Why do the top GM's always move all of the pieces to the center of the board after a game ends?

Ok, I have a question. Why do the top GM's always move all of the pieces to the center of the board after a game ends? I have never seen any club or tournament player do that. Usually, club players will either tip the king over or place all of the pieces on their starting positions, to prepare for the next game. Tournament players usually resign, shake hands and then the owner of the set packs up his pieces and clock. Are the pros embarrassed about how they lost, so they don't want anyone to see the final position? Why not leave the pieces on their final positions, so that the viewers can see how the game ended? I often don't know why a game ended until after I study the final position for a few seconds, so this habit/tradition bugs me.

It lets others now the game is over.

Thanks for the replies.   I think they should change that rule, so that the spectators can analyze the final position.   I mean, they don't wipe the scoreboard out the moment a sports game ends.   I want to see how badly a player was beaten.   That might not matter to the players, but it matters to some of the spectators.   

Your suggestion is like expecting football players to remain on the pitch after the game and showing how they scored and conceded goals. Besides, broadcasters dont show the board after the game anyway - they look at a graphic of the final position and interview the players.

I doubt the topic assumption is universally true but it is possible that GMs do this more often than other players. Two distinct reasons:

1. A relatively small group of grandmasters travel the world and meet one another over and over in different places just like other sport circuses. Like any closely knit group they will develop group rituals in which the group members do the same things in the same way.

2. Their mental discipline is much better than that of most chess players or they couldn't survive in their profession. When you lose, you will mourn. The quicker the mourning is over the faster your mind parts with the loss and gets ready for the next game. "Moving pieces to the center of the board" effectively destroys the position and symbolically expresses the decision to terminate the game and all negative after-effects in your mind. Even when they subsequently rebuild it for analysis, their mind has already reset and is now in a state of new preparation and genuine chess curiosity. Ideally of course since the mind is a quirky instrument. But "destroying final positions quickly" helps.

Good point! It's a short note. The discipline I am referring to is the discipline to do the things that will help you to overcome the after-effects of lost games. Many players don't care and continue to lose the game on the next day because their mind is still on the last game.

Strange comparison. Professional musicians supposedly play good or at least fair on almost every occasion as nobody is trying to shut them down or defeat them. If anything I suppose their discipline is directed towards perfecting their performance and not towards recovering their equilibrium after a crushing defeat.

As per post 3 it's pretty simple - they're using electronic boards and the kings have to be placed in the middle after the game to convey the result of the game to the board (not so much the spectators). Kings on white squares: white win, Kings on Black squares, black wins. Kings on e4/e5 = draw.

Good argument to explain something that was not asserted by the OP.

Nevertheless you might be right and he didn't observe it well. I have my doubts as well.

the reason they do this is to let the computer program that is relaying the game know not to relay any more moves-if they analysed on the board after the game the computer would think they were still playing and relay the analysis as moves played. they only do that on electric boards see

what the controller of the isle of man (who explained why they put the kings in the center after a game had finished) didnt explain was what if the kings went in the center during the endgame on those squares,

Kings can't legally be on squares immediately adjacent to each other during a game. 

I meant American sports.  lol

Magnus Carlsen or Garry Kasparov.

Ahh, the psychological explanation.  I like it.   

Makes sense to me.

It's impossible for the kings to be side by side like that during a game.   It would constitute an illegal move by one of the players, since you can't purposely put your king into check.   

of course thats true D'Oh to me