You Won’t Get Rich At Most Chess TournamentsĪnd, then there’s the fact that the average tournament will have a prize of $5,000 or less. That’s not a huge group given that millions of people play chess. They estimate that only around 50 players can earn more than $100,000 a year in prize money. However, this isn’t the norm and if you’re excited by these numbers, you shouldn’t be. The games held in the Middle East, for example, often have generous pay outs and you don’t have to come first in the overall tournament to earn a decent living. There are other tournaments around the world that pay decent prize money too. For example, Magnus Carlsen won $1.5 million the day that he became the world chess champion. The biggest chess purses are nothing to be sneezed at.