1000 rating unachievable for AVERAGE adult?

There are a lot of players on here with ratings that low and lower.   Elementary school kids who have had some instruction are not infrequently Class-I (USCF 200-399).   A 400 rated player is someone who can only beat an 800 10% of the time.  To picture a 300 imagine someone who has bad board vision so they only can think about 5 pieces (their's and the opponents at time).  They think a 1/2 - 1 move ahead.   They mostly avoid 1 move tactics (i.e you move your bishop into a position to take their rook they will usually move their rook out of the way) but fall for anything 2 moves or deeper.  

Yes I'm on track to do about 500 points this year.   And that's not medium not intensive study. 

I learned how the pieces moved when I was really young but probably only played 10 to 20 games in my life. I am pretty sure I am above average intelligence. I just recently really started to play and study and I am already 1000 rating. I was like 800 a week ago.

Yes, the average adult can reach 1000 by not hanging pieces, by completing exchanges, by not moving to unsafe squares, and by making equal exchanges. You do not need a book, just use your vision. It is there in front of you.

Analogous to how some college professors who specialise in De Rham cohomology and what not struggle to perform basic arithmetical operations. 

There is a distinct possibility that they are austerely underrated or are merely sandbagging their rating. Additionally, we should probably not dwell excessively on the fact that rating is the best gauge for chess proficiency, as there exist some people whom prefer to enjoy the magnificent game of chess rather than being concerned about a figure.

Wait what? I started playing chess recently, 6 months ago. When I learned the rules, I almost instantly reached 1000 rating. I'm adult.

Shame you didn't start earlier

You mean FIDE rating? Chess.com rating? If FIDE, i would say that you can without problems reach 1200 without training, only by playing experience. Maybe 1600 with training. More than that, it's much more difficult for common folks.

yet, you don't understand the meaning of the word adult, which you are not.

OP posted this just over 2 years ago (Sep 2017). Sadly, he has not played very much chess since then and as a consequence his ratings continue to lag. I believe and average person, willing to read and study a little bit, should be able to reach 1,000 either OTB or daily. Not so sure about higher speed games. There, I think experience and pattern recognition are more important. (I cannot play high speed games - I need time to "see things"!)

"A healthy adult of average inteligence and average merit should be able to reach 1600 their first month"

I think, even for fairly clever peeps, reaching 1600 might take more than a month. Unless you spend that month living, breathing and eating chess and having the best coach in the world.

Re the OP question I think reaching a rating of 1000 is very realistic for someone who has learned as an adult without too much difficulty- just learn the basic stuff, learn a few tricks and play some games.

Here's my life with chess:

Near the end of my first grade year, several of the deemed "gifted" students were assessed by a Child Psychologist and given an IQ Test. I was one of those students and was accepted into the school's Q.U.E.S.T. program. My IQ was estimated at 142. We played chess, but it wasn't a daily activity, so my mind wasn't given the opportunity to absorb the game at a young like some many great players of today. We didn't have a chess club like most schools do today and I didn't touch a board again until college. I was able to reach around 1100 by the time I graduated, but once again, chess was forgotten. Somewhere around 37, I picked up the game again and have been playing for about 5 years. During that time, I have hovered in the 750-850 range and have yet to find what I need to 'break-out' of that range. I've noticed slight improvements, but I still make ridiculous blunders and mistakes. I will say this though, when I play against a casual player, someone who knows the rules, and plays maybe 20 times a year, the games are a complete slaughter. They are completely lost to even basic opening, they don't see approaching forks or skewers, and make rash moves. So, for those like me stuck under 1000, just remember, you can probably beat 90% of the World Population.

Someone who teaches kids and goes to lots of tourneys needs to weigh in.  For myself, I have to assume that the OP is trolling.  Maybe my experience is just really atypical for modern chess, but back when I first played rated games in my early 20s, I fluctuated between 1400-1600 provisional.  Heck, my first rated game *ever* was against a 2155 CM (random draw in a military tournament), and I held my own and lost a fairly positional closed game, and I beat several 1600-1700ish players.  That being said, I played a ton of chess from age 7 on and did place highly in a tournament as an unrated player at that age.  I also played postal chess and read Chess Life, and I had a handful of chess books, so I certainly was not a true beginner in my first rated games...but still, I had not put *that* much time in.  It was a casual hobby.

If you had asked me before I read this thread, I would have said that just reading Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess would take someone *easily* past 1000 rating, and probably 1200 as well.  Is it really that competitive among beginners now?  I find that hard to believe.  To me <1000 rating is someone that still tries Scholar's Mate every few games and is shocked when it never works ...

Maybe local ratings are part of the problem?  I know, for example, that 1900 in Wyoming and 1900 in California were two very different animals in the 80s (I had a winning record against the Wyoming state champion, who was 1900, but every 1900 I played back then in other areas would beat me pretty consistently).

Blitz ratings are definitely more "depressed" and also compressed compared to other ratings pools on chess.com.  There is far less variation in skill level between, say, a 1200 and 1600 blitz or bullet player here than that same range in other time controls.  But that is at least partially because faster time controls bring *all* skill levels down towards a lowest common denominator.

What is "the" definition of Average ?

We all play our knowledge-level here
and sometimes poeple our own age to .
I am an exsamle of a middleaged relative

beginner to chess, and find that +1000

rating on this site is possible if taking my

shortcoming in shorter timecontrols and

lack of ability to visualize board and moves

and must set up a board and slowly play

some variations, and possible next moves.

Nice this place is for all kinds of people,

and players on any level.

Be well, all

It's absolutely possible, I only started playing chess couple of months ago and prior to that I didn't have much knowledge of chess; at the beginning I dipped as low as 500 trying to learn the moves but now that I've developed a better grasp of chess 1000 doesn't seen hard to reach.

I thought there was a 50-100 page thread around her somewhere that concluded that chess.com "standard" ratings are fairly close to FIDE ratings, not 400 points off.

Edit:  Didn't find the really long thread yet, but here's some pretty recent numbers thast show that the average rating on chess.com is *lower* than the reported FIDE ratings, not higher (i.e. 1500 on chess.com is actually 1647 FIDE):

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/fide-ratings-vs-chesscom-ratings-explored?page=1

I think one would need some serious defects to stay below 1400 if they make any effort at all. Such defects, often of a psychological nature, are shockingly common.