^ If you make money from chess, from either playing or coaching,you are a professional chess player.
Like Bogonina herself says, you don't have to be a 2700+ GM to be a professional.
She says that it is the attitute that counts,that you can have a professional attitute towars the game,either playing,or coaching. I agree with her.
Ajedrectio, a regular here,has a rating of 2300 and he is a professional player and coach.
And LOL at saying that GM Dzinzi is not a professional,did you just learn how to play chess yesterday? do you know who he's coached and how strong he was in his prime? You do know he made a living playing chess before he became a coach/theoritian right? For you to say he is not a professional is not only an insult to him,it makes you look like a total dummy. Silman in his prime made IM and won many tournaments,with lots of prize money. Where is your GM or IM title?
I don't agree with the notion that you must be purely making money from playing chess to be a "professional". By that defenition alone,the bums at Central park are professionals because they play blitz games for money and win.
At any rate I don't know why people struggle so hard to label everything. You are trying to give the word a new meaning it wasn't meant to have. I guess people like you think that only a handfull of elite people deserve the "pro" title and every one else is just scum. It doesn't work like that.
just my .02
If the primary way a bum uses to gain money is by playing chess in central park, then yes he is a chess professional...
Roman may have been a pro chess player in the past, but was a long time ago, I never said you had to be 2700+ nowadays there are lots of players even 2200 playing chess for a living in Europe, the notion thatt dvoretsky, Roman, Silman nowadays are chess professionals is so wrong. If I'm a medicine teacher should I consider myself a doctor? a teacher is a teacher, a trainer is a trainer and a writer is a writer. And people don't seem to understand the difference.
Your 2300 friend makes more money teaching or playing chess? :)
Its not a point of view its just how things are, he may be working with chess, but what gives him food is teaching otherwise he would be in the park playing for cash, so he is a professional chess trainer (If he as no other job)
Dzindzichashvili in his prime was not top 50, not even sure if he made it to top 100 but did a great job teaching Kasparov.
Do you have any inside information from when he was a professional chess player?
I teached chess to kids like 3 years ago damn I must have been a chess professional! (Yes it was my main source of income).
Actually I did have that idea that a professional chess player was anyone working with chess, the person that told me I was wrong was actually one of the few real chess professionals in Portugal. A Professional Chess Player is someone who plays chess for a living making it his main source of income, a trainer that is actually good at playing chess lets say 2300/2400 is not a professional chess player, he is a professional chess trainer that plays chess. And he can either do it as an amateur (not getting paid to play) or he can do it as a pro (getting paid) but anyway he gets his money to eat from the classes, the chess playing is an extra.
There seems to be some confusion relating the idea of a professional chess player.
Just my 2 cents on the subject.
Dvoretsky isn't a professional chess player, he can be a professional chess coach or chess writer.
A pro chess player is someone who plays chess games to make money to live. He dosen't really need to be 2700. Almost every country as chess teams and the top european teams pay for players to join and play for them, pretty much as in any other sport.
Just wanted to say this because everyone thinks dvoretsky, Roman, Silman etc are pro chess players, no they are not. If someone writes books about the War for a living is he a general? :)
Now I will go and grab something to eat :) (too much information I know)