@Kovalchuk94 said in #9:
> It is quite possible to earn 2 or 3 thousand dollars a month on chess. Maybe 4 thousand dollars. It all depends on you.
2 or 3 thousand is fine if you are alone. If 4 or more people (wife, kids, older parents) depend on this one income then this is poverty in West Europe.
By studying you can get easily 5000 per month and often much more. Anyway the right choice depends on many factors and we can't decide for each other.
Edit suggestion: title should be its, not it's.
I respect your opinion, but there are a few points I see differently...
1. "Not changing anyone's life." As a coach you can help people engage with chess in a more rich and fulfilling way, as well as teaching them habits and thought processes that can be useful in other areas of life. Perhaps it's not curing cancer, but few things are.
2. "No progress" (from a business perspective). I raised my hourly rate 300% last year, and I'm planning to raise it more this year. It is probably difficult to charge more than $250-300/hour in chess, just because no one is doing that, not even famous streamers or gms. But once you have a lot of students at a rate you're happy with you can look at other ways of making money - courses, streaming, books, etc. There is no path laid out for you in chess, but there are opportunities for people who are creative and ambitious.
3. Social status. This may be a cultural difference (I live in the US), but when I tell people I'm a chess coach, they usually seem to think it's pretty cool. Often they tell me how interested they are in chess. In my experience, if you are confident and enthusiastic about what you're doing, people usually respond well.
Ultimately though, it's difficult to make anything work if you don't enjoy it and believe in it. It may be that you simply don't enjoy coaching, in which case I would definitely say it's a good decision to look elsewhere.
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I've never ever seen somebody say they coach others for money in any profession, including chess. It's quite possible to earn a lot of money coaching chess, but the main reason coaches do it is because they want to help their students and see them improve in chess.
And I think changing someone's life is worth more than any other job can ever do. Don't worry that you are not changing lives, you absolutely are :) By coaching them and giving them a chance to become better at chess, you are changing people's lives.
Here is the Names of Chess Coaches there last name is in Alphabetical order (Some Are Chess Players Though)
Utut Adianto
Yochanan Afek
Vladimir Alatortsev
Lev Alburt
Boris Alterman
Ashot Anastasian
Albert Arutiunov
Konstantin Aseev
Zurab Azmaiparashvili
B
Rashad Babaev
Vladimir Bagirov
Yuri Balashov
Algirdas Bandza
Todd Bardwick
Evgeny Bareev
Liudmila Belavenets
Alexander Beliavsky
Vladimir Belov (chess player)
Irina Berezina
Jacek Bielczyk
Isaac Boleslavsky
Igor Bondarevsky
Mikhail Botvinnik
Egon Brestian
C
Paulina Cagara
Jirayr Ohanyan Çakır
Antanas Algimantas Česnauskis
Alexander Chernin
Vladimir Chuchelov
John W. Collins
Bill Cornwall
D
Klaus Darga
Nigel Davies (chess player)
Yelena Dembo
Yury Dokhoian
Sergey Dolmatov
Laima Domarkaitė
Josif Dorfman
Mark Dvoretsky
Roman Dzindzichashvili
E
Natalia Edzgveradze
Vereslav Eingorn
Vladimir Eljanov
John Emms (chess player)
F
John Fedorowicz
János Flesch
Semyon Furman
G
Efim Geller
Essam El-Gindy
Igor Glek
Mikhail Gluzman
Alexander Goloshchapov
Tamara Golovey
Vladimir Grabinsky
Alon Greenfeld
Efstratios Grivas
Eduard Gufeld
Mikhail Gurevich (chess player)
Josefa Gurfinkel
Bukhuti Gurgenidze
H
Torbjørn Ringdal Hansen
Khosro Harandi
Lefong Hua
Robert Hungaski
Satea Husari
Alexander Huzman
I
Yosha Iglesias
Miguel Illescas
J
Vlastimil Jansa
K
Gregory Kaidanov
Gábor Kállai
Albert Kapengut
Nonna Karakashyan
Tibor Károlyi (chess player)
Isa Kasimi
Garry Kasparov
Lubomir Kavalek
Alexander Khalifman
Michael Khodarkovsky
Daniel King (chess player)
Alexander Koblencs
Atanas Kolev
Jerzy Konikowski
Alexander Konstantinopolsky
Yona Kosashvili
Stanisław Kostyra
Michał Krasenkow
Boris Kreiman
Stanislav Kriventsov
Nikolai Krogius
Bojan Kurajica
Gennady Kuzmin
L
Frank Lamprecht
Ignatius Leong
Naum Levin
Liu Wenzhe
William Lombardy
Andrey Lukin
M
Elmar Magerramov
Vitaly Maiorov
Sergey Makarichev
Vladimir Makogonov
Nelson Mariano
Slavoljub Marjanović
Rico Mascariñas
Marek Matlak
Neil McDonald (chess player)
Adrian Mikhalchishin
Gilles Mirallès
Georg Mohr (chess player)
Mackenzie Molner
Alexander Motylev
N
Ashot Nadanian
Evgeniy Najer
Srećko Nedeljković
Peter Heine Nielsen
Carmine Nigro
Aleksandr Nikitin (chess player)
Igor Novikov (chess player)
O
Sergey Okrugin
Vyacheslav Osnos
P
Mladen Palac
Bruce Pandolfini
Vilma Paulauskienė
Peicho Peev
Roman Pelts
Arshak Petrosian
Vladimir Potkin
Éric Prié
Craig Pritchett
Lev Psakhis
R
Corvin Radovici
Viacheslav Ragozin
Dušan Rajković
Nukhim Rashkovsky
Yuri Razuvaev
Thomas Rendle
Alexander Riazantsev (chess player)
Jesús Rodríguez Gonzáles
Michael Roiz
Mikhail Rychagov
Julia Ryjanova
S
Gennadij Sagalchik
Sergiu Samarian
Béla Sándor
Włodzimierz Schmidt
Lara Schulze
Alexander Shakarov
Ruslan Shcherbakov
Miron Sher
Nigel Short
Fikret Sideifzade
Jeremy Silman
Vladimir Simagin
Emilis Šlekys
Maxim Sorokin
Gennadi Sosonko
Sheila Barth Stanford
Alexey Suetin
Evgeny Sveshnikov
T
Miodrag Todorcevic
Alexander Tolush
Paul Truong
Mark Tseitlin
Vitaly Tseshkovsky
Vladimir Tukmakov
Tunde Onakoya
Renata Turauskienė
U
Elizbar Ubilava
V
Vishnu Prasanna V.
Jesús de la Villa
Yevgeniy Vladimirov
Carmen Voicu-Jagodzinsky
Alexander Volzhin
Andres Vooremaa
W
Robert Wade (chess player)
Chris Ward (chess player)
John L. Watson
Sunil Weeramantry
Y
Ye Jiangchuan
Arsen Yegiazarian
Artur Yusupov (chess player)
Igor Zaitsev
Zhang Weida
Viktor Zheliandinov
I think that coaching is more a vocation for any artform. Does coaching always mean one on one? Direct access to the thinking of another person (as much as it could be). That would be a challenge in itself. Where theory of learning can go crashing on the reality of the individual if the relation is having such aspect in the open.
I am (have been) experiencing a sort of free coaching in a form of continued discussions over board using voice with a lichess friend and also in chat. It is not official coaching relationship, and not unidirectional delivery of knowledge 100% of the time, but clearly there is a passion involved in the art of chess itself, using some science of it that has been shared before. That friend, is also doing a lot of local voluntary chess coaching and teaching, not an academy, but clearly there it is for the love of chess. I guess not the scale assumed here.
But I think the blog was interesting testimony of ones' experience in another context than mine or even that friend, that I could imagine from my corner of world and chess ambitions.
Note: I deleted a previous post where I expose a point of view a bit tangent as it was touched here before of the cultural aspect of social status. But I made some general comments I did not want to let stick around, chickened out of my impression sharing. About how the world keeps spinning in the same way a bit too much and hopelessly at times.
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@greenteakitten said in #15:
> I've never ever seen somebody say they coach others for money in any profession, including chess. It's quite possible to earn a lot of money coaching chess, but the main reason coaches do it is because they want to help their students and see them improve in chess.
>
No, chess coaches work mostly for the money. All of them, including myself. Yes, we do like chess; yes, we have an enjoyable job; yes, we like our students, and want to see them improve - but the main reason why we do coaching is to earn money with it.
Helping others, looking for new challenges, being part of a great team - this is the kind of bullshit you say at a job interview, when they ask why you want to work for the company, although they know very well that you are there for the money. It is part of the humiliation process, they want to see how malleable you are.
One of the best parts of being a chess coach that I don't have to talk such bullshit any more - and I am very grateful for that. :)
well then who can say they are coaches, or persons who do coaching, but are not coaches?
Is there an abstracted notion of coaching which only describes the stimulating interaction between 2 people about chess, one having more experience than the other, etc...
Maybe make room for some diversity of walks of life could help the conversation.
