THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

I can only sum up last night's SCF meeting with training vendors under the caption above. The chess training community presently provides chess-trainers to schools and local individuals wanting chess lessons, comprising no more than 3-5 chess schools and several freelance trainers.   The SCF President opened the floor to stress that it is not in the SCF's interest to vie for the chess-training jobs in schools. This is mainly a commercial matter best left to supply and demand amongst the training community.  Key trust of the meeting was the news of chess in schools receiving a boost owing to the visit of Garry Kasparov. Garry  managed to convince some members of the cabinet to give chess a chance to develop young minds in the schools program.  Hence the relevant ministries are surveying the potential of expanding chess training in the schools, currently from the 30 to 40 (as indicated from the GEBIZ tenders) to larger numbers. In that regard, SCF wished to work with t...

After reading Chess Ninja's post on the topic, I am sure many will be convinced that chess coaches or normal GMs do not make much financially. I have asked GM Torre back when he was here: " Would you recommend the path of a GM to anyone?" He stopped to think before replying : " It's not for anyone. The path to GM is tough and only those who are deeply passionate about chess and not much else should venture into it". So please forget about trying to make big bucks when you enter into the world of chess. Most of us who are involved in chess organising give much of our time, energies and sometimes even money just to ensure that tournaments are run well, players are at least silent on complaints. As a coach in Singapore, I speak for myself that I can survive comfortably being single and not having to feed a family, given the high cost of living here. In many ways, chess coaching is about the few professions I can go into once you are in your 40s here. Getting a ...