What does it take to get to a 2000-2200 rated player? Really.

Most players will never attain a title, regardless of application or coaching.

In the same way that most people will never run 100m under 11 seconds, or jump higher than 1.8m.

Masters are at the top of the tree for a reason.

We each have to play the hand we've been dealt.

Soundbites like "Anybody can become a master with hard work" belie the differences between individuals.

"Masters are at the top of the tree for a reason.

We each have to play the hand we've been dealt."

This strikes me as ridiculous - I am not a chess master (obviously), but I genuinely have mastered other difficult skills, and I can tell you that nobody is born juggling - lots of people ask me for a quick lesson, expect to be able to juggle flawlessly without any practice, drop everything after the first couple of tosses, get embarassed, say "I have no natural talent for juggling", and never try it again.........but every once in a while, I'll get someone who picks the stuff up off the ground, tosses it again, drops it again, and tries again - this is what I did, it's the secret to juggling.

The same is true of sleight of hand - I was clumsy and awful when I started....everything fell out of my hands, I pulled the wrong card the first time I tried a trick on the street, and I would find myself poring through advanced magic books looking for some 'secret' that would make me stop having those problems, but there isn't one. The secret was that I had to keep dropping things and pulling the wrong card until my hands taught themselves to hold things and find the right one. After years of working at it for 6-10 hours every single day, I can execute maneauvers that are considered legendary for magicians and gamblers - things that only a handful people on the planet are capable of....and it had *NOTHING* to do with some 'magician' gene; I just put in my 10,000 hours one hour at a time. 

People who run around talking about 'talent' all the time are - in my experience - the ones who try something once and quit because it's too hard.....they want a shortcut, so they call it 'talent'. Matthew Buchinger was an 18th century magician whose fingers were fused together like seal flippers - NO natural talent there - and he is one of the best magicians in history!

Buchinger was also an artist and caligrapher - he drew the above picture himself with those effing flippers!

Talent in chess is related to the ability to learn new (chess) stuff fast (or faster than average if you prefer).

And not everybody is = here.

Still hard work will bring you far, of course.

But with this reasoning comes troubling questions. If there is a limit to the achievements of "most people", what is it? Is it a 4:30 mile? Isn't it? Is this limit impossible to quantify? In the times of Bannister, most people could not dream of a sub-4 mile, to be precise, only two people could. Now, a comparison is 3:45. If there is a limit to how good "most people" can get, then why is it going lower?

I don't think an extraordinary ability is required to reach 2200, but I think it's important to have the drive to analyze critical positions deeply. The time I spent building a solid opening repertoire helped me to break 2000 and reach 2140 within a year and a half. I think I developed greater objectivity and better positional understanding in the process. I think the importance of opening study increases around the point you reach 2000, but I also think having the right attitudes in analysis is even more important.

I think a lot of this "either you got it or you don't" talk is rather pointless. I started tournament chess when I was 10, but my playing opportunities were limited and I only reached Class A in high school. It wasn't until I was 30 that I made serious strides towards the master level. I think a major factor in my success was having the freedom to set personal training goals and prepare for tournaments on my own terms without interference. I won two large classes prizes in the process, but it was a large investment of time. Having a teaching job at a university helped, because I had the summer free to work on chess.

Just because you aren't naturally gifted, that dosen't mean anything. Anatoly Karpov was told by his teacher, Botvinnik, that he had no chess future. Early in his career, Many Chess notables said he copied ideas from others, but couldnt come up with his own.

Look at him now. He was a World Champion, and a legend like Capablanca, Tal, Fischer, and Kasparov. Karpov's play shocked some of the strongest GM's. Spassky and Krammnik said their was something mysterious about Karpov's play. Most didn't understand why they lost to him.

Take a look back. If Botvinnik said that Karpov had no "Natural Talent" then he probably didn't.

BUT HIS HARD WORK AND DEDICATION REIGNED SUPREME OVER THOSE WITH TALENT!

Only 1-2 percent of active players in the U.S. ever reach USCF 2200.

For many of those guys -- it took a lifetime.

End of story.

Realize that you talking about "talent" in comparison to a small group of people that are already very highly talented when compared to the rest of the chess population as a whole. Capacity for hard, productive work is also a talent and many people don't have this.

I have a different interpretation : Botvinnik, who was a very hard worker himself, just wasn't able to identify the kind of talent Karpov had, which was probably different from his own.

Karpov has always been described as a 'natural talent', and fairly lazy worker... (he had reams of USSR GMs working for him)

I hope you realize that the number of USCF players is just a very very very very very very little part of the whole chess community. Just a comparison. According to the usfc rating list the 100th strongest chess player has 2435 rating. The 100th strongest chess player in the FIDE list has 2653 rating. And USFC ratings are a bit weaker than fide ratings.

I checked it on the FIDE list. The first player who has a rating of 2200 is the 10183rd player on the list. So it is not possible and definitely not a lifetime. 

AlisonHart, very positive!! I really like what you post, even without talent but with hard work you can achieve your aim in life.

As a professional artist, I can say that I am capable of teaching nearly anyone how to draw, paint or sculpt. In fact, I can put you on the path to master the medium of your choice. But does that mean that I can make you into the next Monet? Degas? Michelangelo? Certainly not. With hard work, you can master the piano, but you will not become a Mozart by the same hard work. I believe you can master the game of chess. But, you will not make youself into a Bobby Fischer or a Paul Morphy; that ability (talent) you must be born with.

And now I shall endeavor to reach the level at which I can offer a good game to a 1900 (USCF) player.

Some people might need more work than others, but you will have to work. There is no way around it. The patterns are just too esoteric to use your "general knowledge" to grasp with only a few hours of study or something. Talent may make the work easier for you, but you will have to work. I am not going to doubt that view simply because some people like to tell tales about how "easy" it was for them to be good at chess ;)

So remember I'm saying lots of work is a necessary condition; I'm not saying it's sufficient. Necessity and sufficiency are, in logic, two very different things.

An excellent comment. And I agree totally. I think this is the attitude a player should have to make sure they enjoy the game and don't turn improving into a chore. And ironically enough, this kind of attitude often leads to good improvement anyway.

Not a bad analogy either :)

I feel like there's a silly amount of emphasis on becoming top 20 level on this thread, and that's not a reasonable thing to aim at because - by definition - there are only 20 slots in the top 20 for thousands of high quality candidates. Any of these candidates could have been 'top' in a different pool.

Just be one of the candidates - the rest is beyond your control. 

i think it was my cuteness that got me to 2000. i'm a noob.  

i played through a bunch of Tal games and game collections and studied tactics.  and then i fought my way through winning positions and losing positions and studied for where i went very right and very wrong in the ideas i was thinking during the game using my brainz and opponent's brainz and computer brainz in the post mortem analysis.  i like to make stuff up otb and i would like to think my creative acumen helps too when i get positions that make me more  than my opponent.

To the person who thought it was silly for the OP to try to get better (and ask why he couldn't just have fun and play the game)...

There is joy to be had in trying to get better. Not even four years ago I started playing pool in the student rec room at my university.  We played in pairs and I was initially horrible.  No one picked me to be paired with them.  I got books, watched videos, and played a lot.  I was motivated by never getting picked to play.  Fast-forward to now and none of those same people would even want to shoot on the same table as me.  When I shoot, peoples eyes tend to be glued to my table.  I almost always make the object ball and have the cue ball roll to where I want for my next shot. It really feels good to see hard work pay off (and I still have lots of room for improvement), but I have had a ton of fun in trying to reach my potential.  I see no reason why the OP can't have fun in studying and seeing the improvements he will make on a regular basis.

Indeed. And if you don't believe it, open up similar posts from 5 years ago.

Chess.com has been going a while.

but how many balls can you juggle?  maybe 5, in which case you have put in many many hours (probably thousands if you can do it well)  of hard work.  but can you do 7?  i am guessing not. Will you ever do 7?  who knows but probably not. chess is like that.

juggling 5 balls is the equivalent of a rating of 1,875

juggling 7 is master level.

benching 250 pounds is about 975

being grade 2 on the violin is about 980

qualifying as a PE teacher is 50

milking a cow competently is 1100 

shall i go on?