the various possibilities, limitations and risks. ... a future professional must really love chess and ... be prepared to work very hard for it. ... It is all too frequent that a wrong evaluation is made of what a talented player can achieve. ... Most players have the potential for a certain level; once they have reached it they can only make further progress with a great effort. ... anyone who is unlikely to attain a high playing strength should on no account turn professional. ... Anyone who does not meet these top criteria can only try to earn his living with public appearances, chess publishing or activity as a trainer. But there is a lack of offers and these are not particularly well paid. For jobs which involve appearing in public, moreover, certain non-chess qualities are required. ... a relevant 'stage presence' and required sociability. ... All these jobs and existences, moreover, have hanging above them the sword of Damocles of general economic conditions. ... around [age] 40 chess players ... find that their performances are noticeably tailing off. ..." - from a 12 page chapter on becoming a chess professional in the book, Luther's Chess Reformation by GM Thomas Luther (2016)
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/LuthersChessReformation-excerpt.pdf

Possibly of interest:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/can-anyone-be-an-im-or-gm
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kids-fight-stereotypes-using-chess-in-rural-mississippi/
http://brooklyncastle.com/
https://www.chess.com/blog/smurfo/book-review-insanity-passion-and-addiction
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/26/books/books-of-the-times-when-the-child-chess-genius-becomes-the-pawn.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2017/05/05/making-a-living-in-chess-is-tough-but-the-internet-is-making-it-easier/#4284e4814850

https://www.chess.com/news/view/is-there-good-money-in-chess-1838

But to get back on topic: The pattern recognition of GMs, both positional and tactical, is typically far superior to us letter mortals. This helps them in many ways: faster and more accurate decision-making in general, and in quiet, strategic positions in particular; better judgement of when to calculate, and when not to; when they do calculate they're able to calculate more deeply and more accurately, and with better ability to judge the resulting positions. In addition to this, they know most of the important theoretical endgames by heart (there's a video on YouTube where Grischuk gives mate with B+N in a blitz game where he's down to his last 30 s or something - the speed with which he conducts it is impressive).

                                                                     ________________________

Grishuk can do corralling checkmate technique in his sleep, here is why:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc

                                                                                 _____________________

When Grishuk looks at the board the moves jump up off the board and smack him on the forehead in a flash!!

I think for this question, a professional player should answer this. so that we could get to know his/her point of view.

In fact carlsen should answer this so we know a world champ's opinion as well.  If we could bring back Bobby back to life to answer this, it would be great as well.