As title above states, who are currently the strongest non-professional chess players? By this, I mean players who have a full-time job outside of chess. For example, I remember German GM Georg Meier mentioning in an interview in 2018 that he has a full-time job in a bank.
asked Nov 19, 2019 at 20:06
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4 Answers
Up until recently, that title would have gone to Teimour Radjabov without question in my mind. Since April of 2015 until last month, he has only played 149 games. That is not many for a top-flight GM over four and a half years. That said, he just won the right to play in the Candidate's, so he may becoming more active again.
Quite a number of old GMs were musicians and engineers. GM Mark Taimanov was also famous as top concert pianist in the Soviet Union. Mikhail Botvinnik was famous for being an electrical engineer and computer scientist while also being the world champion at the same time. Dr. Ruben Fine was a Doctor of psychology. GM Helmut Pfleger of Germany is an MD.
As stated by Ian Bush, Luke McShane is considered the strongest with an outside full-time job, but I am not sure I would give him the title "of strongest non-professional GM" based solely on that as he plays a fair amount, and has played 182 games in the same time frame as I listed for Radjabov. Based on that, and the 100-point difference, I still have to go with Radjabov.
answered Nov 19, 2019 at 21:46
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3I cannot find anything, but I have to imagine that Radjabov has been doing something with his time these past years that is a job of some sort. Commented Nov 19, 2019 at 21:48
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4lol no, just married a wealthy lady from what I've heard from Azeri friends :D– HamishCommented Nov 20, 2019 at 11:12
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12@Hamish Did some digging, came across this:
Teimour Radjabov is a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO. He is married to the daughter of the vice-president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company Elnara Nasyrova and in 2013 they had a daughter.Here's the source. Of course, how reliable the source is, is up for debate, lol. Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 11:20 -
With all respect, I very much doubt that Spassky is an engineer. Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 21:06
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1@A.N.Other It would appear that my source for that was, indeed, incorrect; however he did have a degree in journalism. chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/boris-spassky-2016-interview I edited my answer. Thank you. Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 21:23
Luke McShane is one possibility. He is currently (19th Nov 2018) rated 2675, and works in the financial sector.
GM Tal Shaked is a Distinguished Engineer at Google, though he hasn't played organized chess in quite some time (but his rating puts him at #1423 in the world right now...). I was going to mention Luke McShane as well (as mentioned in another answer to this question); I'm not sure what exactly he's doing right now, his LinkedIn profile hasn't been updated since 2014.
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Shaked is no longer an active player, since 1999, however. Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 21:01
GM Michael Adams is often listed as a top non professional GM. His current rating is 2694. I am not sure if he is officially a non professional chess player anymore, but for many years he was competing in top tournaments while being a stock trader. At one point he was even number 4 in the world and has competed in some canditates tournaments. This was often commented on in tournaments he was taking part in.
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I always thought of Adams as a professional chess player. He once also ironically answered a question about his greatest chess achievement, this being "Avoiding a real job". Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 21:04