@JuicyChickenNO1 said in #23:
> I imagine that it's a bit cheaper if you live in Europe, but otherwise I'm eyeballing that you're gonna need to fork about 360k USD during the next 15 years in traveling to tournaments.
360k USD in 15 years seems awefully low. If you aren't at the top, you will not only be paying for your flights, you will also fork out money for hotels. And you won't be able to afford staying in a cheap hostel if you want to be able to win tournaments. And once you start nearing the top, you will pay for travel and lodging of your trainers and seconds.
Putting aside "norms" for the moment, becoming a grandmaster is a simple two-step process:
Step 1: get your rating to 2499
Step 2: just get one more point!
I got only two good replies in this conversation. Thank you. I am satisfied. All of the other comments except for a notable few are appreciated. Anything meant to be funny was not helpful, but funny anyway. Have a good day. I now understand that I am clearly going to have to put in major efforts understanding the game and building up an opening repertoire as far as I have found.
@SilentGhost3625 said in #7:
>90% of chess players never improve, but that's probably because they don't try. If you try, you're probably going to become one.
Good grief. Stop being a spokesperson for Relentless Positivity and join the real world with the rest of us (well, most of us). Unless your age is still measured in single digits, there's really no excuse for that sort of thing.
Check the Lichess rating of any who give advice. Sure, including me. Trust, but verify.
If I knew how to be a "grandmaster" I would gladly tell you. But despite a good head of hair and washboard abs, I have been unable to figure out how to make "expert," let alone "master" or (bows low) "international master."
And my only contact with real, live grandmasters was to irritate one trying to take pictures for a chess club, years ago. I apologize, by the way. I was young, and cameras back then were noisy. Even decent ones.
I did figure out how I, at least, could improve somewhat -- because I improved somewhat. My advice is not worth all that much -- but it might help somebody worse than myself, and I'm told such people actually exist!
What did I do? Pretty standard stuff:
1) studied tactics a lot. Not enough. But a lot. Starting long ago with the book written by Mr. Polgar. Which actually was a pretty good buy, at least at the time.
2) learned the simple things about pawn endgames -- like distant opposition, triangulation, and so forth. Several different endgame books, that we all know, can help with that.
3) Acquired an astonishing number of chess books over the years, which I have almost without exception nibbled at but never completed. Now they sit, in all their majesty. Mostly unread. But still nibbled at, often, as the fancy strikes. When I nibble, I often do so by playing "guess the move" using games in the books, as suggested by Purdy, long ago (and as since suggested by others, as well).
Pick the winning side and pretend to be him or her -- play about 10 moves into the opening -- then start trying to guess "your player's" move and then compare your guess to his or her choice. (Cover up the move with a piece of paper or something, until you're ready to look at it). Play out the whole game that way, move by move, and keep track of how well you did. Try to figure out what you did wrong, if anything, and read what commentary and annotation (if any) the book provides for the move you're considering. Repeat the game later, and see if you can do better.
Chessbase makes this practice much easier, at least for me, since you don't have to set up a physical board or use paper to cover up part of a page. It also helps to track the game with an on-board engine, to see if "your move" was okay -- or not okay -- and why, since sometimes departing from the "master's" move is just fine.
Finally -- after many years -- I actually more or less completed ONE opening book for white, and much of one opening book for black (although I only use it against about half the white moves with which I am assaulted.) I didn't read either book exhaustively. But I did go over them cover to cover, spending many days -- enough to get their basic ideas. Which I now put into practice, to the extent I can, almost relentlessly, and it actually helped.
Am I afraid somebody will "prepare" for my limited openings? Of course not. Who would put in that kind of effort just to beat ME? The better players I've actually played with in real life all tended to stick with a LIMITED number of openings but learn those very well. They did not flit from flower to flower. Could one prepare against them, because of that? One could. But few actually ever seemed to do that. Remember, though, I'm not talking about real professionals or even extremely serious amateurs, who may have a much, much wider repertoire, since some might WELL find it worthwhile to prepare against THEM, especially for real income and invitations.
By the way, "Relentless Positivity" sounds like a great name for a spunky band!
Eat from the tree of knowledge and become a GM then it’s to late to realize it was all bull plop from the gods and you were a good player when you were here even at 1600 . They all cheating, the chess gods............ anyone can beat anyone that’s the beauty of a level playing field as chess is , small victories are the best xxx search for the truth in chess as in life, there’s nothing special about cheaters, liars and back stabbing snakes xxx
You either know or you don’t .....edit ha ha ha
If you want to be a GM your best shot is to not only get stronger to at least mid 2000s FIDE level, but keep that level until you're 75+ and win the open world senior championship. Also pray the likes of Magnus are either sick of chess and won't play or have gone senile earlier than you.
When Pigs fly you might become a GM
@Sarg0n said in #10:
> If you are an adult: never
>
> Those days have gone. Lol I started playing a few years ago casually and I’ve gone from 1100-2000+ on
chess.com. I haven’t even remotely token the game serious. I’m turning 30 in March. It’s very possible to become a grandmaster starting as an adult
