French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave shared his opinion on the profitability of chess. Maxime says that Top 300 players can make a living from chess, and compares chess to tennis.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

French GM

“Chess players don’t realize how lucky they are!

Nowadays, chess is a bit more publicized than it used to be. But for a while, no one had heard of chess tournaments, and yet they were quite generously funded. Compared to the media coverage of chess, the fact is — it’s possible to make a living from it, even for players in the world’s Top 200 or 300.

Compared, for example, to tennis, if you’re ranked 300th in the world — you’re losing money. Because you have coaches, equipment, traveling expenses. In chess, no: if you’re 300th in the world, you’re not losing money. You’re not going to earn a fortune, but you’ll pick up a little here and there.”

In May, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave spoke about his earnings from chess. Maxime said he earned €60,000-€70,000 per year at the beginning of his professional career, and noted that in 2025 his earnings reached a peak of €600,000. MVL earned nearly $2,900,000 in prize money over his career, according to data from liquipedia.net.

Credit: Lennart Ootes