How much studying before I'm not a GM?

Greetings chess.com-ers,

We all know from past experience on these forums that there are a high number of near-infallible plans for becoming a Grandmaster.  Most of these stress two things; ambition, and dedication, which leads me to the realisation that a significant cross-section of our population is not being served: those lacking any ambition, and those averse to even the most minor of toil.

It's on behalf of these folk, and surely I count myself among their charges, that I now make this plea for advice and guidance: how exactly should one go about continually playing horrible chess, and show no aptitude for improvement?  What should I do to retain my inability to assess any vaguely complicated position?

Do you think any of the following would be good activities to engage in over the next year, to give me more of a chance to not be a GM? :-

- try to cook one edible tofu dish

- go to Japan to study karate, find myself

- form a throwback synth-electro quintet

- find out if I really do have the legs for mini-skirts

- citizens-arrest Wolf Blitzer for crimes against the flow of speech

I await to your response anybody.

I'm afraid it's inevitable. You can try playing suicide chess in real games, you can try not playing at all, but you'll find that you continually gain ELO points. In horror after the first two norms and finding yourself drawn to the site of a major tournament through a freakish confluence of events, you will find yourself one win short of the final norm. Desperate to break the cycle, you will try to end your own life.

Your opponent, in shock that you've pulled out a gun at a chess tournament, will reach up quickly to pull it away from you, but in the process he will knock over his king, with the TD will interpret as a resignation. Your title will be awarded posthumously.

Well, I suppose I'd better move into an apartment that smells like cat urine now, then.

I'm in a dispute with my ex-landlord right now because my cat kept peeing on the carpet :(

He wants me to pay the entire cost of recarpeting and re-linoleuming the entire apartment. I'm willing to pay for the carpet but not the linoleum, and only the proration of how many useful years the carpet would be expected to have in it based on installation date.

So my question to you, chess.com, is whether or not re-linoleuming is a valid word?

Nonsense, but it was a funny read. 

Playing chess will unfortunately boost one's ELO, but by not playing chess, if you don't use it, you lose it. 

If you want to know whether a particular noun can be used as a verb, I suggest you google the word?  Or you could wiktionary it?  Or hoof it to library, and question the librarian?  In general though, nouns can never be used as verbs.

Just stay away from any endgame book and you'll be fine

Yeah, mo' money for me, for real!  Y'all hate now, but wen I iz da karate-master supermodel of '11, and showered with gifts and cavorting nakeds for finally ending Wolf Blitzer's reign of terror, an am playin all da crescent joints wid ma main homies, den everyone up in here will b askin me to sign their t***ies word

Agreed -- under no circumstances is it acceptable to verbicize a noun like that.

Interesting, but if I do decide to read an endgame book, is there any particular one I should choose to thwart any progress?

George Dubya has a lot to answer for.

I smell a rat here, "verbicize a noun" ?

What about the nounization of verbs ?

I don't know about books that might slow your progress, but anything by Muller/Lamprecht or Dvoretsky should be avoided like the plague.  Their writing has been known to dash the hopes of many who have been doing their utmost to keep their ratings down.  Averbakh and Shereshevsky are other endgame authors whose works should be regarded with serious suspicion, and are best left untouched.

On the bright side though, even if you do - god forbid - happen to acquire some endgame technique, you may be able to prevent having it come into play if you studiously avoid learning any tactics or opening theory, and carefully refrain from analyzing your own games.  As long as you are getting mated early in the game, you may be able to keep your endgame knowledge from interfering in your quest.

I'm pretty sure this post has not only disqualified you from ever becoming a GM, but also, Wolf Blitzer may start stalking you

And btw, I'm sure Anand and Hou are quite good at making wonderful tofu dishes! A presumption for sure, but I bet accurate

if i may get back on topic, i think the best way to avoid becoming a GM is sto:

1.  study 9500 hours

2.  memorize 49,000 positions

3.  live in australia or alaska where it is hard to meet the foreign requirement

4.  start playing after age 20

with that you can still be very very good, but just not be able to crack that last little hurdle to become a GM. 

Play a lot of bullet on the Internet. "A hundred bullet games a day keeps title away."

Refuse to play anybody that's more than half your rating.

Hou, sure (and in fact, thanks to my Wei Chuang cookbook, and the ugly old bag who first invented Ma-Pa Tofu, I've already cracked that one (the secret, as with most vegetarian-oriented dishes, is to make sure it includes meat)), but is Indian cuisine replete with tofu dishes?

If you are not yet a master, and you have children, chances are you will never be a grandmaster.

If you are not yet a master, and you are married, chances are you will never be a grandmaster.

If you are not yet a master, and you have a full-time, non-chess-related job, chances are you will never be a grandmaster.

If you are not yet a master, and you are over 21, chances are you will never be a grandmaster.

Exceptions only prove the rule.

Come to think of it, considering the relatively small number of grandmasters among the world's over 6 billion people, if you are not yet a master, chances are you will never be a grandmaster, no matter what.

You're giving me this wishy-washy "chances are" talk, Morro, but dammit I want a plan of action!  How, how do I not be a grandmaster?!