'Being A Chess Professional (In Europe) Sucks': GM Blohberger Raises Concerns

In a YouTube video entitled "Being a Chess Professional (in Europe) sucks." Austrian GM Felix Blohberger spoke out about several challenges professional players face outside of the elite (top 30). "This video is not there to blame anyone or to put shame on anything at all," Blohberger said, "It's simply to address the things as I see it, as a chess player living in Europe, and some things that, in my opinion, should be improved if professional chess in Europe wants to stay alive."

You can watch the approximately 26-minute video below or continue reading our summary. The grandmaster stressed that he didn't intend to create controversy but, instead, hoped "to start a constructive discussion on how to improve things for Professional Chessplayers," as he wrote in the description of his video.

While players inside the top 20 or 30 "don't really have that many financial struggles," Blohberger said that grandmasters outside of that do, especially in Europe. The two main problems, as he described, were (1) the high cost of living and (b) the lack of recognition. 

In both respects, he compared the conditions of Europeans and Asians. To illustrate one difference, he gave an example: imagine two 2600-rated players, one from Germany and the other from India. "If both of these players have the same rating... and they play the same tournaments... they will, on average, make the same prize money, let's say, and this prize money is of course worth way more in this case in India than in Germany."

He also raised that the prizes and "honorary" (a stipend paid by leagues or clubs) have stayed the same for decades and have not risen with inflation.

The second issue was recognition. While chess has been historically popular in Europe, the popularity boom seems to have transferred to Asia. He offered Uzbekistan as an example of a country that cherishes its players: the 2022 Olympiad gold winners have been awarded by their government keys to apartments, cars, and generous cash prizes upon returning to their country.

After the 2024 Chess Olympiad, on the other hand, a European friend (not named) won an individual board prize with a performance of 2800 and received no recognition when he returned to his country. Similarly, German GM Frederik Svane won individual gold on board five and received €3,000, which Blohberger compared to approximately a regular month's salary—for the performance of a lifetime.

India and Uzbekistan, he claimed, "will get the respect and rewards from their governments which also give them the motivation" to continue studying and improving. Europeans, on the other hand, can spend 10-15 years becoming grandmasters with no financial prize waiting at the end. He concluded that unless something changes, "I don't think European professional players will be able to compete much more in the future, at least on the very high level, simply because there's not enough motivation to go there from a financial standpoint."

I don't think European professional players will be able to compete much more in the future, at least on the very high level. 

— GM Felix Blohberger

Players outside of the world's top 30 look mostly to coach on the side or create content to support themselves. He said, "in chess, if you're not in the top 30, you cannot really just make a living with playing chess by itself." However, he made the additional point that European coaches are "severely undervalued."

Blohberger explained, "In the United States, for example, you can hardly find a coach there, a grandmaster, under let's say $80. When you look at Europe, especially more eastern European countries, it's very standard for grandmasters to offer lectures for €30 or something like that." 

In addition to playing, coaching, and making videos, Blohberger is currently working as a second for GM Pentala Harikrishna at Tata Steel Chess 2025. He earned the grandmaster title in 2022 and is the Austrian number-five. 

The 22-year-old shared he made around €30,000 in 2024, with about a third of it from playing, or "maybe even half of it." He added that creating content "is the best option to possibly make a living from chess as well." He says the low income is alright for now personally, but the issues begin to take a serious dimension when one starts to think about having a family. 

As for improving things, he suggested that chess would gain greater popularity through more rapid and blitz events because in classical chess, "there's not that much happening and also the rules are way more complicated" than sports like soccer or tennis. He also suggested the experimental idea of marketing chess as a tool to keep one's mind healthy.

A bit over a year ago, GM Eric Hansen created a video on a similar theme entitled "Eric discusses why Grandmasters are poor." There, he broke down the costs of traveling and playing in the 2023 FIDE Grand Swiss and why he skipped it. "It is very depressing to play professional chess," he lamented.