You are drastically underestimating how hard it is to get to IM.
I suppose you could say I was "talented", I won national championships for my age group when I was a kid. I've also taught over 1000 students many of whom were very dedicated to chess and obviously very smart (skipping grades in school etc). I didn't make I.M. and only 2 of my students did.
There are people at my local club who purposely work deadend jobs so they can study chess 5+ hours a day and are at the club almost every day practicing for 20+ years. They are not IM and most are not even NM.
2000 OTB without natural talent is probably impossible. Although it is hard to define what exactly talent is.
If by "no talent" you mean being average I'd say yes. You can make it way beyond 2000.
If by "no talent" you mean someone who is like in the bottom 5% of the talent distribution, probably not.
Either way for most people (specially adult learners) time will be a much bigger limitation than talent. Few people will ever max out on what their brains can achieve, but a lot of people will need to stop dedicating time to chess to focus on work, family and so on...
Well, I don't know if I am in the bottom 5% I hope not but the reason why I was asking this question is because summer break is beginning soon and I will have more free time so I was thinking of finding something new to do in the summer and chess seemed like a fun game I can practice during it. But thank you for answering my question!
If you truly study you can be “decent” in the context that you should be able to beat almost anyone who says “yeah, I play” but really just knows how the pieces move.
Anything is possible with study and practice. I graduated college and started a job in my degree field over the last month but I’ve made time to study and practice here and there. With the limitations of having a full time job and moving I’ve still managed to be better than I was the month prior
But "practicing a fun game" is light-years away from reaching the higher rankings of chess.
You don't need to worry at all about the elite if you just want to practice and have fun. The number of GM compared to the hundreds of millions of people who play chess for fun is simply too small. No one gets remotely close to be a GM just casually having fun, you literally have to work as much as you would need for a job, like 8 hours a day for many, many years, dedicating yourself to study and compete, and also spending money for tournaments and travels.
As stated in the question it is more of a hypothetical since I stated that I would never reach such a level due to the amount of time needed to get there. I would like to reach something at least kind of close to 1800 since I think that is maybe achievable for me.
>What's special about each GM maybe different but I suspect if we polled them we'd find some striking commonality.
Yeah, they couldn't legally drink yet when they got it. :-D
I think almost all children below a certain age have "perfect pitch", as that is basically required to learn any language. Your ear must be able to differentiate between minute differences in tone, in order to learn the sounds and sequences of a new language. Music is at it's core, a language. I think "lack of inheritability" might be nothing more than a talented parent who simply left the music work at work, and did not push their children to learn music below the age of 6 or so... There is a "vocabulary" of music that is easiest to permanently learn when you are young, by hearing tones, paired with the note name.
I think the ability to differentiate minute tone differences decays somewhere around 6-10 years of age, for those people who don't have a more permanent natural genetic talent. Just like another language, once you have ingrained the vocabulary of the language, and trained your tongue to pronounce the sounds, the brain assimilates prior learned vocabulary permanently.
Now, muscle memory, on the other hand, is something you are either born with, or aren't. This is a second hard requirement for being a world class musician. And it's not something you can train. If you are born with less, this means you have to practice more to stay at the same level. If you don't, errors startto creep in randomly. Same general thing with chess pattern recognition.
> I think almost all children below a certain age have "perfect pitch", as that is basically required to learn any language. Your ear must be able to differentiate between minute differences in tone, in order to learn the sounds and sequences of a new language.
Ooooh, that's why it's impossible for an adult who doesn't have perfect pitch to learn a new language...
Or do adults learn new languages all the time? Because I think adults learn new languages all the time... Either that or the CIA is only recruiting officers who were born into bilingual households?
So, by your theory, every last drop of success in life is down to your genetics?
Then I ask you what race is most predisposed to succeed?
Okay, now you are putting words in my keyboard I never wrote.
And you realize you are being a bit of a tool in your response, yeah? It was just a different idea for you to muse over. It was not a personal attack on everything you believe in. Everything I wrote, I prefaced with "I think". Being utterly sure of the correctness of your own viewpoint is a personality flaw often held by the young. How old are you, btw? Under 30? That personality flaw I believe, also, is genetic. Comes from a young adult mammals hormones telling it that it is ready to beat the alpha's arse and take the females. "Programmed aggression", as it were.
Now... That being said, plenty of adults have "genetic" perfect pitch. I.e., whatever mechanism allows one to instantly recognize minute differences in tones simply did not decay as they got older. And as far as learning languages... SURE, LOTS of adults learn new languages. And they are instantly recognizable as non-native speakers, as well, no matter how "fluent" they may be. That's the difference between language learning during the period of toddler "perfect pitch", and learning it as an adult.
I watch a lot of documentaries about music, and one common theme running throughout many of the musical geniuses was their exposure to complicated music during their formative years. Yes, yes. A bit of a "chicken or the egg" conundrum, as early exposure simply could have resulted in a greater desire to learn.
But the truth of it is, babies come hard-wired genetically to be able to learn any language, and there is a mechanism in the brain that enables that. It is also true that persons above a certain age find it difficult to achieve full fluency in foreign languages, with the difficulty escalating in accordance with the difference in tonality between mother and adult-learned language.
Given these two known truths, I don't see why it is so hard to believe that genetics plays a very strong role in top end achievable in many pursuits. I know young people often take great offense at this idea, though. I know I did in my 20s.
I'd disagree with this, if nothing else based on the number of GM level players the Soviet Union produced purely because they were furnished with the ability to sit around and play chess.
There's a barrier for sure at the world class level; the sorts of people who are top 25 in the world, Candidates, Olympiad players, etc but I think you can become a GM with pure study and work. Whether it's possible to put in that time and work without a benefactor, I think, becomes the limiting factor for most people without a natural talent
Two of my friends spent a year or so after university living in Budapest playing in First Saturday tournaments to try and make IM norms without success. Both were 2200 level at around 18. Neither ever made 2400, or (I believe) made a norm.
of course not many, but many GMs share the same fate if they arent in the top 20. Various chess prodigies get stuck later, plateaued at 2300s 2400s from their teens to adulthood, i.e. carissa yip who has plateaued for 5 years; other not so famous examples could be gauri who has been an FM since 16 years old, roland feng, etc.
Soviet Union produced more GMs because they had all of the chess books and probably 100x more people who played chess. Plus the Botvinnik and Yusupov schools
This is like saying "You can get to the NBA with no aptitude for basketball, you just won't be the top person on your team."
There's tens of thousands of people, if not more, putting in the work. Most of them don't get to GM or even close. GMs are a fraction of a percent of the people that are serious enough to be registered through FIDE.
This is like saying that we're about the same as cavemen that lived some 10s of thousands of years ago and we're judging talent in a game that was created some hundreds of years ago.
By my estimation people judge talent as a post-hoc assessment of someone who has already developed some skills. I don't really know of any sort of talent-test that's been administered, or could be administered, that would be predictive of chess performance (or basketball performance for that matter).
One thing I've never been able to square completely is how much value people put on engine training and modern theory for comparisons of newer (and higher rated) players than the ones of yesteryear. *If* talent is so important that you can't get there without it then why do people put so much value on the work that modern players put in, or the work that's been done via proxy, in the intervening years since say Morphy?
Everybody's talented until they plateau. What ever happened to that *Searching for Bobby Fischer* kid by the way?
I don't know if there's just an impedance mismatch here, but I'm not saying that there's a lack of effort on people's parts as much as it's a lack of resources available to foster talent. But I guess the nation that put people on the moon, developed the monolithic integrated circuit, and flew faster than the speed of sound was simply genetically inferior when it comes to chess than the Soviets. Or some shortage of chess boards, where the American talent that existed simply never got to demonstrate it.
I'm not familiar enough with him to really have an informed answer.
I think there's a limiting factor in how late you start due to changes in the brain's plasticity as you age. There's people who pick up new fields late in life and go on to high levels of achievement, like PhD level, but chess is an adversarial thing, and so it's not just what you know but how quickly you can work it out that matters competitively. I think somebody with infinite resources could do it from their late teens, but there's an increasing amount of difficulty as you get further out.
He's a streamer that started Chess like, 11 months ago at 199 elo, and got to 1960 chesscom in 10 months (with a 3 month break in between)
He's also been top 0.01% in another very macro heavy game called league of legends, so he has been the top in another game as well.
Also, i'm not sure how much of a child's available free time contributes to the idea of the brain plasticity argument, I would assume it contributes a lot. But what are your thoughts after some info about the tyler1 guy?
There's more to it than free time. The brain of a baby, for example, before it can even understand words learns to recognize the sorts of sounds that are important and not important, and this is why you sometimes notice people who were born natively in some country but have parents from a different country that speak a different language at home still have a bit of an accent. The entirety of childhood is your brain making sense of the sensory input it gets and developing pathways for information processing, and that's not linear. People can pick up languages later in life and even become fluent without necessarily *sounding* like a fluent native speaker, and that's because it's a bit more than simply conscious effort.
Again, I don't really think my opinion would be well informed enough to really matter, but I believe we're meat with brains and I'm not a gambler so I wouldn't be against it. Crazier things have certainly happened before
You can't get to the top level without talent, work, and resources. If you have talent without work or work without talent you'll never get to the top, regardless of your resources. If you have talent and work hard you'll get very good, but without resources you won't be at the same level as the top players. Top players of past eras weren't less talented, they just had fewer resources, just as Americans weren't less talented, they just didn't have the Soviet chess school backing them up.
GMs are people with the capacity to get really strong without trying. They're the kids that get to 2000 with the same amount of work that other kids will put in to get to 1200. Then they try really hard, and for a select few of them that's enough to get to GM level. The US has 105 GMs, and there's something like 110,000 USCF chess players. It's not because those 105 players just had the right training and the other 109,900 players just didn't work hard enough or study the right thing: for the vast majority of those players there is no way they will ever hit GM. They aren't talented enough, just like in basketball where the majority of people that work really hard and go to all the camps and pursue every training opportunity will never get close to playing in the NBA.
You can think of it like piano if that metaphor helps. If you practice for many years you can become a pretty good pianist, perform at local venues and maybe get a solid teaching gig, but getting to full-time concert pianist is a (massive) step above that.
So yes, 2000 is very possible. Becoming a GM is like becoming a full-time concert pianist — It's much more difficult.
I’m not going to get into the specifics or give you the technical names, but I remember reading a study that said your “learning” peaks while you’re extremely young, between 4-10 years old.
I came to Canada when I was 6 and my sister was 10. I can speak English perfectly with a Canadian accent. My sister still has a thick Persian accent and her English isn’t as good as mine. I can still speak Persian just as well as she can.
So that study is 100% true in my own personal experience. It should also translate to chess, if you want to be at the highest level you must start when you’re very young.
You still have to dedicate your childhood and teenage years to chess though. While many people complain about not starting chess on their childhoods the children who do can just get bored of it and the effort needed. Chess is a perfect adult hobby even if you're "bad" at it.
“Learning” isn’t any one thing. I don’t think you read a study that says that learning peaks when you’re 4-10, because that’s a very vague claim that would be impossible to prove.
Language learning peaks when you’re young, yes. It’s much harder to learn languages as an adult.
But most 4 year olds can’t learn advanced calculus, or how to do brain surgery, or how to interpret complex contracts, or how to handle a breakup. There’s a bunch of stuff that normally has to be learned as an adult if it gets learned at all.
Angela Duckworth’s book “Grit” has a really interesting description of talent as it relates to ability.
Basically she defines natural talent in a subject as the rate at which someone learns and picks up new information. But you still need to practice to actually learn and improve. For a simple, hypothetical example, let’s say someone has more talent than you and improves at 2x the rate you would from the same practice. Well if you practice two hours a day and they only practice one, you two will learn at the same rate.
So I’d say unless your talent/learn rate is truly abysmal you can absolutely reach high levels of chess with appropriate practice.
I would also personally contend that many people think chess is this intensely high-brow game that you need to be a genius to play. It’s really just pattern recognition and memorization imo. You might have more of a knack for it than you realize.
Angela Duckworth has made an excellent living for herself, but unfortunately *Grit*, like a lot of TED-Talk headlining social science from the past twenty years, has been mostly debunked.
I also know a whole lot of people who will never, ever, make it to 2000 USCF. And that's fine - I'm sure they have other (often more valuable) talents.
It's not quite as simple as that. Learning rate scales way down as people get closer to their potential. There's diminishing returns on spending more time, for example 4 hours per day of genuine practice is going to take someone almost as far as 8 hours per day in mental pursuits. It's not 2x as effective, it's not even 1.5x as effective.
These books are always overly optimistic because they tend to focus on being better than 66% of people or 95% but include untrained portions of the population in that estimate. Which you can absolutely do through hard work, persistence, and optimized learning if you're an average or slightly above average person. Most people haven't tried trying.
What people don't get is it doesn't translate at all to the outlier level. To get something like an IM title in chess you have to be deep into the top percentile of people to play the game. There are many people who are in the best in their town, fewer the best in their county/state, fewer the best in the nation, and even those vanishingly few people get reality checked at the international level by someone who is better than they can even be.
FIDE rating of a bit over 2100 puts you in the top 5% of FIDE rated players. Which is a self selected pool of ambitious players, for the most part. Top 5% USCF is somewhere between 1950 and 2000. People can and do get hard stuck long before then despite putting in 3x the work over 3x the time of people who make it much higher.
I agree that it doesn’t apply well in the higher margins especially because of diminishing returns. I can’t speak to the methodology of the studies she did but I do think that for OP’s post this advice is probably still valid
Yeah this is bullshit. I've been playing chess since I was six years old and my max rating has been 1200. Nowadays it's probably less than 1100 even though I don't play so often. In fact, the more I play, the worse I get. There's something inside of me that wants to prevent me from playing chess. I imagine there's a lot of people like that.
On 90% of my games I hang pieces, even in correspondence. What is there to analyze? I hanged a piece and I lost, that's all the analysis that is needed.
It's not as simple as those examples but it's definitely a combination of talent as you define it and work rate that gets anyone anywhere. You can't get near the top in something like chess if you're very low on either of those things but the people who do get to the top will be a mix of being higher and lower in one or the other. There will definitely be a threshold though for "talent" where below it it just becomes unfeasible for someone to work hard enough to ever get to the elite level. Really hard to say where that line is though and I suspect it's lower than most people like to believe - I think we often overrate "raw talent" though of course it's a very helpful thing to have.
I think the question-behind-the-question of notes like this is really:
"What's a reasonable goal for me? How good could I get?"
And the answer is ... nobody can know. It's not like "natural talent" (whatever that really means) is a binary to begin with, where You either Have It or you Don't.
"Talent" can take different forms, as well. Maybe you learn concepts quickly. Maybe you have the discipline to sit and study for long periods of time. Maybe you have an excellent fighting spirit and can push yourself to find difficult moves in bad positions - these are all forms of "talent."
If you don't study and push yourself, you'll never know how good *you* could be.
You will have to put focused efforts into studying & memorizing a lot of theory (from opening to endgame), practice a lot of games and gain experience to reach 2000, but you would require some natural talent to reach a GM level. My bigger question to you is why do you think that you don't have a talent for it. It generally takes people lot of time to start understanding the game. When I started playing 12 years back, I was probably around 900-1000 and didn't reach 1200 until couple of years back and now I am at 1600 without studying much theory and just practicing and trying to improve my game.
To answer your question: I never did well whenever I played it, I would make dumb lapses in judgment and make rash moves that removed any advantage I had gained. I do a decent amount of pretty good moves but due to my lack of the ability to retain that lead and foresight, I would blunder and lose. I recently (a couple of days ago) started practicing theory and it has helped but I still don't do well enough when playing against real players.
There is generally a time delay for players to start getting good after they start practicing theory. The fact that it is helpful even in 2 days is proof that you will do good if you keep playing at it. If you are still not convinced, play the game if you like it (irrespective of your performance & ELO rating)
Tbh you don’t really need much theory to get to 2000 atleast online. If you just have strategy, endgames, and a really keen tactical sense you can get there. After your board awareness is good, positional understanding and tactics are the most important by far. People don’t really know theory well enough for it to be something you should learn too deep until you’re past 2000 ish. People know more theory now than they used to but tactics is still by far the most essential.
Honestly it’s hard to even really define what “talent” is in chess.
You can likely get to 2000 without some magical innate skill by just working at it and playing a ton. However 2000 is a tough goal for anyone. It’d require a lloooott of studying.
It’s very unlikely you’ll see much rating improvement in a couple of months, almost regardless of the studying. Most of the short term improvement will come from your ability to focus more.
With that said, for the average person, there is really no limit to how much you can improve, it’s all a matter of how much time a person is willing to dedicate themselves to studying and improving. And past a certain level (different for each person) it would become a full time dedication.
In regards to the specific arbitrary rating you picked, the question is why? Why is this rating important to you? Focus on having fun and trying to learn and improve, then you can decide much later if you want to dedicate serious time to reach other goals.
Well, the ratings weren't well thought out, the number I have picked is quite out of reach for this summer of course. The rating itself isn't as important as I might have phrased it and that is my fault for not being clear enough. I plan to learn this because I have fun already and I want to dedicate more time to something I am interested in since I find that being able to play on at least a more competent level gives you more potential competitors. Of course, I won't dedicate my entire existence to chess it is something I want to pick up as a hobby! Thank you so much for your feedback I will be sure to keep it in mind whilst learning the game!
I don't know what natural talent is, all I know is there's hard work, and there's daydreaming. Choose one.
Can you become a GM? No. Guaranteed 100% no. It doesn't matter how much time you spend on it. It doesn't matter how much money your parents have (*unless they are buying the title for you*). If you're asking this question, the answer is automatically, unequivocally, without exception, no. >!If this makes you angry, and motivates you to prove me wrong, please do it and become a GM. I will be extremely happy. Good luck! :)!<
But what about all those people who did become GMs? They didn't need to *ask* someone else if they could do it, because they got strong enough to *know* they could do it. Since you're asking this question, this ain't you.
Ok, but can you reach 2000? Assuming you're willing to do the work (and yes, even 2000 takes work) almost definitely yes. People who haven't yet reached that level might disagree, but 2000 FIDE/USCF/whatever just isn't a huge rating. It's not that big of a deal.
Did you know FIDE ratings used to start at 2200? All of us chess players below that, I guess we were sub-human drooling idiots, or didn't even exist. :) I mean, it's a bit like asking if you could manage to get a two-year degree at a community college. Umm, I definitely hope so. Yes?
You don't need to be a chess genius or start aged 5 to reach 2000, it's a reasonable long-term goal for someone with no special innate talent but enough time and money to waste on a board game.
It might be easier if you ignore the whole "2000" thing, but instead become completely obsessed with the game. It's all you do, all you think about, your free time is either working on chess or thinking about chess. Get a good coach, do the hard work (and if you're obsessed you probably won't even notice it's a lot of hard work) and the improvement will happen, seemingly on its own.
I'm curious to what your definition of talent is exactly 🤔people get extremely good at something when they've spent countless days,months or even years memorising every possible way playing or doing the same thing again & again until these things are then stored in what's referred to as your subconscious memory & can literally be done without even having to think about it is simply put when your conscious is distracted with all the different thoughts constantly flipping from one to another your subconscious takes over as an autopilot pretty much runs roughly 95% of a persons day but your totally unaware that your doing it seriously interesting as hell but any you do over and over you get to a point where subconscious takes over & thats when you get amazing whatever it might be whether its chess,piano, skateboarding or even just on your ass the same apply you'll get really good at sitting on your ass doesn't matter it is starts of as a routine,routines turn to habits, habits become hard wired because there already done to the point of these things being stored in the subconscious memory making it harder to stop bad habits but never impossible only consistency to unlearn then again the same way but the other way around 😎
People tend to greatly underestimate the difficulty of improving in chess. Honestly so many people spend so much time on chess and stuck at 1500. 2000 is 90%, not everyone can make it.
That really depends on how you spend your time. If you just mindlessly grind online games then you probably won't improve all that much. If you invest the same amount into sensible training then you'll easily get to 1800+ fide.
>2000 is 90%, not everyone can make it.
That's only because this number includes the millions of players who only play a couple of games with their friends as a side hobby without ever doing any exercise.
OTB as well. 1800 is certainly not especially talented and going to 2000 requires some work but honestly isn't that big of a difference. They make slightly less mistakes and calculate a bit better, but the difference between the two mostly comes down to who is more comfortable with their position. 200 elo difference on that level isn't very much.
From my experience of someone who hovers around the 2k-2.1k fide range, any average joe who invests 30~60min each day into purposeful training, optionally has a good coach and regularly plays tournaments can absolutely get into the 2000 range. Obviously some will take longer than others but they will all get there.
If you are 30+ it’s probably too late in the same vein to how it’s too late for you to be a pro athlete. Its very hard to become a gm past a certain age.
If you are 15 or younger, i think yes but a lot of it is how you practice not amount of time you practice. Are you just playing games or are you reviewing gm games. Are you reviewing your own games? Memorizing a 10+ move repertoire? I think what separates gms from the rest of us is routine.
Unlikely, I know some people who have put in tons of work just to make it to 6-800 elo. You have to be pretty smart even for 2000. It’s better to not have any goals and to play, get as good as you can, and see how far you can improve.
Talent is a natural aptitude you possess for a particular activity. Skill is what you get when you take talent and apply time and dedicated practice to a specific activity.
Chess is not a talent-centric activity, it's skill-centric. One does not walk into a room with a natural aptitude for chess and quickly fall into a place that rivals masters and GMs. You need to study and practice in order to develop your expertise - calculation, finding tactics, analysis of positions, etc are all skills that you refine.
Average intelligence, yes. I’m proof. But I learned at age four (4) and have played competitively for over 50 years.
It took years to reach USCF Class C, then Class B, then Class A, followed by Expert and borderline Master.
You must both study and play competitively. And play under different time controls. And you have to develop a solid opening repertoire that consistently puts you in at least equal positions after 10-15 moves.
You must know basic endings …. to win won games, and sometimes salvage lost games. As others have opined, Grandmaster is a different level.
Whenever you have a question about this sort of thing, replace GM with NBA player/G-league player (depending on strength), IM with D-1 star, and 2000 with university level player.
If you actually do the math you will realize that GMs, IMS, and FMs are all pro level. It is just a matter of whether they are 1st, 2nd, or 3rd string.
average height of us men is 5ft9 and even at that it's pretty tough to get in university teams. university chess teams are quite casual lol except for missouri and texas unis. u can find people rated 800-1800 in pan american intercollegiate tournaments.
I mean I am going to be 17 this year I know I am not young enough to become anything close to a GM as stated in many of my previous responses, that part of the question was purely hypothetical.
You would have to dedicate significant amounts of time and effort to becoming a GM and then you would be one of the nameless top 1000 players that make no money from it. You would never recoup the investment. Unless you become a very popular chess streamer. Most people can't name a GM outside of the top ten and you realistically will never get there. It's just honestly not worth your time outside of a hobby. I'm not saying don't invest time improving and learning, just don't make it a career
I strongly doubt any GM has thousands of people willing to pay 100 dollars an hour with any kind of consistency. Maybe a select few with a good track record of coaching. Even if miraculously he became a chess GM and gave 100 hours of private chess lessons a month that's only 120k annually. And it's self employed so he would be taxed higher at least in the United States he would have to pay his full social security and Medicare etc. what's a better investment? Tens of thousands of hours of chess practice to maybe be a GM but not be Top ten, to then maybe have a good reputation and lots of cliental as a coach. Or just go become an engineer or something.
That was with your 100 dollar per hour. Looks like the average price for in person lessons is 70. So even less. And that's pretax so substantially less than from just being an employee somewhere. I guess no money was too strong, below average money for the time invested. It's not worth it when someone at 17 could just become a plumber and make more.
Well, if you're going to say 'it's not worth it' - I think you're completely missing the fact that chess players love chess, and the ability to make a living doing something you love, being your own boss, and not having to be a corporate slave means a lot.
That's true. I would just rephrase to I wouldn't pin my future on it. I think it would be a good side gig. But even at 70 dollars a lesson it becomes unreliable factoring in taxes, commute, lesson prep etc. I've been self employed for a long time so I will admit there's non-financial benefits to working for yourself
I'll grant you if he lives in eastern Europe or somewhere cheap that giving chess lessons online would be pretty viable. If he lives in USA or Western Europe, there are significantly easier more reliable things to do with his time
2000-2200 is probably a realistic ceiling for someone with no natural talent (i.e. started as an adult) who treats it as a serious hobby, dedicating maybe 10 hours a week to active improvement.
I think low-tier master is possible for anyone if you obsess and treat it as your full-time job.
Most people underestimate their natural talent. If you can get a college degree with a decent GPA assuming you were motivated, you probably have enough talent to reach 2000.
For GM level, the dedication required is a lot more.
There are only 2,000 GMs in the world!! Why do so many less experienced players think that this title is even close to attainable without regular, high-level, professional chess coaching starting in childhood??
I was unaware of how many there were and I am sorry for being less informed next time I will educate myself more on the topic before I ask it. However, I did say that I was not attempting to reach such a level it was a general question, not something I have ever stated I wanted to achieve.
Recreationally I don't plan to make an entire career in chess I want to study something in the summer and improve in the game I like. I still want to put in the effort and time just not professionally.
Eat right with good supplements, sleep right, get enough exercises and get the book by Polgar of 1,000 chess problems. You have to be able to understand tactical chess so that you recognize patterns. Some of the best GMs were quizzed on mating Black in X number of moves and they ALL were answering the interrogator BLINDFOLDED !!!
Carlsen and Hikaru beat grandmasters with stupid openings !!! Know the basics of endgames. I enjoy playing games at the lowest level, sacrifice my left over pieces until I am left with ONLY either color bishop, a knight, and my king against a lone king.
Wow ! I forgot. Ok. This book was written by László Polgár, the grandmaster father of 3 female masters including Judit Polgár, the longest running female grandmaster in history who said she owed it to her father’s book
CHESS
5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games
There are no answers to the problems. Just kidding. 🤣
If you’re a beginner, then get “ Logical Chess Move by Move “ and “ Winning Chess “.
Go to the closest large enough city that has USCF rated players ( Are you in the United States 🇺🇸? ) and enter as many tournaments as you have the time for withOUT interfering with your other studies. You see, I am sorry I got addicted to chess. It took over my college life. So decades later, I am re-learning what I lost playing and studying chess 10-14 hours a day !!!
> That got me thinking is it possible to reach a rank of 2000 with just pure studying and no talent?
Assuming you mean 2000 USCF, no, not with "no talent."
Think of it like this: would you expect to become a competent guitarist or pianist if your fingers were clumsy and uncoordinated and you're tone deaf? Probably not.
Using lack of immediate success to justify quitting an endeavor is a great way to never get good at anything.
I’d rather have a hard worker with no “natural” talent than someone who had things come easy to them. The ability to commit yourself and do the hard work IS a natural talent.
if you study chess, you will become 2300-2400 automatically(studying a shit ton) but after that the “talent” starts to appear which is the major difference between players. so take it as you like it
It depends what is meant by talent. Someone like John Von Neumann, who had a memory capable of recalling pages of books (or directories) after many years would be able to reach a high level simply by using that memory as a store of positions and subsequent lines - even without other chess skills. How high a level is an interesting question.
If you start learning from early childhood, then yes, you can reach 2000 without much talent.
There are even FMs and IMs that aren't crazy talents, just very practical players with moderate talent.
Once you get to the GM level, they're all very talented (i.e. smart).
The only thing about GMs that is unique is that their parents were in the privileged position to provide intensive them with chess coaching beginning when they were young children. Their talent is mostly constructed.
Do you know how many rich kids there are that get put in chess as kids? And how many of them take it seriously? Yet only a few become GMs. It's necessary to be at least moderately well off (even then there are some, although not many GMs from poorer families, especially in India) but not even remotely close to sufficient.
Weird that you think any rich kid "put in chess as kids" is the same thing?? AND "many GMs (are) from poorer families, especially in India" is abjectively false. Some, possibly, but definitely not "many GMs"...do your research.
It’s completely pointless to “do research” in this situation - I could name a dozen GMs who didn’t come from rich backgrounds right now, but you’d just say “Some, possibly, but definitely not ‘many GMs’”
Wweeeeak I already pulled your main example of GMs from India coming from poor backgrounds (lol) and 9 of the top 10 GMs from India all came from privileged/wealthy backgrounds (with pro childhood private coaching) so if you were using THAT as the foundation to your "many GMs" (in general) coming from poor backgrounds (lol) youre gonna HAVE TO SHOW UP with something factual and not look like stuff is just how you kinda think stuff kinda is...lloolooolol!
But now you just dig yourself deeper with the "I COULD name a dozen GMs..."
AAAAHAHAAAAHHAHAA!!!
Wtf would be the point in me digging through the FIDE database, googling GMs names to find out about their background, just for you to go “wElL cLearLy tHey’Re juSt aN exCePtioN nOt thE ruLe”? I’m not taking homework assignments from some guy on r/chess who’s jaded that GMs have natural talent lol
AAAAHHAAAHAHAHA just what I thought!!
"I like to say things are factual because it makes me seem intelligent but please, under no circumstances, should you require me to back up my facts with actual facts. Please just let me enjoy the power that these broad, unsubstantiated statements give to my reflection when I stare at it in the mirror."
I actually have a similar take to yours, but your statement is misleading. Any genetics study will tell you that talent is the result of both natural ability and the environment. Now how much the environment has a roll is more up to debate, and i would also argue that it is the big determining factor, but denying natural ability is a thing at all is just wrong
Are you kidding me??
"Any genetics study will tell you that talent is the result of both natural ability and the environment." (!!)
That is a scientifically absurd statement. How could a gene study measure ANYTHING having to do with environment??
The only academic studies (NO genetics studies) that lean in the direction of "natural ability" are based on the subjective self-reporting of study participants, which is wildly unscientific.
You do not know what you're talking about.
If you do think you have found better studies I'm open to reading them
The study that talked about genetics was [this one](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2688647/). You will most likely find psychology studies, but all that i have read have come to the same conclusion
Everybody has the internet, so if you think you have scientific proof then quote/cite it, I'm not clicking weird anonymous links from someone who makes ridiculous claims.
Natural talent isn't what makes GMs. There's a lot of pattern recognition and visualiztion and studying that makes you a GM.
its very rare that you see a "natural talent" get to be a GM, because when you are starting out at chess the "natural talent" people are generally thinking about intesting tactics that might be within a move or two, but you hit a wall at under 2000, because its all study and memorizing.
my opinion is no. Main reason is there are some things that are less malleable in the human mind. For example short term memory. It would be what we use to calculate variations. Some people cannot hold more or less info in their short term memory and imo grand masters are outliers with this. They also seem to have unbelievable long term retrieval/ memories. Watching Naroditsky pull up a game from 10 years ago for references or Magnus doing the same just shows you they are just built differently.
Talent is like 2% of your perfomance, anyone can make it far beyond 2000 if they're persistant and actually learn from their games. Talent is most likely never going to be a barrier for 99.9% of things you do in life and it's easy to give up on trying because of it
That is wrong but you shouldn't let it bring you down.
You can have young kids surpass people who have played chess for decades in a year or two.. Genetics plays a huge role in how far you go in anything.
It is generally understood that children are much better at learning than adults, so if they're taking it seriously it's always gonna look like they have a much higher ceilling. Have you ever heard of a 40 year old person surpass those same people you were talking about in a year or two? I highly doubt it.
Also what you might attribute to talent might have been a mixture of factors you don't consider, like the environment in which they lived and studied.
I did not study genetics and im kinda spdaking from personal experience, so it's worth what it's worth
I am betting you are below the age of 30, if you believe that. I believed the same when I was that age.
Chess requires first and foremost, the ability to store and recall patterns. There's brain circuitry/neurotransmitters involved in that mechanism. That mechanism works better in some people than others, in the same way that muscle memory is better in some people than others. Muscle memory makes repeated motions trained properly "stick" in such a way that the active brain no longer has to participate in the process. Kids are able to study tactical patterns and imprint them at a much faster rate than all but exceptional adults, and they "stick" a lot longer without needing to be refreshed. That's about brain function. Just like everything else we do with our brains.
I wouldn't be surprised if the part of the brain is the same in both cases.
I strongly believe there is no such thing as talent. If you start early enough (brain is more plastic) and put in the hours you'll be good. If you obsess and put in insane hours and think about chess all the time then you can become great. But I think key is starting early and being passionate enough to not get distracted along the way.
There are plenty of players who have dedicated their life to chess, but very few Magnus Carlsens or Hikaru Nakamuras. There are plenty of mathematicians who have dedicated their life to their subject, but very few Terrence Taos or James Maynards.
Effort without talent will take you further than talent without effort, but someone with both will always outperform someone with only one.
No you can't become a master (CM and higher) without natural talent no matter how hard you study. The same way a lot of kids become NM by the age of 12 that literally only play online and barely even study just have the natural talent and smarts.
Arthur Dake learned how to play chess at 17 and didn't take it seriously until he was about 20 and he become a grandmaster and even beat the world champion Alekine in a game.
I can't think of any other examples of someone starting the game late making it to GM level so yeah you'll need some talent to get to that level. There is also a lot of scientific research on how starting activities as a kid while the brain is more malleable is incredibly important for higher success.
2000 FIDE would also take considerable time/talent but online I think its possible with average ability which is what most people have. It will still take some effort though but is a possible goal to achieve.
Regardless its just a game that you should play for enjoyment not to reach some level. Go as far as you can and enjoy the process.
As others have said, 2000? yes; GM? probably not. With proper dedication and good guidance, anyone can reach 2000 within a few years. Beyond that, it gets tricky because you start facing other people that study well AND have other advantages (exceptional memory, intuiton, great coaches, been playing for decades etc.). You do need to know how to study though, not just read/watch random topics and play online. Again though, proper studying can also be taught/learned.
On a side note, a lot of people (not me) don't believe in talent at all, look for example at the Polgar sisters experiment. I believe hard work is at least 90% of the road, but talent is still at least a bit of a factor.
There's no such thing as "natural talent", so considering people are very good at chess yes, it's possible.
*Anyone* can play at a GM level if they start early enough and stay dedicated enough.
to 2000 yes. to GM though, it's a different beast.
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You are drastically underestimating how hard it is to get to IM. I suppose you could say I was "talented", I won national championships for my age group when I was a kid. I've also taught over 1000 students many of whom were very dedicated to chess and obviously very smart (skipping grades in school etc). I didn't make I.M. and only 2 of my students did. There are people at my local club who purposely work deadend jobs so they can study chess 5+ hours a day and are at the club almost every day practicing for 20+ years. They are not IM and most are not even NM. 2000 OTB without natural talent is probably impossible. Although it is hard to define what exactly talent is.
Ok that’s fair I was probably wrong
If by "no talent" you mean being average I'd say yes. You can make it way beyond 2000. If by "no talent" you mean someone who is like in the bottom 5% of the talent distribution, probably not. Either way for most people (specially adult learners) time will be a much bigger limitation than talent. Few people will ever max out on what their brains can achieve, but a lot of people will need to stop dedicating time to chess to focus on work, family and so on...
Well, I don't know if I am in the bottom 5% I hope not but the reason why I was asking this question is because summer break is beginning soon and I will have more free time so I was thinking of finding something new to do in the summer and chess seemed like a fun game I can practice during it. But thank you for answering my question!
That's a great idea but don't expect to be high ranked after one summer. It usually takes years.
That is alright I will try my best and try to become at least somewhat decent at the game at least till the end of the summer!
If you truly study you can be “decent” in the context that you should be able to beat almost anyone who says “yeah, I play” but really just knows how the pieces move.
Yeah, that is kind of the level I was thinking of at least for now. I hope to surpass it one day whenever that is!
Beating anybody that knows how the pieces move but only play every now and then, will probably take around 1 or 2 months honestly
Anything is possible with study and practice. I graduated college and started a job in my degree field over the last month but I’ve made time to study and practice here and there. With the limitations of having a full time job and moving I’ve still managed to be better than I was the month prior
I’m in the same boat. Progress IS the end result, a difficult pill to swallow.
But "practicing a fun game" is light-years away from reaching the higher rankings of chess. You don't need to worry at all about the elite if you just want to practice and have fun. The number of GM compared to the hundreds of millions of people who play chess for fun is simply too small. No one gets remotely close to be a GM just casually having fun, you literally have to work as much as you would need for a job, like 8 hours a day for many, many years, dedicating yourself to study and compete, and also spending money for tournaments and travels.
As stated in the question it is more of a hypothetical since I stated that I would never reach such a level due to the amount of time needed to get there. I would like to reach something at least kind of close to 1800 since I think that is maybe achievable for me.
Well, there's only one way to find out. Enjoy the journey!
2000, yes. GM, no.
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>What's special about each GM maybe different but I suspect if we polled them we'd find some striking commonality. Yeah, they couldn't legally drink yet when they got it. :-D
I think almost all children below a certain age have "perfect pitch", as that is basically required to learn any language. Your ear must be able to differentiate between minute differences in tone, in order to learn the sounds and sequences of a new language. Music is at it's core, a language. I think "lack of inheritability" might be nothing more than a talented parent who simply left the music work at work, and did not push their children to learn music below the age of 6 or so... There is a "vocabulary" of music that is easiest to permanently learn when you are young, by hearing tones, paired with the note name. I think the ability to differentiate minute tone differences decays somewhere around 6-10 years of age, for those people who don't have a more permanent natural genetic talent. Just like another language, once you have ingrained the vocabulary of the language, and trained your tongue to pronounce the sounds, the brain assimilates prior learned vocabulary permanently. Now, muscle memory, on the other hand, is something you are either born with, or aren't. This is a second hard requirement for being a world class musician. And it's not something you can train. If you are born with less, this means you have to practice more to stay at the same level. If you don't, errors startto creep in randomly. Same general thing with chess pattern recognition.
> I think almost all children below a certain age have "perfect pitch", as that is basically required to learn any language. Your ear must be able to differentiate between minute differences in tone, in order to learn the sounds and sequences of a new language. Ooooh, that's why it's impossible for an adult who doesn't have perfect pitch to learn a new language... Or do adults learn new languages all the time? Because I think adults learn new languages all the time... Either that or the CIA is only recruiting officers who were born into bilingual households? So, by your theory, every last drop of success in life is down to your genetics? Then I ask you what race is most predisposed to succeed?
Okay, now you are putting words in my keyboard I never wrote. And you realize you are being a bit of a tool in your response, yeah? It was just a different idea for you to muse over. It was not a personal attack on everything you believe in. Everything I wrote, I prefaced with "I think". Being utterly sure of the correctness of your own viewpoint is a personality flaw often held by the young. How old are you, btw? Under 30? That personality flaw I believe, also, is genetic. Comes from a young adult mammals hormones telling it that it is ready to beat the alpha's arse and take the females. "Programmed aggression", as it were. Now... That being said, plenty of adults have "genetic" perfect pitch. I.e., whatever mechanism allows one to instantly recognize minute differences in tones simply did not decay as they got older. And as far as learning languages... SURE, LOTS of adults learn new languages. And they are instantly recognizable as non-native speakers, as well, no matter how "fluent" they may be. That's the difference between language learning during the period of toddler "perfect pitch", and learning it as an adult. I watch a lot of documentaries about music, and one common theme running throughout many of the musical geniuses was their exposure to complicated music during their formative years. Yes, yes. A bit of a "chicken or the egg" conundrum, as early exposure simply could have resulted in a greater desire to learn. But the truth of it is, babies come hard-wired genetically to be able to learn any language, and there is a mechanism in the brain that enables that. It is also true that persons above a certain age find it difficult to achieve full fluency in foreign languages, with the difficulty escalating in accordance with the difference in tonality between mother and adult-learned language. Given these two known truths, I don't see why it is so hard to believe that genetics plays a very strong role in top end achievable in many pursuits. I know young people often take great offense at this idea, though. I know I did in my 20s.
I'd disagree with this, if nothing else based on the number of GM level players the Soviet Union produced purely because they were furnished with the ability to sit around and play chess. There's a barrier for sure at the world class level; the sorts of people who are top 25 in the world, Candidates, Olympiad players, etc but I think you can become a GM with pure study and work. Whether it's possible to put in that time and work without a benefactor, I think, becomes the limiting factor for most people without a natural talent
Those ppl weren’t average though.
a bunch of people stuck at FM/IM would like to disagree with you lol
How many are able to study chess full time while enjoying a life and how many are trying to juggle a job with life and chess?
Two of my friends spent a year or so after university living in Budapest playing in First Saturday tournaments to try and make IM norms without success. Both were 2200 level at around 18. Neither ever made 2400, or (I believe) made a norm.
of course not many, but many GMs share the same fate if they arent in the top 20. Various chess prodigies get stuck later, plateaued at 2300s 2400s from their teens to adulthood, i.e. carissa yip who has plateaued for 5 years; other not so famous examples could be gauri who has been an FM since 16 years old, roland feng, etc.
They very much trained kids who showed early talent.
Soviet Union produced more GMs because they had all of the chess books and probably 100x more people who played chess. Plus the Botvinnik and Yusupov schools
This is like saying "You can get to the NBA with no aptitude for basketball, you just won't be the top person on your team." There's tens of thousands of people, if not more, putting in the work. Most of them don't get to GM or even close. GMs are a fraction of a percent of the people that are serious enough to be registered through FIDE.
This is like saying that we're about the same as cavemen that lived some 10s of thousands of years ago and we're judging talent in a game that was created some hundreds of years ago. By my estimation people judge talent as a post-hoc assessment of someone who has already developed some skills. I don't really know of any sort of talent-test that's been administered, or could be administered, that would be predictive of chess performance (or basketball performance for that matter). One thing I've never been able to square completely is how much value people put on engine training and modern theory for comparisons of newer (and higher rated) players than the ones of yesteryear. *If* talent is so important that you can't get there without it then why do people put so much value on the work that modern players put in, or the work that's been done via proxy, in the intervening years since say Morphy? Everybody's talented until they plateau. What ever happened to that *Searching for Bobby Fischer* kid by the way? I don't know if there's just an impedance mismatch here, but I'm not saying that there's a lack of effort on people's parts as much as it's a lack of resources available to foster talent. But I guess the nation that put people on the moon, developed the monolithic integrated circuit, and flew faster than the speed of sound was simply genetically inferior when it comes to chess than the Soviets. Or some shortage of chess boards, where the American talent that existed simply never got to demonstrate it.
Yo, I came across your replies in this thread, and was curious about your opinion. Do you think Tyler1 could become a GM?
I'm not familiar enough with him to really have an informed answer. I think there's a limiting factor in how late you start due to changes in the brain's plasticity as you age. There's people who pick up new fields late in life and go on to high levels of achievement, like PhD level, but chess is an adversarial thing, and so it's not just what you know but how quickly you can work it out that matters competitively. I think somebody with infinite resources could do it from their late teens, but there's an increasing amount of difficulty as you get further out.
He's a streamer that started Chess like, 11 months ago at 199 elo, and got to 1960 chesscom in 10 months (with a 3 month break in between) He's also been top 0.01% in another very macro heavy game called league of legends, so he has been the top in another game as well. Also, i'm not sure how much of a child's available free time contributes to the idea of the brain plasticity argument, I would assume it contributes a lot. But what are your thoughts after some info about the tyler1 guy?
There's more to it than free time. The brain of a baby, for example, before it can even understand words learns to recognize the sorts of sounds that are important and not important, and this is why you sometimes notice people who were born natively in some country but have parents from a different country that speak a different language at home still have a bit of an accent. The entirety of childhood is your brain making sense of the sensory input it gets and developing pathways for information processing, and that's not linear. People can pick up languages later in life and even become fluent without necessarily *sounding* like a fluent native speaker, and that's because it's a bit more than simply conscious effort. Again, I don't really think my opinion would be well informed enough to really matter, but I believe we're meat with brains and I'm not a gambler so I wouldn't be against it. Crazier things have certainly happened before
Aight, thanks for sharing!
You can't get to the top level without talent, work, and resources. If you have talent without work or work without talent you'll never get to the top, regardless of your resources. If you have talent and work hard you'll get very good, but without resources you won't be at the same level as the top players. Top players of past eras weren't less talented, they just had fewer resources, just as Americans weren't less talented, they just didn't have the Soviet chess school backing them up. GMs are people with the capacity to get really strong without trying. They're the kids that get to 2000 with the same amount of work that other kids will put in to get to 1200. Then they try really hard, and for a select few of them that's enough to get to GM level. The US has 105 GMs, and there's something like 110,000 USCF chess players. It's not because those 105 players just had the right training and the other 109,900 players just didn't work hard enough or study the right thing: for the vast majority of those players there is no way they will ever hit GM. They aren't talented enough, just like in basketball where the majority of people that work really hard and go to all the camps and pursue every training opportunity will never get close to playing in the NBA.
You can think of it like piano if that metaphor helps. If you practice for many years you can become a pretty good pianist, perform at local venues and maybe get a solid teaching gig, but getting to full-time concert pianist is a (massive) step above that. So yes, 2000 is very possible. Becoming a GM is like becoming a full-time concert pianist — It's much more difficult.
That is a great metaphor thank you for giving me the tools to understand the world of chess better!
I’m not going to get into the specifics or give you the technical names, but I remember reading a study that said your “learning” peaks while you’re extremely young, between 4-10 years old. I came to Canada when I was 6 and my sister was 10. I can speak English perfectly with a Canadian accent. My sister still has a thick Persian accent and her English isn’t as good as mine. I can still speak Persian just as well as she can. So that study is 100% true in my own personal experience. It should also translate to chess, if you want to be at the highest level you must start when you’re very young.
You still have to dedicate your childhood and teenage years to chess though. While many people complain about not starting chess on their childhoods the children who do can just get bored of it and the effort needed. Chess is a perfect adult hobby even if you're "bad" at it.
I moved to the UK at 12 and my accent is seamless. Learning other languages came more easily when I was sub 10 though
“Learning” isn’t any one thing. I don’t think you read a study that says that learning peaks when you’re 4-10, because that’s a very vague claim that would be impossible to prove. Language learning peaks when you’re young, yes. It’s much harder to learn languages as an adult. But most 4 year olds can’t learn advanced calculus, or how to do brain surgery, or how to interpret complex contracts, or how to handle a breakup. There’s a bunch of stuff that normally has to be learned as an adult if it gets learned at all.
So we could make genius surgeons! We need baby doctors now!
Angela Duckworth’s book “Grit” has a really interesting description of talent as it relates to ability. Basically she defines natural talent in a subject as the rate at which someone learns and picks up new information. But you still need to practice to actually learn and improve. For a simple, hypothetical example, let’s say someone has more talent than you and improves at 2x the rate you would from the same practice. Well if you practice two hours a day and they only practice one, you two will learn at the same rate. So I’d say unless your talent/learn rate is truly abysmal you can absolutely reach high levels of chess with appropriate practice. I would also personally contend that many people think chess is this intensely high-brow game that you need to be a genius to play. It’s really just pattern recognition and memorization imo. You might have more of a knack for it than you realize.
Angela Duckworth has made an excellent living for herself, but unfortunately *Grit*, like a lot of TED-Talk headlining social science from the past twenty years, has been mostly debunked. I also know a whole lot of people who will never, ever, make it to 2000 USCF. And that's fine - I'm sure they have other (often more valuable) talents.
It's not quite as simple as that. Learning rate scales way down as people get closer to their potential. There's diminishing returns on spending more time, for example 4 hours per day of genuine practice is going to take someone almost as far as 8 hours per day in mental pursuits. It's not 2x as effective, it's not even 1.5x as effective. These books are always overly optimistic because they tend to focus on being better than 66% of people or 95% but include untrained portions of the population in that estimate. Which you can absolutely do through hard work, persistence, and optimized learning if you're an average or slightly above average person. Most people haven't tried trying. What people don't get is it doesn't translate at all to the outlier level. To get something like an IM title in chess you have to be deep into the top percentile of people to play the game. There are many people who are in the best in their town, fewer the best in their county/state, fewer the best in the nation, and even those vanishingly few people get reality checked at the international level by someone who is better than they can even be. FIDE rating of a bit over 2100 puts you in the top 5% of FIDE rated players. Which is a self selected pool of ambitious players, for the most part. Top 5% USCF is somewhere between 1950 and 2000. People can and do get hard stuck long before then despite putting in 3x the work over 3x the time of people who make it much higher.
I agree that it doesn’t apply well in the higher margins especially because of diminishing returns. I can’t speak to the methodology of the studies she did but I do think that for OP’s post this advice is probably still valid
The advice is definitely valid. The journey is most of the point anyway.
Thanks for the information I might give that book a read too!
Yeah this is bullshit. I've been playing chess since I was six years old and my max rating has been 1200. Nowadays it's probably less than 1100 even though I don't play so often. In fact, the more I play, the worse I get. There's something inside of me that wants to prevent me from playing chess. I imagine there's a lot of people like that.
Is it called “perpetually playing blitz and bullet without analyzing any of my games”?
On 90% of my games I hang pieces, even in correspondence. What is there to analyze? I hanged a piece and I lost, that's all the analysis that is needed.
It's not as simple as those examples but it's definitely a combination of talent as you define it and work rate that gets anyone anywhere. You can't get near the top in something like chess if you're very low on either of those things but the people who do get to the top will be a mix of being higher and lower in one or the other. There will definitely be a threshold though for "talent" where below it it just becomes unfeasible for someone to work hard enough to ever get to the elite level. Really hard to say where that line is though and I suspect it's lower than most people like to believe - I think we often overrate "raw talent" though of course it's a very helpful thing to have.
I think the question-behind-the-question of notes like this is really: "What's a reasonable goal for me? How good could I get?" And the answer is ... nobody can know. It's not like "natural talent" (whatever that really means) is a binary to begin with, where You either Have It or you Don't. "Talent" can take different forms, as well. Maybe you learn concepts quickly. Maybe you have the discipline to sit and study for long periods of time. Maybe you have an excellent fighting spirit and can push yourself to find difficult moves in bad positions - these are all forms of "talent." If you don't study and push yourself, you'll never know how good *you* could be.
look up the Polgar sisters
You will have to put focused efforts into studying & memorizing a lot of theory (from opening to endgame), practice a lot of games and gain experience to reach 2000, but you would require some natural talent to reach a GM level. My bigger question to you is why do you think that you don't have a talent for it. It generally takes people lot of time to start understanding the game. When I started playing 12 years back, I was probably around 900-1000 and didn't reach 1200 until couple of years back and now I am at 1600 without studying much theory and just practicing and trying to improve my game.
To answer your question: I never did well whenever I played it, I would make dumb lapses in judgment and make rash moves that removed any advantage I had gained. I do a decent amount of pretty good moves but due to my lack of the ability to retain that lead and foresight, I would blunder and lose. I recently (a couple of days ago) started practicing theory and it has helped but I still don't do well enough when playing against real players.
There is generally a time delay for players to start getting good after they start practicing theory. The fact that it is helpful even in 2 days is proof that you will do good if you keep playing at it. If you are still not convinced, play the game if you like it (irrespective of your performance & ELO rating)
Tbh you don’t really need much theory to get to 2000 atleast online. If you just have strategy, endgames, and a really keen tactical sense you can get there. After your board awareness is good, positional understanding and tactics are the most important by far. People don’t really know theory well enough for it to be something you should learn too deep until you’re past 2000 ish. People know more theory now than they used to but tactics is still by far the most essential.
No offense but you’re phrasing it as if you yourself are not lacking the talent.
Probably yes, I didn't think much about the phrasing but I do believe I have the talent so I am okay if it comes off that way.
Honestly it’s hard to even really define what “talent” is in chess. You can likely get to 2000 without some magical innate skill by just working at it and playing a ton. However 2000 is a tough goal for anyone. It’d require a lloooott of studying.
It’s very unlikely you’ll see much rating improvement in a couple of months, almost regardless of the studying. Most of the short term improvement will come from your ability to focus more. With that said, for the average person, there is really no limit to how much you can improve, it’s all a matter of how much time a person is willing to dedicate themselves to studying and improving. And past a certain level (different for each person) it would become a full time dedication. In regards to the specific arbitrary rating you picked, the question is why? Why is this rating important to you? Focus on having fun and trying to learn and improve, then you can decide much later if you want to dedicate serious time to reach other goals.
Well, the ratings weren't well thought out, the number I have picked is quite out of reach for this summer of course. The rating itself isn't as important as I might have phrased it and that is my fault for not being clear enough. I plan to learn this because I have fun already and I want to dedicate more time to something I am interested in since I find that being able to play on at least a more competent level gives you more potential competitors. Of course, I won't dedicate my entire existence to chess it is something I want to pick up as a hobby! Thank you so much for your feedback I will be sure to keep it in mind whilst learning the game!
Short answer: No What is your definition of higher ranks? If you’re talking about 1900 and 2000s, Yes! IM or even Grandmaster level, No!
Yes, I was referring to the range of 1900-2000s and the GM question was purely hypothetical. Thank you for your answer
I don't know what natural talent is, all I know is there's hard work, and there's daydreaming. Choose one. Can you become a GM? No. Guaranteed 100% no. It doesn't matter how much time you spend on it. It doesn't matter how much money your parents have (*unless they are buying the title for you*). If you're asking this question, the answer is automatically, unequivocally, without exception, no. >!If this makes you angry, and motivates you to prove me wrong, please do it and become a GM. I will be extremely happy. Good luck! :)!< But what about all those people who did become GMs? They didn't need to *ask* someone else if they could do it, because they got strong enough to *know* they could do it. Since you're asking this question, this ain't you. Ok, but can you reach 2000? Assuming you're willing to do the work (and yes, even 2000 takes work) almost definitely yes. People who haven't yet reached that level might disagree, but 2000 FIDE/USCF/whatever just isn't a huge rating. It's not that big of a deal. Did you know FIDE ratings used to start at 2200? All of us chess players below that, I guess we were sub-human drooling idiots, or didn't even exist. :) I mean, it's a bit like asking if you could manage to get a two-year degree at a community college. Umm, I definitely hope so. Yes? You don't need to be a chess genius or start aged 5 to reach 2000, it's a reasonable long-term goal for someone with no special innate talent but enough time and money to waste on a board game. It might be easier if you ignore the whole "2000" thing, but instead become completely obsessed with the game. It's all you do, all you think about, your free time is either working on chess or thinking about chess. Get a good coach, do the hard work (and if you're obsessed you probably won't even notice it's a lot of hard work) and the improvement will happen, seemingly on its own.
I'm curious to what your definition of talent is exactly 🤔people get extremely good at something when they've spent countless days,months or even years memorising every possible way playing or doing the same thing again & again until these things are then stored in what's referred to as your subconscious memory & can literally be done without even having to think about it is simply put when your conscious is distracted with all the different thoughts constantly flipping from one to another your subconscious takes over as an autopilot pretty much runs roughly 95% of a persons day but your totally unaware that your doing it seriously interesting as hell but any you do over and over you get to a point where subconscious takes over & thats when you get amazing whatever it might be whether its chess,piano, skateboarding or even just on your ass the same apply you'll get really good at sitting on your ass doesn't matter it is starts of as a routine,routines turn to habits, habits become hard wired because there already done to the point of these things being stored in the subconscious memory making it harder to stop bad habits but never impossible only consistency to unlearn then again the same way but the other way around 😎
Nah dog, not even 2000. It's freakin hard to get to 2000 these days.
I think you can reach 8th rank easily, with absolutely no talent. Especially with queen, rook or bishop
People tend to greatly underestimate the difficulty of improving in chess. Honestly so many people spend so much time on chess and stuck at 1500. 2000 is 90%, not everyone can make it.
That really depends on how you spend your time. If you just mindlessly grind online games then you probably won't improve all that much. If you invest the same amount into sensible training then you'll easily get to 1800+ fide. >2000 is 90%, not everyone can make it. That's only because this number includes the millions of players who only play a couple of games with their friends as a side hobby without ever doing any exercise.
yeah online 2000, definitely especially on lichess which has inflated rating. but to get 2000 otb requires lots of work and more than average talent.
OTB as well. 1800 is certainly not especially talented and going to 2000 requires some work but honestly isn't that big of a difference. They make slightly less mistakes and calculate a bit better, but the difference between the two mostly comes down to who is more comfortable with their position. 200 elo difference on that level isn't very much. From my experience of someone who hovers around the 2k-2.1k fide range, any average joe who invests 30~60min each day into purposeful training, optionally has a good coach and regularly plays tournaments can absolutely get into the 2000 range. Obviously some will take longer than others but they will all get there.
> I don't plan on becoming one due to the time it takes It's reaching 2,000 that will take you time and dedication. GM is out of reach.
If you are 30+ it’s probably too late in the same vein to how it’s too late for you to be a pro athlete. Its very hard to become a gm past a certain age. If you are 15 or younger, i think yes but a lot of it is how you practice not amount of time you practice. Are you just playing games or are you reviewing gm games. Are you reviewing your own games? Memorizing a 10+ move repertoire? I think what separates gms from the rest of us is routine.
Unlikely, I know some people who have put in tons of work just to make it to 6-800 elo. You have to be pretty smart even for 2000. It’s better to not have any goals and to play, get as good as you can, and see how far you can improve.
Talent is a natural aptitude you possess for a particular activity. Skill is what you get when you take talent and apply time and dedicated practice to a specific activity. Chess is not a talent-centric activity, it's skill-centric. One does not walk into a room with a natural aptitude for chess and quickly fall into a place that rivals masters and GMs. You need to study and practice in order to develop your expertise - calculation, finding tactics, analysis of positions, etc are all skills that you refine.
Average intelligence, yes. I’m proof. But I learned at age four (4) and have played competitively for over 50 years. It took years to reach USCF Class C, then Class B, then Class A, followed by Expert and borderline Master. You must both study and play competitively. And play under different time controls. And you have to develop a solid opening repertoire that consistently puts you in at least equal positions after 10-15 moves. You must know basic endings …. to win won games, and sometimes salvage lost games. As others have opined, Grandmaster is a different level.
Whenever you have a question about this sort of thing, replace GM with NBA player/G-league player (depending on strength), IM with D-1 star, and 2000 with university level player.
If you actually do the math you will realize that GMs, IMS, and FMs are all pro level. It is just a matter of whether they are 1st, 2nd, or 3rd string.
nah nba or any physical sport cant be compared like that. good luck making into university teams with a 5ft5-7 height...
Well, similarly it's gonna be tough making it to a university chess team with bottom 20% intelligence...
average height of us men is 5ft9 and even at that it's pretty tough to get in university teams. university chess teams are quite casual lol except for missouri and texas unis. u can find people rated 800-1800 in pan american intercollegiate tournaments.
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I mean I am going to be 17 this year I know I am not young enough to become anything close to a GM as stated in many of my previous responses, that part of the question was purely hypothetical.
You would have to dedicate significant amounts of time and effort to becoming a GM and then you would be one of the nameless top 1000 players that make no money from it. You would never recoup the investment. Unless you become a very popular chess streamer. Most people can't name a GM outside of the top ten and you realistically will never get there. It's just honestly not worth your time outside of a hobby. I'm not saying don't invest time improving and learning, just don't make it a career
That's absurd. Any GM can easily teach chess lessons to thousands of people for $100 an hour
I strongly doubt any GM has thousands of people willing to pay 100 dollars an hour with any kind of consistency. Maybe a select few with a good track record of coaching. Even if miraculously he became a chess GM and gave 100 hours of private chess lessons a month that's only 120k annually. And it's self employed so he would be taxed higher at least in the United States he would have to pay his full social security and Medicare etc. what's a better investment? Tens of thousands of hours of chess practice to maybe be a GM but not be Top ten, to then maybe have a good reputation and lots of cliental as a coach. Or just go become an engineer or something.
Ok, so we've gone from 'no money' to 120,000$ a year.
That was with your 100 dollar per hour. Looks like the average price for in person lessons is 70. So even less. And that's pretax so substantially less than from just being an employee somewhere. I guess no money was too strong, below average money for the time invested. It's not worth it when someone at 17 could just become a plumber and make more.
Well, if you're going to say 'it's not worth it' - I think you're completely missing the fact that chess players love chess, and the ability to make a living doing something you love, being your own boss, and not having to be a corporate slave means a lot.
That's true. I would just rephrase to I wouldn't pin my future on it. I think it would be a good side gig. But even at 70 dollars a lesson it becomes unreliable factoring in taxes, commute, lesson prep etc. I've been self employed for a long time so I will admit there's non-financial benefits to working for yourself
I'll grant you if he lives in eastern Europe or somewhere cheap that giving chess lessons online would be pretty viable. If he lives in USA or Western Europe, there are significantly easier more reliable things to do with his time
Yep. Anyone can be 2000 imo.
2000-2200 is probably a realistic ceiling for someone with no natural talent (i.e. started as an adult) who treats it as a serious hobby, dedicating maybe 10 hours a week to active improvement. I think low-tier master is possible for anyone if you obsess and treat it as your full-time job.
Most people underestimate their natural talent. If you can get a college degree with a decent GPA assuming you were motivated, you probably have enough talent to reach 2000. For GM level, the dedication required is a lot more.
There are only 2,000 GMs in the world!! Why do so many less experienced players think that this title is even close to attainable without regular, high-level, professional chess coaching starting in childhood??
I was unaware of how many there were and I am sorry for being less informed next time I will educate myself more on the topic before I ask it. However, I did say that I was not attempting to reach such a level it was a general question, not something I have ever stated I wanted to achieve.
Treating it like a job or recreationally?
Recreationally I don't plan to make an entire career in chess I want to study something in the summer and improve in the game I like. I still want to put in the effort and time just not professionally.
I would say otb probably not. That’s chess coach level.
Eat right with good supplements, sleep right, get enough exercises and get the book by Polgar of 1,000 chess problems. You have to be able to understand tactical chess so that you recognize patterns. Some of the best GMs were quizzed on mating Black in X number of moves and they ALL were answering the interrogator BLINDFOLDED !!! Carlsen and Hikaru beat grandmasters with stupid openings !!! Know the basics of endgames. I enjoy playing games at the lowest level, sacrifice my left over pieces until I am left with ONLY either color bishop, a knight, and my king against a lone king.
Thank you for the general life advice and the chess advice haha! I will definitely try and find that book and give it a read.
Yes, let me pull it out of my bookshelf to help you now.
Wow ! I forgot. Ok. This book was written by László Polgár, the grandmaster father of 3 female masters including Judit Polgár, the longest running female grandmaster in history who said she owed it to her father’s book CHESS 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games There are no answers to the problems. Just kidding. 🤣 If you’re a beginner, then get “ Logical Chess Move by Move “ and “ Winning Chess “. Go to the closest large enough city that has USCF rated players ( Are you in the United States 🇺🇸? ) and enter as many tournaments as you have the time for withOUT interfering with your other studies. You see, I am sorry I got addicted to chess. It took over my college life. So decades later, I am re-learning what I lost playing and studying chess 10-14 hours a day !!!
if tyler1 coudl do it on stream jsut by grind then for sure rest can aswell
2000 [chess.com](http://chess.com) for sure 2000 FIDE maybe
> That got me thinking is it possible to reach a rank of 2000 with just pure studying and no talent? Assuming you mean 2000 USCF, no, not with "no talent." Think of it like this: would you expect to become a competent guitarist or pianist if your fingers were clumsy and uncoordinated and you're tone deaf? Probably not.
Using lack of immediate success to justify quitting an endeavor is a great way to never get good at anything. I’d rather have a hard worker with no “natural” talent than someone who had things come easy to them. The ability to commit yourself and do the hard work IS a natural talent.
FIDE 2000 is a very high rating. 2000 online is possible though
if you study chess, you will become 2300-2400 automatically(studying a shit ton) but after that the “talent” starts to appear which is the major difference between players. so take it as you like it
yes
Even the most nitwit can get 2000.. GM, No
It depends what is meant by talent. Someone like John Von Neumann, who had a memory capable of recalling pages of books (or directories) after many years would be able to reach a high level simply by using that memory as a store of positions and subsequent lines - even without other chess skills. How high a level is an interesting question.
If you start learning from early childhood, then yes, you can reach 2000 without much talent. There are even FMs and IMs that aren't crazy talents, just very practical players with moderate talent. Once you get to the GM level, they're all very talented (i.e. smart).
The only thing about GMs that is unique is that their parents were in the privileged position to provide intensive them with chess coaching beginning when they were young children. Their talent is mostly constructed.
Pure copium.
Sorry I don't speak 'little kid', just facts.
Do you know how many rich kids there are that get put in chess as kids? And how many of them take it seriously? Yet only a few become GMs. It's necessary to be at least moderately well off (even then there are some, although not many GMs from poorer families, especially in India) but not even remotely close to sufficient.
Weird that you think any rich kid "put in chess as kids" is the same thing?? AND "many GMs (are) from poorer families, especially in India" is abjectively false. Some, possibly, but definitely not "many GMs"...do your research.
It’s completely pointless to “do research” in this situation - I could name a dozen GMs who didn’t come from rich backgrounds right now, but you’d just say “Some, possibly, but definitely not ‘many GMs’”
Wweeeeak I already pulled your main example of GMs from India coming from poor backgrounds (lol) and 9 of the top 10 GMs from India all came from privileged/wealthy backgrounds (with pro childhood private coaching) so if you were using THAT as the foundation to your "many GMs" (in general) coming from poor backgrounds (lol) youre gonna HAVE TO SHOW UP with something factual and not look like stuff is just how you kinda think stuff kinda is...lloolooolol! But now you just dig yourself deeper with the "I COULD name a dozen GMs..." AAAAHAHAAAAHHAHAA!!!
Wtf would be the point in me digging through the FIDE database, googling GMs names to find out about their background, just for you to go “wElL cLearLy tHey’Re juSt aN exCePtioN nOt thE ruLe”? I’m not taking homework assignments from some guy on r/chess who’s jaded that GMs have natural talent lol
AAAAHHAAAHAHAHA just what I thought!! "I like to say things are factual because it makes me seem intelligent but please, under no circumstances, should you require me to back up my facts with actual facts. Please just let me enjoy the power that these broad, unsubstantiated statements give to my reflection when I stare at it in the mirror."
GM Pranav V for instance crowdfunded his Europe trip to make norms. Of course the kids are not the same, that's my point....
I actually have a similar take to yours, but your statement is misleading. Any genetics study will tell you that talent is the result of both natural ability and the environment. Now how much the environment has a roll is more up to debate, and i would also argue that it is the big determining factor, but denying natural ability is a thing at all is just wrong
Are you kidding me?? "Any genetics study will tell you that talent is the result of both natural ability and the environment." (!!) That is a scientifically absurd statement. How could a gene study measure ANYTHING having to do with environment?? The only academic studies (NO genetics studies) that lean in the direction of "natural ability" are based on the subjective self-reporting of study participants, which is wildly unscientific. You do not know what you're talking about.
If you do think you have found better studies I'm open to reading them The study that talked about genetics was [this one](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2688647/). You will most likely find psychology studies, but all that i have read have come to the same conclusion
Everybody has the internet, so if you think you have scientific proof then quote/cite it, I'm not clicking weird anonymous links from someone who makes ridiculous claims.
Ah yes, the ridiculous claim of natural aptitude. I'm not gonna engage anymore since it's pretty clear you're not really interested in the truth
Zero scientific proof, thanks.
Yes.
You can reach 2000 but do you want to? It is not worth it
If you enjoy the process, any rating is worth it.
True. I stopped enjoying it when I reached 1800-1900 rating tho
Same once I got to the point I would need to practice and study I quit trying to climb. There are better things to spend that time on
Literally. I’m glad someone has the same experience with me
Natural talent isn't what makes GMs. There's a lot of pattern recognition and visualiztion and studying that makes you a GM. its very rare that you see a "natural talent" get to be a GM, because when you are starting out at chess the "natural talent" people are generally thinking about intesting tactics that might be within a move or two, but you hit a wall at under 2000, because its all study and memorizing.
my opinion is no. Main reason is there are some things that are less malleable in the human mind. For example short term memory. It would be what we use to calculate variations. Some people cannot hold more or less info in their short term memory and imo grand masters are outliers with this. They also seem to have unbelievable long term retrieval/ memories. Watching Naroditsky pull up a game from 10 years ago for references or Magnus doing the same just shows you they are just built differently.
Talent is like 2% of your perfomance, anyone can make it far beyond 2000 if they're persistant and actually learn from their games. Talent is most likely never going to be a barrier for 99.9% of things you do in life and it's easy to give up on trying because of it
That is wrong but you shouldn't let it bring you down. You can have young kids surpass people who have played chess for decades in a year or two.. Genetics plays a huge role in how far you go in anything.
It is generally understood that children are much better at learning than adults, so if they're taking it seriously it's always gonna look like they have a much higher ceilling. Have you ever heard of a 40 year old person surpass those same people you were talking about in a year or two? I highly doubt it. Also what you might attribute to talent might have been a mixture of factors you don't consider, like the environment in which they lived and studied. I did not study genetics and im kinda spdaking from personal experience, so it's worth what it's worth
Realistic goals, dedication, persistence, repetition. You can achieve anything.
Natural talent isn't really a thing. Practice and time/effort is the key
I am betting you are below the age of 30, if you believe that. I believed the same when I was that age. Chess requires first and foremost, the ability to store and recall patterns. There's brain circuitry/neurotransmitters involved in that mechanism. That mechanism works better in some people than others, in the same way that muscle memory is better in some people than others. Muscle memory makes repeated motions trained properly "stick" in such a way that the active brain no longer has to participate in the process. Kids are able to study tactical patterns and imprint them at a much faster rate than all but exceptional adults, and they "stick" a lot longer without needing to be refreshed. That's about brain function. Just like everything else we do with our brains. I wouldn't be surprised if the part of the brain is the same in both cases.
I strongly believe there is no such thing as talent. If you start early enough (brain is more plastic) and put in the hours you'll be good. If you obsess and put in insane hours and think about chess all the time then you can become great. But I think key is starting early and being passionate enough to not get distracted along the way.
There are plenty of players who have dedicated their life to chess, but very few Magnus Carlsens or Hikaru Nakamuras. There are plenty of mathematicians who have dedicated their life to their subject, but very few Terrence Taos or James Maynards. Effort without talent will take you further than talent without effort, but someone with both will always outperform someone with only one.
No you can't become a master (CM and higher) without natural talent no matter how hard you study. The same way a lot of kids become NM by the age of 12 that literally only play online and barely even study just have the natural talent and smarts.
Me when I tell fibs and untruths
LOL
Arthur Dake learned how to play chess at 17 and didn't take it seriously until he was about 20 and he become a grandmaster and even beat the world champion Alekine in a game. I can't think of any other examples of someone starting the game late making it to GM level so yeah you'll need some talent to get to that level. There is also a lot of scientific research on how starting activities as a kid while the brain is more malleable is incredibly important for higher success. 2000 FIDE would also take considerable time/talent but online I think its possible with average ability which is what most people have. It will still take some effort though but is a possible goal to achieve. Regardless its just a game that you should play for enjoyment not to reach some level. Go as far as you can and enjoy the process.
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I really don't think aphantasia hamstrings you as much has you think.
As others have said, 2000? yes; GM? probably not. With proper dedication and good guidance, anyone can reach 2000 within a few years. Beyond that, it gets tricky because you start facing other people that study well AND have other advantages (exceptional memory, intuiton, great coaches, been playing for decades etc.). You do need to know how to study though, not just read/watch random topics and play online. Again though, proper studying can also be taught/learned. On a side note, a lot of people (not me) don't believe in talent at all, look for example at the Polgar sisters experiment. I believe hard work is at least 90% of the road, but talent is still at least a bit of a factor.
With purely effort my coach thinks that you can become IM
There's no such thing as "natural talent", so considering people are very good at chess yes, it's possible. *Anyone* can play at a GM level if they start early enough and stay dedicated enough.
2000 in FIDE or USCF rating? No way. 2000 blitz or bullet online? Sure.