do I have a chance ? from 1706 to 2000 in a year !

I'm entering my last year of high school and this may possible be the last year I'll be able to have a shot at making 2000 before im 20 cause college I know will take up so much of my time so I was wondering what exactly are my chances of reaching 2000 before june of 2013 from a 1706 rating and what are the best things I can do to  achieve that ? Some general info about me is I just got a coach rated 2080something I have a sparring partner rated 1500ish and I have a quite a few chess books.

You have a chance if:

1. You master your opening repertoire inside and out.

2. You know the basic endgames cold (pawn, rook, bishop, knight, b vs n)

3. You fight for the initiative and know how to use it once you have it.

4. You play 2-4 tournaments a month, analyze the games yourself before giving them to an engine or a coach, and your opponents in the tournaments are rated 1900-2200. If you score about 50% against these players, you will make 2000 if you play enough games.

5. A 1500 sparring partner won't do you any good.

2200ismygoal:

My USCF rating is 2065, and I have been over 2000 since December 2008. I am also a FIDE National Instructor. I know of what I speak.

Other approaches may work, sure, but to say I have no idea what I'm talking about is incorrect.

Yea and I think telling a 1700 to focus on openings when they are probably missing fairly simple tacitcs is a waste of time, whats going to get you to 2000 faster?  Knowing some Dragon line 30 moves deep or being able to blow away opponents tactically?

See this is the kind of garbage nonsense i'm talking about, this guy has no idea what he is talking about in regards to openings, you don't need to know crap about openings to reach 2000 otb.  It is vital that you learn some basic K+P endgames and be able to do philidors, lucena and vencuras postion in the rook endgames.  Depending on your style you don't have to fight for the initiative if you are not an attacking player.  If you prefer slow games that is fine.  Probably better if you don't know alot of opening theory in e4 e5 and the sicilians and such.  Being able to play alot of OTB chess against stronger players helps.

I don't know what your OTB rating is, but tactics are overrated. As long as you are able to not lose because of tactics (too much), you will be fine.

The OP isn't going to beat 1900-2200s on tactics anyway, simply because those players typically don't make big enough mistakes tactically anymore to lose outright.

Knowing (and understanding) the Dragon very deeply WOULD really help someone get to 2000 (and I don't even play the Dragon!).

My USCF rating would be around 2100 but I'm a Canadian, and no knowing the dragon that deeply wouldn't help you because majority of even strong OTB club players don't know that much theory.  The only player in my club who knows the dragon that deep is FM Richard Wang.  I've gotten my rating that high but studying 90% tactics.  I play the French as black and I understand the ideas and I don't know theory to deep but I know that I ought to aim for.  This is a good way to learn theory not delve into 30 moves of theory in every sicilian line.

What was the other 10% of your trainning own and trust me I believe you cause a local prodigy named james canty the third became a NM when he was 18 and other than working with a 1700 & 1800 coaches 3 times a week  when he was under 1750 afterwards him and his father (1800 coach) worked soley on tactics and less than a year he reached 2100 and his father shot up to 1900 I just wasnt sure the same would work for me since I don't play tactical openings like they did.

I went from 1700 to 2000 in 10 months - from President's Day 2011 to New Year's Eve 2011.  A few things I give credit for:  1) in November 2010 I began to use coach GM Varuzhan Akobian, who was very instrumental in opening my eyes to making more purposeful moves and to transform myself into more of a positional player 2) having a couple of huge tournaments which I guess gave me more motivation to study more 3) chess.com's Tactics Trainer and 4) just having a tough but reachable goal of trying to qualify for the 2012 World Youth Tournament (for U12, minimum cutoff of 2000 by end of March 2012, then all of a sudden changed to 2050 by end of April 2012).  That was important because I had to pick the right tournaments to attend, as opposed to just going to any tournament.  

words of advice - 1) avoid scholastic tournaments  2) play in class tournaments where you are near the bottom of a class.  Example: play in a U2000 if you are currently at 1700.  3) lots of tactic puzzles every day.  My goal is 50 a day but most of the time I don't hit that number, but I usually try and get at least 10 to 20 in.

how about this taking from what you both said

1.Go over chess.com theametic tournaments who's openings themes are the one's I play (I agree learning my openings in and out is a waste of time but I do have a complete repritore for both white and black and just that has helped me) one tournament a month I figure it's good to study other players games in my range playing the exacte same openings I play.

2. Reviewing and learning famous Endgames (Philidor,Lucenea,Vencuras etc...)

3.Do Solitare Chess of games from chesslife magazine's

4. I like #4 as it is but except I play agaisnt players 1700-2000 and do the rest of the process

5.although he is weaker than me we both play alot of the same openings so playing theametic matches (4-6games) of those openigns then doing postmortem can't hurt (live games of course say G/35min with 3 sec increment.)

I gave my advice. What you do or don't do with it is up to you. Good luck.

Also, I didn't say anything about attacking. I said the initiative. There's a big difference.

The French is known for being exceptionally concept driven and not requiring much theory to play. Mastering the concepts of the french is not much easier then learning the theory of the sicilian, but it's fundamentally different like that.

If you tried to play the sicilian at the 2000 level without knowing theory and only playing on general concepts you'd lose a lot of games to move order traps and unstoppable attacks. Of course there are still concepts you need to know, but the theory is quite important there.

I don't think nearly so many people should play the sicilian as you see lately, however. It's so theory heavy that it's laughable to see the horrible ideas in the transition from known theory to playing chess for many players.