I've played tournament chess on and off since the mid-70's and as was pointed out elsewhere, to get good you need to devote a substantial amount of time to the

I've played tournament chess on and off since the mid-70's and as was pointed out elsewhere, to get good you need to devote a substantial amount of time to the game. Not that this is a bad thing, but you do have to ask yourself just how much time you have to devote to just how many things? I've managed to make a decent living from time to time as a chess programmer--- don't do the engines, but did do the interfaces. Starting with John Stanback and Hal Bogner working on Zarkov, and then later working with Electronic Arts for real money! I always got a kick out of the fact that I was the lowest rated player in the project including the manager! The last interface I worked on was for ICC another interesting project...