Becoming A Candidate Master Before Finishing Highschool?

Don't let the naysayers get to you, bud.  You can do it.

When I was 14 I was getting kicked around by two local players rated USCF @1800.  The weaker of the two had a record against me of @18w, 1l, 2d, and the other was @25w, 0l, 0d.  Do the math; I was weak (probably below 1200).  During summer vacation, I locked myself up in my room with nothing but a chess set and a couple of old chess books (authored by Chernev and/or Reinfeld).  No tv, no sports, no bike riding, just chess.  I put a note on my door at eye level so I had to see it every time I left the room: "kill Smith and Jones (not their real names)."  After summer vacation, we got together again to play and I crushed them.  After a month of playing, I totaled up the scores: against the first one, I was 17w, 3l, 2d, and I finally broke through against the other one to the tune of 20w, 6l, 3d.  They wouldn't stop playing me because they couldn't believe what I was doing to them.  That one summer I jumped up around 600 points, without the aid of computers, the internet, or coaches.  Talent, when combined with hard work and dedication, can produce wonderous results.  The talent comes from your gene pool, the rest is up to you.  Rock on.

But let me leave you with this piece of advice, too.  You say you're in your first year of high school.  Good time to go for it.  But if you are not around or above 1850 by your junior year, cut back on the chess and concentrate on your schoolwork.  Carsen, Giri, et al may have a future in the game, but you're not IM level as we speak, so all you will probably get out of chess is a sense of a certain aesthetic pleasure (and a hell of a lot frustration.)  You'll do much better for yourself if you get a degree rather than a title.  With all that being said, I still say go for it.  Just because a lot of players here never accomplished what you are setting out to accomplish doesn't mean you can't do it, it just means they couldn't do it (myself included).  Those who think small, stay small.  Think big, kiddo, and get ready for the ride of your life!  Good luck.

Chess is not all about getting material. It's about CHECK MATE. If you've seen Houdini's game you'll see that it sacrifices bunch of materials in order to get to the opponent's king. I've learned a lot from it's analysis. If you view my games with King's Gambit, I give up all the pieces but I NEVER lose. Here's the game where I sacrificed the most pieces against the 1st category player in Blitz:

practice atleast 4 hours a day!!! for 2 years!!!

No, you're too busy posting in the forums.

I knew a guy who went from 1300 to 2100 in 1 month.  It's really easy when you're underrated (and provisional).

like most other people say, it is possible, but not likely

I started out around 900, in a year i went to 1200, in another year i went to 1500, and 5 months later, i am at 1800. But the thing is, i only played in 13 tournaments that first year, the second year, i played in 22 tournaments, and  this past 5 months, i played in 15 tournmanents.

So the lesson is, the more you play, the more you learn, and the faster you will go up. Also, i started weekly coaching with an FM in the past 5 months and that helped me too.

I am in 9th grade and am rated around 1800 so i can expect to get to 2200 in 4 years. It will be a lot harder going from 1200 to 2200 in 2.5 years, so unless the OP is very talented(and underrated) it will not happen

That's great Snar, keep it up!

This sounds exactly like me, but I stopped in the nineth grade (with a rating of 1900). Would love to know where you are now 9 month later.

Edit: and even the icon...

A word about USCF titles.

The National Master title is awarded to anyone who achieves a rating of 2200 or higher.

All other current titles are based on norms.  A norm is achieved by a good performance in a tournament.  There is a specific formula for exactly how to award a norm, and you can look it up on the USCF site, but what it basically comes down to is that there is a norm available for various levels that correspond to ratings.  For example, the category IV norm level corresponds to a rating of 1200.  A category IV norm will be awarded  for a performance that would be considered very good for a 1200 rated player. i.e. if you beat people over 1200, and don't lose to people under 1200, you'll get a category IV norm.

If you get five norms at a given level, you get the title corresponding to that level.

The rating level for a Candidate Master norm is 2000. The Candidate Master title is the lowest title with the word "master" in it, but category I, II, III, and IV are awarded norms at levels corresponding to 1800, 1600, 1400, and 1200.

So, it's not true that if you reach a rating of 2000 that you will get the Candidate Master title.  On the other hand, if you get to that rating level, and stay there, you will almost certainly have some good days in there, good enough to get five Candidate Master norms. 

the title system is explained completely here:

http://www.glicko.net/ratings/titles.pdf

Good luck reaching your goal, I have a very similar goal, thanks for asking a question that needed to be answered.

I think that playing against the computer is bad because computer is just a machine that has just protocols how to play and its somet8mes programed to fail on purpes

Hi im 12 years old and i have rating 1250 the best chees player in my family was my grandfsther who was candidate master and i want to become a master

It would be nice to become a certified master (Candidate or National), but how many people want to make master because they want to understand the game vs those who want to be master for personal gains... would be interesting to find out.