Can the average person become a chess master?

Good point, I keep forgetting.

Probably people should be very critical of their opinions on this unless for example they're a very experienced trainer who takes on all types of students.

I think I'll delete #19

My goal is to  become FM at the age of 93. I am throwing in a lot of work, but it looks like its too little too late.

I dont think any average people aver have made mastertitle, and if it happens, the work, the early age start  and the commitment is better than average.

The effort I am putting in and my talent is way above average. After One year competing  as a teenager, and 2,5 as a middleaged man I have now reached 1461 Fide, so its really a long way to go, and I know that age  makes it harder to improve when I gets old.

I think DpNorman has a fair chance, but he is not average.

Well my goal is 2200 USCF, but at age 17, almost 18 now, I've hit a plateau around 1850 which is very frustrating to get around. It's only going to get tougher as I get older and have more obligations, like university next year.

It's by far my least favorite thing about the transition from kid to adult :/

In Otb-tournaments, do you compete with players at your own level, or are you going one class up? I believe that competing one class up will make you adapt to that level.

I also started university while being really attracted to chess... I don't want to caution you against chess, I guess I'll only say, establish goals for yourself. The only error IMO is looking back after 2, 3, 4 years and wishing you'd had different priorities. Your parents probably say the only scenario where this is true is looking back and wishing you'd spent less time on chess... but it's also possible to look back wish you'd saved university for later. If you can support yourself, it's totally legitimate to take time off and live your life for a while!

By the way, I didn't start chess until age 18, and I've made plenty of improvement in the dusty old ages of 20-29  so I think you have plenty of good years left

I've tried it all. Maybe playing up has a slight upward correlation with my level of play, but not much.

The strongest kids in  Nordstrand sjakklubb  plays one class up if they can.  They both win and lose, but are steadily improving. Many of them , maybe all, are taking GM-coaching. They all are talented above average, and they all will get titles (he oldest two of them are already titled, FM an IM). The IM , Johan Salomon, improved 400 (1900-2300) points the year he was 17, and meant that looking at the other games in international tournaments he attended gave him a lot of progress.

I don't personally know anyone that just hit their peak at 18 (unless they effectively or completely stopped playing). And it's not really my place to do an autopsy on your rating history :P but it seems like you're letting that struggling mentality get to you (you mention quite a lot how hard everything is becoming even better hitting 20).

From what I've observed in my 2-3 years of serious play (e.g. not counting the hours I spent as a 1000 rated little kid reading the same books over and over again) overall mentality about the process is ridiculously underrated. It seems like most people think about the masters (using US masters as reference point for "chess master") as being in a completely different world, when in reality they have mostly just been able to use fundamentals in a disciplined way. It's a lot harder than it might sound to someone who doesn't play chess but a lot easier than many class players apparently believe.

It's possible OP was thinking closer to "grandmaster" in which case basically all of the above is irrelevant but master is already a huge enough accomplishment, regardless of what bitter bullet trolls tell you.

Looks like chess at Norway is expanding, I see more and more strong Norway chess players online and kids playing. Sadly after Topalov got World Champion chess here did not grow much.

I knew three people who made 2200 USCF. They were all around1850 at 17. None of them made it while in college. Two made it by 25. The other didn't until he was early 40s.

Plateaus are normal. You have time to make 2200 if you keep at it.

To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them.

-- George Leonard, "Mastery"

In our club we had great help from Bulgaria, from an absolute super coach, GM Vladimir Georgiev. I had 6 hours with him, and he is truely brillant. He was playing for us in some serie matches too, and almost beat Magnus Carlsen, but got too unpresice in the late game.

If the Bulgarian government or chess organisation can hire him for coaching, Bulgaria can make a huge leap.

Nordstrand sjakklubb is a masterfactory. The kids are seeing that their friends wins titles and recon they too can do it if they work enough. And they really do work. Some of, or all, the best kids are strongly supported by their parents, who pays GMs to give them lessons.

No they cant, but they can become GMS!

Two relatively recent books:

What It Takes to Become a Chess Master by Andrew Soltis

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093409/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review857.pdf

Reaching the Top?! by Peter Kurzdorfer

http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2015/11/16/book-notice-kurzdorfers-reaching-the-top.html

Soltis' book is really thought provoking. 

It's funny how people who play a very analytical game tend to believe stuff based on unscientific myths.  There have never been any studies where they've found that an average 40 year old joe smoe cannot reach the title of chess master anymore.  That is just pure speculation, not based on fact at all, but merely personal opinion.  If you want to believe in that dpnorman you can go right ahead, just don't expect people to believe you when all you do is just merely assert that, "Oh yeah my coach said you can't reach master after a certain age so it must be true..." things not based on scientific fact, but rather, opinions, on people that are good at chess, but lack the expertise to really know what they are talking about, as they do not know the capicities of the human brain.  Sure, anyone can read a book and find out that a persons fluid IQ starts to decrease at the age of around 20 and continually declines as you age, however no one can really base anything on that fact other than what it already says, that our fluid iq (that being, raw calculating power of the brain) declines as we age.  Of course that only means one thing, as you age, your bullet or blitz capibilites greatly dimishes, but if you play chess regulary at older ages you will still keep at least most of your chess knowledge in tact so long as you practice daily.  Garry may never be world champion again but he may give another grand master a run for his money up until he stops playing chess.

The only reason why most chess players only get good at a young age is because older people have jobs and families to worry about and don't have time to play hours of chess every single day.  There is the other thing.  Chess, is a game, who cares about being a GM at chess when you are 40?  Heck someone at age 40 might want to be a GM, it's just that most have other things in their lives that prevent it.  Time commitments like children, work, whatever.  The big myth is that the brain is just incapable of learning high level chess up to a certain age, and that, I believe, is what it is, a myth.  It was brought on simply because most people after they reach a certain age, just don't become chess masters, but, dpnorman, it is also possible that perhaps, it's because most 40 year olds don't give a damn about reaching the GM title as they have a lot of stuff going on with their lives already.  Not to say that it isn't possible that one such 40 year old doesn't exist, it's just "pretty near impossible" to find one.   Does that language sound familiar?  It's only near impossible because most 40 year olds have other things to worry about, not because they are too old.  The too old to become a master, I believe, is just a myth, grounded in opinions.

Ok, Daybreak, you say the myth is grounded in opinions. 

How about some empirical data.

Give us an example of a person who learned the game after age 25 and became a grandmaster.

By the way Daybreak, these topics get rehashed a few times a year, and never has anyone been able to list someone who has started late and achieved a title like GM... so if you're able to it would be of great interest to many people, including myself (even if I highly doubt such a person exists).

SmyslovFan likes to point out Russia's system produced plenty of non-GMs we never hear about. I'm sure modern day China does as well. I think this is a very reasonable observation.

Binary guy is right, I bumped a bunch of this same topic threads, eaguard gave me the idea.

Well said, doingokiguess!

I believe the average person has the mental ability to become a master, but lacks the drive - and drive is something you can't buy with elaborate training programs and GM coaches. As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

If you don't have the passion to seek the truth behind a position, to the point where you'll joyously spend hours gleaning subtle insights from some obscure rook ending, then chances are you'll never be a master. You may have the smarts, but you don't have the burning passion.