The Money Game

Someone at Barron's must really like chess. Last year I ran a series of posts highlighting articles from the financial publication, all of which featured chess. The last post in the series was The Game at Chestes (May 2014).

A recent edition had our favorite game on the cover -- shown on the left -- introducing a feature story titled Barron’s Roundtable: Masters of the Game, where a select group of investment wizards gave their prognostications for the coming year (see Barron's Magazine Archives : 19 January 2015 for the full article).

Once upon a time chess and money were complete strangers to each other, and a world class player would risk ending his days in poverty after pursuing the royal game as a profession. Nowadays chess can even make an appearance at the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland: Davos Billionaires Predict Low Interest Rates, Terrorism (Bloomberg.com):-

Pegasystems Inc. founder Alan Trefler became a billionaire in 2013 after his relationship management software maker surged in value. [...] Trefler was a chess prodigy in his youth. He tied for first place at the World Open Chess Championship in 1975, while studying at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he received a degree in economics and computer science. He formed Pegasystems in 1983.

A few years ago, Chessbase reported about Chess Grandmasters at the Davos conference (February 2009):-

As the World Economic Forum held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, two chess grandmasters weighed in on the crisis that has hit the economies of industrialised nations. One was Chess World Champion Vishy Anand, the other one of the leading economic thinkers in the world, Ken Rogoff – who in his day was listed in 40th place in the world chess rankings.

Although Rogoff's playing days are long behind him, the Harvard professor of economics still finds time to pursue his former passion; see Kasparov Interviewed by Rogoff (USchess.org; videos).