Why do the professionals use a clock?
How to chess champions earn money?
They use a clock so the games won’t take forever. Before timed games, there were some players who would just sit there, and sit there, and sit there, and sit there, and sit there, just to try to wear out there opponents’ patience.
I think most of them have day jobs.
Or, they play in the park for money.
The top players can make a living winning tournaments. The high-stake tourneys can earn players thousands of dollars, thanks to Bobby Fischer who got the masters, grandmasters, and international masters into big time money. They also give lessons, many through websites;also simultaneous matches, which pays them well. They also write for chess periodicals and some actually write books.
These are the top players, but as in many other sports, only the best earn much money. If you’re not so good, you can sack out at the Chess Pavilion in Lincoln Park in Chicago, or a similar place, I’m sure, in NYC. Those are called “chess bums.” Actually, some of them are of master level, but lack the moneys to enter tourneys, or just enjoy that life.
On of the reasons (I read somewhere) that top-flight Go players are young is that Go games are not timed. The older players simply can’t maintain their concentration for the length of a tournament.
Then there’s “Lightning Chess” where you have 5 seconds to make a move. Yikes!
Lightning chess sounds like fun. I’d die in the first five seconds, I’m sure, but what fun.
Thanks.
Bizarrely, these two things together describe almost exactly my dayjob – maybe there’s a chess-champion in me somewhere.
Ew! Get out! Get out! And put that back, it’s not a pawn and I’m quite attached to it, thank you very much Mr Karakasparopopovich.
Theres a possibly apocraphyl storys where two chess GM’s were sitting at a board for over 3 hours both staring intently. Finally, one gets up and shouts “Hurry up and move already!”. The other blinks a bit and responds “but… I thought it was your move”
I should add that there are the very top players who make $$$ playing computers, win, lose, or draw. Kasparov recently drew a 4-game match with X3D Fritz and earned about half a million dollars.
There are all kinds of variations in time controls. At one time, not long ago, the standard time control was 40 moves in the first two hours, and faster time controls thereafter. Now, most tourneys have much faster time controls, and there are speed tourneys with 30-minute games, recognized by chess federations under a special category. If you are USCF rated, you get two ratings, one for the standard and one for the quick time.
If you go on the Web to play chess at any of the many sites, you can seek all kinds of time controls. It was Fischer who wanted an incremental increase in time with each move, and I have a clock that works that way. Most tournament players now have such a clock. The standard on the web is 2-12, which means that you play a 2-minute game (you have two minutes for your entire game, and if you don’t win by then, your flag falls and you lose), but with 12 seconds added after each move. I enjoy those games much more than the old standby of 5-minute games. In a 5-minute game, you have to mate in 5 minutes or you lose on time. So you can be way ahead materially, but if unable to mate in time, you lose. With 2-12, no problem. If you’re way ahead, just make any quick move, and after a while you will have 5 or 6 minutes on your clock, and you will never lose just as long as you make a move with any time left on your clock. Tournament games are not that quick, but do add incremental times for each move, so as long as you can move before your flag falls you will have time to continue playing.
people make money playing chess in the park?
I don’t think that’s quite right. When I was playing serious Go, there was a time limit in pro tournaments. It was long, something like 10 hours per player (adjournments were standard) and, most important, only whole minutes were counted so if you moved in 59 seconds it cost you no time at all. Another difference was that the only penalty was loss of turn (pass is a legal move in Go), and then you got another 59 seconds. Of course, in a close game, loss of turn would usually be fatal, but if you were way ahead you might pass deliberately to shame your opponent into resigning.
Shhh!! Keep it quiet, but they bet on the games. Standard ante when I last played in Chgo was a buck a game, but that was 15 years ago. I went up there from where I moved (Charleston, SC) and decided to play a few games. Could not play without betting, and I’m not a betting man. But, what the heck, spend a few shekels, and I began to play with some guy, who kept losing! Believe it or not. I had lowed the stakes to a quarter, but he kept insisting double or nothing, so I kept playing. I wound up winning $8. and he thanked me. What a great sport.
I use a clock but do not quite make money out of chess. You have to be real good - I’m good but then again I’m…
(insert username) 
Here’s kind of a summary.
First of all, a chess timer operates basically by running backwards. You have 60 minutes, say, and I have 60 minutes. When I hit my button your 60 starts counting down. You make a move, hit your button, and my clock starts running down. More on that later.
There are several different variant’s of timed chess. google or see rec.games.chess for more info.
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No clock. Usually just used for casual games when each player expects the other to move in a fairly short amount of time. This is like you and your buddy playing. If two competent players were able to take as much time as possible to come up with a move, a game would take an unreasonable amount of time.
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N/T. This means you must make N moves in T time. Usually you’ll see 40/2 meaning you must make your first 40 moves in 2 hours. When you make your 40th move, you get 60 minutes added on (to the original 2 hours), and you must finish your game in the remaining time. Sometimes, you’ll see “40/2 20/1” meaning “make 40 moves in 2 hours, and 20 moves in the next hour” and then you get, say, 30 or 60 more minutes to finish.
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G/T. This means you must finish your game in T time. Usually you’ll see G/60 or G/30 meaning you must finish your game in 60 minutes or 30 minutes, resp. Somewhat standard terms: “Action” is G/30. “Blitz” is G/5. “Lightning” is G/1. Sometimes G/1 means 1 hour. Sometimes 1 minute. It’s usually clear from context. I think that USCF actually gives a standard rating, an action rating, and a blitz rating.
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2/12. This would mean, you get 2 minutes originally, but get 12 seconds added on after every move. I’m not sure if there’s a standard way to write this. I believe this is called “incremental timing” or “fischer timing”.
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There’s also an hourglass type of timing. You and I would each start with 5 minutes say. As you think, your clock runs down while mine runs up. If we both take the same amount of time each move, we’ll stay with about 5 minutes each. If I take 4:59 on my first move though, you’ll now have almost 9:59 to make your next move. This isn’t very common. I THINK I described it right but I never use it.
A note. With G/60 or G/30, a standard practice is to set the clock for 55 or 25 minutes, and then have a 5 second delay. What that means is that when you hit your button, my clock doesn’t start running for 5 seconds. This allows me to at least be able to make moves when we’re down to the end. For instance, if I have a great advantage, but only 15 seconds left, you won’t be able to just shuffle around or avoid mate waiting for my clock to expire. If I can move within 5 seconds, I lose no time. This delay will also be used for the final hour in cases like “2” above. It is not commonly used in “blitz” or “lightning”.
Also, if two players of equal strength played a game where one had 30 minutes and one had 60 minutes, the 60 would win probably at least 75% of the time. I think this is a better method of handicapping than giving “piece odds”.
As for how do chess players make money. . .well, if you’re one of the best in the world, there are sponsored tournaments, endorsements, lessons, simuls – simultaneous games where each of 20 people pays, say, $50 to play kasparov as he travels from table to table. Then there are tournaments that cost money to enter, and you can win prize money for winning your “class”. Often, Grandmasters are allowed to enter these tournaments for free, and only pay the entry fee if they win money.
Good and bad players write books and I don’t know how many make money from this.
Hustlers are just hustlers. They sit in public places and try to get people to play for money. I have no idea how much you can make doing this.
At my club, we have guys that kind of supplement their income with regular weekend tournaments. But its not their primary income.
In Britain and Europe, there are national chess leagues in the same style as those for football (soccer for you US folk). In Britain (and Ireland) it’s the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL). I play in a low division for fun and have to pay my own expenses. As you move up the divisions you’ll find your expenses being paid for and then, in the top flights, you will be getting appearance fees and teams buy and sell players, although this is more informal than the football transfer system.
NoCoolUserName wrote
To be precise, you don’t get 5 seconds per move, but rather some short time (say 5 minutes) for all of your moves. If you wanted to, you could spend 4 minutes on a single move, but then you wouldn’t have enough time to do all your others. and when your time runs out you lose.
I used to play quick games with a few seconds a move. I don’t remember if it was 5 seconds or 2 seconds, but very short. This is called “lightning chess,” as is 1-minute or 2-minute games. 5-minute games are called “blitz chess.”
I had a special gadget that would beep when your time was up in the 5-second a move games, but I left it at the chess club one night and haven’t seen it since. 
But how do they scrape together money to pay the players? (This is what I thought the OP was asking – maybe it’s not, but in any case now I’m curious.) I presume that IBM or whoever pays Kasparov to play their computer. But in a professional league or tournament, do they get the money from corporate sponsors, or from the gate, or from some other source? I can’t imagine enough people buying tickets for a chess tournament to make up a very big purse, and there certainly isn’t a big-money TV deal. But who would sponsor a chess tournament? A company that makes chess boards? Is it considered a philanthropic cause by some big corporation?
barbitu8 wrote
But how do you know if someone made their move in the 5 second time? In the standard time-keeping method, it’s clear. When your flag drops on your clock, you lose. I assume that the same rule would hold true in the 5 second variation; if you don’t make your move in five seconds, you lose. Since winning or losing is pretty much the point of the game, it becomes a very important thing to know whether someone moved in 4.99 seconds or 5.01 seconds.
How can you actually detect (or dispute) whether someone made a move within their 5 second allowance?
Yeah – I’m not sure either.
In most tournaments, all players pay an entry fee. A tournament might take 500 players at $100 per for 50K. They’ll skim half of it, or 40% of it for the costs and pay out the rest in prize money. As I said before, usually a Grand Master can enter for free, and they take his entry fee out of any winnings, and forget it if he doesn’t win anything.
When Kasparov plays a computer, the prize money is awarded directly from the sponsor (IBM, or X3D in the recent one).
Now, when they have an all Grandmaster tournament, such as at Linares every year, I think the money might be provided by FIDE (International Chess Federation). If they work like the USCF, then they have money from membership fees, and fees for rated games, advertising in their publications, and sales. (actually if they work like the USCF they don’t have any money at all.) But I’m not sure.
I THINK that there are some private benefactors that give prize money and corporate contributions. And some players just get appearance fees.
I’m not sure how the players are paid when they play head-to-head world chamionship matches. Maybe sponsors. Maybe FIDE money.
But I really think that endorsements and teaching are the main source.
Also, some countries might subsidize players of a certain caliber. I’m pretty sure the Soviet Union used to do this.
[Also - -Bill : I have heard about that variant. You need a specialized clock that ‘beeps’ 5 seconds after one player hits his button.]