It's Better Not to be a GM!

I think so. What do you think?

A GM, or any lesser titled player is consumed with the idea of winning a pawn, or far worse, drawing with Black for the 1/2 point. How boring can that be? I would think, a lot.

As a beginner, I play openings like the Fried Liver Attack, with excellent chances of winning a piece, or better yet, recording another chess miniature of under 20 moves with checkmate. Win or lose, many of my games are played out to checkmate, which is fun.

Maybe the sweet spot for fun chess is Class C, 1400-1599? Not too strong and not too weak. Perhaps Class A and Expert players are also working hard at winning only a single pawn, and hardly ever playing fun, short miniatures.  

I have to agree with you. Once I see GM's games, most of them are drawn with half of the pieces still alive! At least there could be more combinations like Capablanka and Tal used to do (they still pop up sometimes though). Now it's just pure theory.

I believe the sweet spot for fun in chess is 500 - 3000. I find winning a pawn as a result of tactics which were made possible by precise positional play far more satisfying than winning a piece because of a simple blunder.

And playing until checkmate in a clearly lost position is boring for both sides.

I agree with #3 sebs42.

Of course I can't speak from experience, but I can imagine what a great feeling it would be winning a pawn against a great 2600 player and converting the pawn into a win. It's probably far more satisfying for a GM winning those kinds of games than it is for you to win a piece when your opponent blunders.

What you LIKE about chess changes as you get stronger. 

While it may seem exciting for a fish to try a daring opening and cream your lesser opponent, it's pretty lame if you're a GM and all you play are fish, and that's what happens game after game after game.

As you improve, chess offers you more and more subtlety... more BEAUTY even, as you learn to see more and more of the inner workings of it.  That's why a casual player will scoff at learning or "memorizing" openings, but by around 1300-1400 or so you start to look around and wonder what openings you are already playing... to a 900 that would seem like SUCH work, but at your level it's fun!  It's the same for a GM... certainly there ar too many draws in pro chess... but who wants to play out positions that ARE draws just so the 1800's can understand why??

What ever happened to that challenge you said you were going to send?

Korchnoi still plays chess for fun.

I find that the game gets richer the more you know, personally, but it depends on what you want out of chess. I remember reading about how Josh Waitzkin left chess because he did not want to move away from the daring attacks and play defence like he would need to to become a GM. I also remember that when Kramnik was just learning chess he prefered to go into an endgame with a plus and grind than go for the attack.

Chess is such a rich game that there can be many reasons why we enjoy it and the way we play chess changes as we get better. In some cases your statment is true and in some it is false.

 USCF Class C players are the "inbetwwen" players.  They have a solid understanding of chess basics, but still fall to simple tactics, and or blunders.  Once you get the USCF B and above, thats when the mistakes start getting really small, and you find yourself fighting for miniscule inititives.   

I think you will find that the deeper your understanding is in any field, the more beauty you see in it.  Didn't Jack Peterson teach you that in Jazz improv?

I'm not convinced that there's a single, pat answer here that encompasses everyone's experience.  There are, after all, many ways of being grandmaster. Some grandmasters do seem to be neurotically fixated on chess's minutiae, and appear to be living rather stunted, debilitated lives as a consequence (at least in my view).  For them, being a GM seems like a kind of prison -- a prison with enticements, to be sure, but still a prison.  I suspect that this is a big reason why some extremely talented players find that they have no choice but to quit playing chess (e.g., Morphy, Waitzkin, Fischer).  However, for other grandmasters, great talent seems to be a genuine enhancement of the larger totality of their lives (e.g., Tal, Larsen, Anand).  [Okay, now here's the disclaimer:  Since I'm viewing all of the chess demigods I'm naming from an appreciable distance, my evaluations of them are highly speculative at best.]         

I'm a USCF Class B player, and i have invested FAR more into tournaments, fees, equipment, travel expenses, etc. than i have ever won in prize money.  But i wouldnt change any of it for anything.  I have gained far more in experiences, friendships, travel than money could have brought.

To each, his (or her) own!

Musikamole is a panzee

Jack Peterson taught me a lot about jazz, and music - but it seems like you can exhaust all of the possibilities of chess far faster than that of music, not that either one can be taken to the ultimate depth in one life time.

Where chess is like the size of a pond, music is more like the size of all of the oceans put together.

Maybe chess is really not for you.

I'm guessing due to how much work it is, those that continue to play at the GM level must have found something they enjoy.  At that level if it's just one big ongoing research project, I have to admit that doesn't seem fun to me...

But I'm guessing GMs don't stay in chess for the millions of dollars and the teenage groupies.

At my level anyway I'm not wrapped up in winning a pawn.  I think of that mentality as belonging more to beginners actually   But yes, everything else being equal if I win a pawn for nothing I'm feeling pretty good about my position and my opponent is fighting for a draw.  It's very hard to win a pawn for absolutely free though :) usually at least the move spent to capture it moves your piece out of position or something.

And waffllemaster has just brought up one of the many interesting topics in chess: "What is this piece worth in this position?"

There was a recent interview of Anand where a question was asked about a game that he got excited about and spent a ton of time analysing. From his comments he seemed to have enjoyed analysing that position. The interview was linked in one of chessmarksthespot's blog posts. There was an interview of Kramnik from after the London Chess Classic 2011 that I saw where he indicated that he enjoys playing chess.

Even if chess loses some of its enjoyment for the average chess player when they get around GM level but they can still live off the funds, it still has to beat being a delivery person or economic research consultant right?

My low back exploded. Total torture. Doctor prescribed nuclear powered pain killers that cause stupidity.  For proof, take a look at my recent Live Chess games. Better yet, I will post a real humdinger.  No matter, I don’t wish to hold off this challenge any longer. Life is too short. Please look for it tomorrow.  Waffllemaster can still look at our annotations, fix the bad chess thinking, and as my health improves, so will the quality of the games.

A real humdinger.  After 27 moves, I think it's safe to say that Black has an easy win, for everyone but me.

Entire Game

You misunderstand. I greatly enjoy playing chess. No complaints.