How to become an expert in Chess?

I agree with this entirely. I spent probably 30-40 hours a week on chess from 12-17 whether it be at the library, club, online (msn zone, yahoo, pogo, world chess network etc.) mostly playing blitz games but also sometimes analyzing, reading a book here or there and reading articles. I think my very first book was The Vienna Game and I remember memorizing all the Frankenstein-Dracula lines of it and a ton of other dubious lines. yeah 7 hour a week or 1 hour a day is useless. Even now with a full-time job and teaching chess during the evenings I still spend 20+ hours a week keeping up my skill level

but you an im now. Now please tell me one thing, did dubios lines improve your strength?? were playing games without training before tactics and knowing about plans and techniques and stuff really improving your game?

wouldnt you haved saved time doing it much more professional, i mean playing hours long games, i dont see how can that improve you without the right knowledge before.

Also i would think it takes much longer to reach IM from expert strength than it takes to reach expert from beginner.

but you an im now. Now please tell me one thing, did dubios lines improve your strength?? were playing games without training before tactics and knowing about plans and techniques and stuff really improving your game?

wouldnt you haved saved time doing it much more professional, i mean playing hours long games, i dont see how can that improve you without the right knowledge before.

Also i would think it takes much longer to reach IM from expert strength than it takes to reach expert from beginner.

Sure I could have trained "professionally" but that would suck the fun and enjoyment out of it and even if I'm still an IM now I wouldn't spend this much time on something that I don't enjoy. I learned tactics through setting up combinations and I learned how to win winning positions. Dubious lines taught me what's good and what's bad and I just destroyed all the casual/club players who relied on dubious lines since I usually had an answer for it.

It took me longer to make IM than to make master but I got into it fairly young and there was no one around to push me other than myself. There's no one way to study chess and you can't set a strict plan for yourself cause at the end of the day, chesss is just a hobby, a really fun and time-consuming one but it doesn't pay the bills. The reason most kids don't last past college once their teenager chess-playing years are done is because their parents often make chess boring and forced. No one wants to be told what to study or what not to study and making hobbies like chess into a strict, rigid plan to follow might work out short-term but it will most definitely fail long-term

lol