Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 10:13PM

Here's some horrific news if you're a chess player: the list of the 50 best-paid players in 2018 based on FIDE events where at least one of the top 50 players took part. Thus winners of U.S. and other Swisses without super-GMs don't count. Another important omission is that appearance fees aren't included. Granted, these are unlikely to be huge, except when the top players are involved, but they do offer some help.

Even so, the figures are a horror: Peter Svidler made just under 27 thousand Euros last year, and Anish Giri less than 25 thousand. Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana both made over 700 thousand Euros, thanks in good part to their World Championship match, and then the next players on the list are Hikaru Nakamura (229k) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (225k). Sergey Karjakin is next with 219k, and then Ju Wenjun is sixth (194k), thanks to her winning not one but two women's world championships in 2018.

The numbers are pretty bad, and with no retirement, a career at the top that certainly doesn't last until one's 60s, and more competition all the time it's pretty depressing unless the appearance fees are more widespread and more generous amongst non-GCT players than I thought. (No wonder Svidler does so much commentary.) The bottom line is that if you're not rated at least 2750 (or sponsored by your country and/or companies), you'd better supplement your playing career with commentary, writing, and/or lessons...or you might just find another career.