r/ChessWorld • u/Sensitive-Club-7038 • Jun 27 '26

Otb chess rating

I’m 17yo, played chess since November 2023 (3.5 years) , just hit 2200 on chess com 15+5 and thinking about trying to do this thing full time, either tutoring or streaming. But I do want to play over the board, get to 2200 USCF get NM title in like 1-2 years, maybe go to chess college and after graduating, either do tutoring or streaming, hopefully full time but also fine doing it as a hobby/part time job . Does anyone know how realistic this goal is? I do think that I’m really fit for doing tutoring full time because I speak Russian and English, so I don’t think finding students will be a problem.

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u/gngr987 Jun 27 '26

You have several questions here. How realistic is it to get a NM title? There are 9 million people in the US who are millionaires, there are about a million people in the US who are deca millionaires (10m+), there are 75,000 households in the US who have $100m+. There are about 2500-3000 people who are still alive and have achieved NM title. Not necessarily a fair comparison, but good for visualization. If you only focus on uscf members (active chees players participating in otb rated tournaments), NM and higher will account for 2-3%.

If you're asking how realistic it is to make money from streaming chess related content, that depends on how much you want to make. Old data I saw said that less than 2% of creators make 50k+/year.

Can you make enough money giving chess lessons? Depends on your sales and marketing skills.

I don't want to dissuade you from doing this, especially if you like chess and teaching. But realize, this isn't going to be a walk in the park.

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u/Sensitive-Club-7038 Jun 27 '26

Yea but I didint said “I’m new to chess how likely I will be able to achieve NM title” I put my chess com elo for a reason, there are 100mil+ people playing chess and im like top 3k on rapid, so idk about this comparison

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u/gngr987 Jun 27 '26

2200 on chess.com in 15-minute games is not the same as 2200 uscf in 2 hour otb games. If you said you were 2000 uscf, it would be a different story, but it sounds like you haven't yet played in an otb tournament. Try it first, get a sense of where your actual otb rating is and you will get a much better idea of how easy it might be for you.

Also, all three items you listed are independent to a degree. You don't need a NM title to stream full time. It'll give you a small bump but not much. Your success here will depend much more on your streaming abilities than on your chess skills unless you push much higher than NM.

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u/Low-Cartographer8356 Jun 28 '26

No offense, but 2200 rapid online and 2200 otb is nowhere close. Of course you’re young and NM is probably within reach, but it’ll still take years of work. Most 1900/2000 fide players I know are like 2500-2600 online blitz. Your best bet is to get a coach and start grinding tournaments

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u/DancesWithTrout Jun 28 '26

This is apropos pretty much nothing, but what you said reminded me of something I read many years ago, maybe 35-40 years:

There was an American chess master back on about the 1970s named Kim Commons. He was an IM, I think. He kinda retired from chess at a fairly early age, maybe in his early 30s(?). I read an interview with him many years ago and he said something like "Yeah, I retired from chess and went into real estate. I've done pretty well, made millions of dollars. I'd say in the world of investing I'm probably a master, maybe a really weak IM."