Becoming Chess Master

two years is way to little for going from 2000 to 2500. 10 years if you do not give up chess and you have talent is more accurate.

He's 13 now. GM Yasser Seirawan was 12 when he began. He has chances of becoming GM.

Wow I was just reading through some of my old forum posts and found this!  Looking back I see that everyone was right I was not 1400 then.  I'm not 1400 now but I have improved by hundreds of points since then. 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/2392543298

https://www.chess.com/live/game/2394738621

Here are two of my games the second one is the most interesting can anyone tell me based on these games how I am doing on my improvement?

Rapid also correlates fairly closely with USCF. 1000-1300

6 years if youre talented and 8 years if your normal, as long as you study the best stuff and keep up your current pace of practice. If you stop training as much or start studying stuff that isn't good for your training maybe never or atleast a lot later.

- some say it takes on average a year, or more, to climb a step ( 100  plus rating ) for most chessplayers. Then you have the savants, who can jump above the normal, at least for some time.
But also they have to be disciplined and humble to the tradition they perform in, and the people who made and make that tradition. The masters. You are still blooming, Ashton . Apreciate that, and  the fact that you do have a long way to go.

You are around 14 years old now, All of life is in front of you.

Enjoy it, and make good use of the time. I discovered chess late in life and will allways be an amateur.

You are, possibly, young and talented. Be patient and prove it over time. Good luck and be well.

The first step is to honestly assess your playing strengths and weaknesses. You may consider yourself to be 1400 strength, but USCF considers you to be 745 based on four games (680 after 7 games). 

If you need help analyzing your games, find a coach. There are plenty of good coaches in most cities, and many more available online. Philadelphia has many great coaches for players of all levels!

Do NOT accept any coach without the consent of your legal guardian/parent!

Possibly of interest:
"... the NM title is an honor that only one percent of USCF members attain. ..." - IM John Donaldson (2015)
http://www.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Reaching-the-Top-77p3905.htm
"... going from good at tactics to great at tactics ... doesn't translate into much greater strength. ... You need a relatively good memory to reach average strength. But a much better memory isn't going to make you a master. ... there's a powerful law of diminishing returns in chess calculation, ... Your rating may have been steadily rising when suddenly it stops. ... One explanation for the wall is that most players got to where they are by learning how to not lose. ... Mastering chess ... requires a new set of skills and traits. ... Many of these attributes are kinds of know-how, such as understanding when to change the pawn structure or what a positionally won game looks like and how to deal with it. Some are habits, like always looking for targets. Others are refined senses, like recognizing a critical middlegame moment or feeling when time is on your side and when it isn't. ..." - GM Andrew Soltis (2012)
100 Chess Master Trade Secrets by Andrew Soltis
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708094523/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review916.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/100-Master-Trade-Secrets-77p3835.htm
"... On the one hand, your play needs to be purposeful much of the time; the ability to navigate through many different types of positions needs to be yours; your ability to calculate variations and find candidate moves needs to be present in at least an embryonic stage. On the other hand, it will be heart-warming and perhaps inspiring to realize that you do not need to give up blunders or misconceptions or a poor memory or sloppy calculating habits; that you do not need to know all the latest opening variations, or even know what they are called. You do not have to memorize hundreds of endgame positions or instantly recognize the proper procedure in a variety of pawn structures.
[To play at a master level consistently] is not an easy task, to be sure ..., but it is a possible one. ..." - NM Peter Kurzdorfer (2015)
https://www.chess.com/article/view/don-t-worry-about-your-rating
https://www.chess.com/article/view/am-i-too-old-for-chess

"Yes, you can easily become a master. All you need to do is some serious, focused work on your play.
That 'chess is 99% tactics and blah-blah' thing is crap. Chess is several things (opening, endgame, middlegame strategy, positional play, tactics, psychology, time management...) which should be treated properly as a whole. getting just one element of lay and working exclusively on it is of very doubtful value, and at worst it may well turn out being a waste of time." - IM pfren (August 21, 2017)

https://www.chess.com/article/view/can-anyone-be-an-im-or-gm
Train Like a Grandmaster by Kotov
Becoming a Grandmaster by Keene
What It Takes to Become a Grandmaster by GM Andrew Soltis
"BENJAMIN FINEGOLD (born Sep-06-1969 ...) ... Ben became a USCF Life Master at 15, USCF Senior Master at 16, an International Master in 1989, and achieved his final GM norm at the SPICE Cup B Section in September, 2009. ..."
http://www.chessgames.com/player/benjamin_finegold.html
"MARK IZRAILOVICH DVORETSKY (... died Sep-26-2016 ...) ... He was ... awarded the IM title in 1975. Dvoretsky was also a FIDE Senior Trainer and noted author. ... During the 1970s, Mark was widely regarded by the strongest IM in the world, ..."
http://www.chessgames.com/player/mark_izrailovich_dvoretsky.html
https://www.chess.com/blog/smurfo/book-review-insanity-passion-and-addiction
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/26/books/books-of-the-times-when-the-child-chess-genius-becomes-the-pawn.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2017/05/05/making-a-living-in-chess-is-tough-but-the-internet-is-making-it-easier/#4284e4814850

https://www.chess.com/news/view/is-there-good-money-in-chess-1838
"... Many aspiring young chess players dream of one day becoming a grandmaster and a professional. ... But ... a profession must bring in at least a certain regular income even if one is not too demanding. ... The usual prize money in Open tournaments is meagre. ... The higher the prizes, the greater the competition. ... With a possibly not very high and irregular income for several decades the amount of money one can save for old age remains really modest. ... Anyone who wants to reach his maximum must concentrate totally on chess. That involves important compromises with or giving up on his education. ... it is a question of personal life planning and when deciding it is necessary to be fully conscious of the various possibilities, limitations and risks. ... a future professional must really love chess and ... be prepared to work very hard for it. ... It is all too frequent that a wrong evaluation is made of what a talented player can achieve. ... Most players have the potential for a certain level; once they have reached it they can only make further progress with a great effort. ... anyone who is unlikely to attain a high playing strength should on no account turn professional. ... Anyone who does not meet these top criteria can only try to earn his living with public appearances, chess publishing or activity as a trainer. But there is a lack of offers and these are not particularly well paid. For jobs which involve appearing in public, moreover, certain non-chess qualities are required. ... a relevant 'stage presence' and required sociability. ... All these jobs and existences, moreover, have hanging above them the sword of Damocles of general economic conditions. ... around [age] 40 chess players ... find that their performances are noticeably tailing off. ..." - from a 12 page chapter on becoming a chess professional in the book, Luther's Chess Reformation by GM Thomas Luther (2016)
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/LuthersChessReformation-excerpt.pdf