Aging & Wisdom Quote by Boris Spassky

Spassky isn’t lamenting chess’s popularity so much as puncturing the romance around it. Coming from a former world champion, the line lands with a particular bite: the game may be more visible than ever, but the life of the chess professional has become harder to justify. He frames it as a marketplace problem, not a spiritual one. Young people have options; chess is no longer the rare ladder out of obscurity it once was. That’s a quiet reversal of Cold War mythology, when chess functioned as cultural prestige, state-sponsored security, and a shorthand for genius.

The blunt subtext is economic. “High competition” sounds like he’s talking about sports, but he’s really talking about labor: too many strong players, too few sustainable incomes, a pyramid where the glamour concentrates at the top and everyone else scrapes by. Even the slightly awkward phrasing (“so our profession does attract young people”) reads like an accidental truth-telling: the attraction is conditional, thinning, dependent on sponsorships, streaming fame, or federation support.

Spassky’s celebrity status matters here. He’s not an outsider scolding kids; he’s a product of a system where chess could be a viable career, even a national project. His remark registers as generational realism, not nostalgia: in a world with gaming, coding, content creation, and global mobility, chess must compete like any other entertainment industry. The warning is implicit: if chess wants youth, it can’t just sell mystique; it has to offer a future.