how far can you get without coaching/theory/studying/etc

i've been playing chess casually since the pandemic, and try to play at least a few games a week. it's a fun hobby for me.

i don't think i'm interested in memorizing lines, learning theory (beyond basic stuff), studying games, taking lessons, playing games longer than 10 minutes, or devoting more than maybe an hour a week to this. i am, however, interested in developing an appreciation for the bigger principles and concepts that make the game fun and interesting.

at my level (1400) i'm still blundering major pieces constantly, as are most of the people i play. i assume those errors disappear as one approaches 1600s, but after that i'm guessing i won't be able to get much further without actually learning some stuff? 

how far can you get without taking the game seriously? 

My guess is, it varies wildly from person to person.

Some people could be just naturally very gifted. Paul Morphy, for example was.

And also what is considered taking chess seriously will vary wildly. Some consider taking it serious if you play every week and even care at all about improving. Others will not consider it serious unless you spend all your available time on chess…

So my guess is, it is impossible to say.

i think it's easy enough to answer the question. while some people are naturally gifted at chess, i think once-in-a-lifetime prodigies like paul morphy are few and far between. i'd hazard a guess that the overwhelming majority of people on this forum are unable to crack GM status after some casual practice.

likewise, i think it's fair to assume that people taking the time to join and post on a chess.com forum probably have a reasonably similar definition of what 'serious chess playing'. it probably isn't a once-a-week game w/ no intention of improving.

maybe a better way to frame the question is: advanced players, how far were you able to get before you had to start studying in earnest or take lessons from a coach?

I simply do not agree with this.

And I also started studying pretty much instantly when I started playing, so I would have no idea where I would be without studying, but I bet I would not be doing as well as I am.

I still would not say I take chess seriously, even though I spend a couple hours a day on chess. Some people might think that is taking chess seriously, though, and I understand that, but if I really took chess seriously, I would spend even more time on it. So there you go.

While GM level prodigies are very rare, all the other people fall on a wide range of how gifted they are. And that would be what determines how far they get, unless they put in some effort. And putting in some effort could be considered taking it seriously by some people so go figure.

I really can't imagine how are you planning to do this without lessons, studying games and such things.

I got stuck in mid 700s and needed to start studying to rise up the ranks. Since studying I have a 68% win rate as of today. I still play terrible games sometimes though.

I am currently rated 2016 rapid, 1819 blitz on this website and I didn't study chess, I didn't get a coach, I just played chess for fun and I watched various titled players on youtube for fun. When I started playing I watched mainly Ben Finegold's lectures, but after that I watched Naroditsky's speedrun videos. It took me about two years to reach 1800 blitz, 1900 rapid, 2 years after that I am still around 1800 blitz but I managed to reach 2000 rapid.

I have seen people on this website that have reached 2200 both in blitz and in rapid in 2 years just by playing chess for fun. At least according to them they just played for fun and they got better and better.

It varies from person to person. People make one move blunders all the way up to 2000 level and beyond, we just make them a lot less frequently. We still make 2-3 move blunders (blunders which are punishable in a 2-3 move combination) more often than I would like and probably more often than you imagine. As you get higher and higher rating dumb blunders just get less frequent but they never completely disappear. For instance, even Kramnik blundered mate in 1 from a winning position against a chess engine while he was a world chess champion and while he had a lot of time on the clock.

i'm talking about things like trade pieces when your up points. bigger principles like this do not require lessons, studying games, and such things.

Have you really come up with principles, like control the centre, develop fast, castle for king safety etc. by yourself?

If so, congrats, but I have to say I seriously doubt it. If you learnt these from a video, from some more experienced player or an online lesson or whatever, then sorry, you have already studied and/or been coached.

Even in your profile, I can see you have done some puzzles at least. Guess what, that is studying as well.

I would consider watching those videos on youtube studying. I mean the Finegold ones are even called lectures. Doesn’t get much more studyingish than that when it comes to videos.

Studying can also be fun.

the internet is my coach i'd say my elo growth is an average, i don't blunder often in op/mid
only when on the endgame and even that is rarely noticeable, i learn very little theory and very much learn on adapting through mistakes with my own (i'm my own teacher),
i still remember when i did all of the steps that a book with high language that i just can hardly understand and applying it to my game it was very frustrating though trying to do all these steps PDF and videos do but still lose (i want to have coach to explain it for me but everything's very limited) so in conclusion as far as coaching i had none real physical eye-to-eye coach, i did little study on theory, i mostly play when there's a lot of time not on tight schedule or on work and now i'm 1450 elo
sorry for the bad grammar

that's encouraging! it means there might be some room left for me to grow before i plateau indefinitely