Top GMs: I don't want my children to go for chess professionally.

Kasimzhanov, wife Firuza and son Azar.
Photo courtesy of ChessBase.com

World's top Grandmasters makes a point. Very few of them would have agree of seeing any of their children to take chess as a profession. One can not question them, though you can argue this. Surprisingly, most of these top GMs are sons of lawyers, bankers, land owners, and other professionals. They are mostly came from middle class to upper class family who has all the means to support their passion for the game. For you parents raising a child prodigy, don't grieve at this. It is just one of those cases that misguided fatherly instinct that this top GMs has to deal with when raising and protecting their children, knowing the hardship they have faced on reaching the top, despite all the financial and moral support they received all through out their career. They can only have to think for those who don't have. Somehow, these guys are good fathers.

Rustam Kasimzhanov: "My elder child plays chess a little. I am not against it. But I will be against if one of my children decides to become a professional chess player...I’d like them to have normal professions of a lawyer, doctor or banker."

Peter Svidler: "I have two seven-year-old sons. If they ask me to play chess with them, I will play a game or two, but I don`t want them to go for chess professionally."

Shahriyar Mamedyarov: "I am not married yet. But when I get married and have children, they won`t go for chess professionally. Of course I would like them to play chess well, but not professionally. "

Alexander Grischuk: I have a little daughter who can not play chess yet. But if she is eager to go in for chess I won’t be against it, though I am not going to urge her on choosing this way.

Vasily Ivanchuk: "Family is not the thing one should discuss in press. I am married for the second time. I have a child from the first marriage. Unfortunately I seldomly see him. There are a lot of reasons for it. As far as chess is concerned, he is not interested in this game. Now we don’t play chess in the family. We used to, during the first marriage, as my wife was a chess player. My second wife doesn’t play chess."

Full article can be read at 2009 Nalchik official website