Best rating for a beginner

Sort:
thegreat_patzer

Reading the issues of the day, has got me curious..

does anybody know whats the Highest FIDE/USCF rating for an untrained beginning chess player.   perhaps someone in the late teens with big gifts and who picks stuff up quickly.

NativeChessMinerals

Learning the rules (with no experience of chess-like games) would be under 1000, I don't know how low though. It doesn't really matter how gifted you are if you haven't learned or practiced it at all. Think about it in terms of other skills.

I have two cousins that would play to pass the time as kids. No guidance from anyone, they only knew the rules. They didn't want to be better necessarily, only to beat each other. They played often, hours at a time. After a few years of this I'd estimate them around 1300. As you might expect their endgame and openings were bad, and tactics were the strong point.

Other than that I think it depends on what you want to call training. Playing every day with masters (who are friendly and analyze with you) would be great training. There are unrated players who are strong enough to be titled due to environments like this. People who grew up playing with IMs and GMs for years, and when they go to a tournament their first rating is easily above 2200.

NativeChessMinerals

Yeah, even Nakamura's first established rating was under 1000. He was 7 years old.

It took him 1.5 years to get to 1500 USCF. After another 1.5 years he was rated 2100 (and a few tournaments away from 2200). Recently his USCF was 2900!

Don't be fooled by these silly online people who "just started chess" and are rated much higher.

troll-in-the-park

I believe Kasparov's first rating was 2500 something, because he won a massive Soviet tournament as a junior.  Not sure if FIDE or national. 

TheAdultProdigy

The best natural player I've met and seen posses talent was 17 year old David Owocki, while a student at the University of Pittsburgh. He knew how the pieces moved, picked up the game competitively, and a month later played his first USCF rated games. I think his first provisional rating was around 2100. Sadly, he took his life last year. I think he was only 25.