Kitchen Knives are kinda strange steel wise. Generally, pro chefs don't want a very hard edge, in fact, they like it kinda soft, exactly for the reason of chipping.

I don't know if it still holds true, but I know when Grandpa was a chef, the average chef kept 2 sets of knives - one was out being sharpened, while the other was being used, and you swapped weeks. During the week, you just steeled your knife. They were more worried about being able to put a good edge on FAST than in HOLDING the edge (usually the better a steel holds the edge, the harder it is to sharpen)

Right now, I own 2+ sets of chef knifes. What's left of Grandpa's knives (OLD Sabietier - rehandled more than once, ground down so much they are triangular instead of curved), a couple of knifes Dad bought when Grandpa's knifes started getting too worn, and the 3-4 knives I bought when I got married, and needed my own knives (plus the 1 I got as a gift, which I almost never use - I hate 8" chef's knives - prefer a 10")

BTW am I the only person who uses 4" pairing knives as "table knives"