Friday 30 September 2011

Think and grow rich

In a recent discussion on why chess players are happy to take short draws in tournaments, Michael Basman suggested that people become serious chess players as an alternative to hard work. If that is the case (and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the observation), then it may explain why the world is not full of millionaire chess players. Not through hard work, but 'smart' work, in the area of high finance. The New York Times has an article on financial companies hiring chess players to make smart investment decisions for them, although if I recall correctly, this already happened in the 1990's. The article contains a couple of success stories (GM David Norwood is interviewed) but I guess I'm a little surprised that more high profile examples aren't given. It leads me to think that the strike rate of successful chess player-traders is no higher than non-chessplaying traders.

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