Do I have the potential to be a GM one day??

I do not have the money to join an over the board club or tournament, is there a way to play OTB without it costing you any money?

unfortunately pretty much all tournaments cost money, the only otb games you could play would be games with friends

Unless you can find a group of players that meet, and or have friends that play, not likely.  Your best bet is probably correspondance chess, and games with longer time controls.  Put time into tactics trainer, and chess mentor.  I would love to help you, but we are short handed at work, and i have a tournament coming up.

Reading the previous comments, I'd like to give my take on things. (Maybe this will encourage you.)

-Note that these are USCF ratings, not chess.com ratings-

I first learned chess at age 8. I played chess with some classmates occasionally until age 10. That was the only practice in chess I had.

Age 10 (when I actually started paying attention to things in chess): Now in middle school, finally having access to a chess club, I played my first chess tournament, and my rating afterwards was around 600. This is impressive, considering the fact that, as I said, the only people I had played were my friends, and this was before the school year even started. As the year progressed, my rating went from 600 to 500, stayed there for a few tournaments, jumped to 700, then jumped to 900, all in a school semester. During the spring, I led my school team on first board to the TN Team Elementary section's 5th place spot. All my teammates were one grade above me, and all our ratings were below 1000. My rating hit 1000 at that tournament.

Age 11: During the summer after a successful year, my rating jumped 150 points to 1150 in just two tournaments. Then, when school started back up, my rating DROPPED 150 points in a huge chess slump. Until it jumped 150 points AGAIN in a tournament in which I managed to qualify for the Nashville City Championship. At that tournament, in which I was outrated by everyone, my rating got up to 1200. During the spring, I played one tournament where my rating went up to 1300 with my 5/5 performance.

Age 12: A mere 3 tournaments during the autumn saw my rating stagnant. I played two tournaments in the spring. The first was my best performance so far (TN Individual Finals), and my rating went up to 1400. I also played in the state championship, where our team, consisting of mostly our team two years ago (but with me playing on second board) landed 5th place (again).

Age 13: Another slump, in which, in two tournaments, I lost 50 points. Right now my rating is 1346. So basically, this is right now.

Funny thing is, I've probably studied more chess in the past week than in the past few years besides the hour and a half of chess club I have one day a week, for which I don't really take seriously. I've made a commitment to do my best at chess (hours of studying each day), and hopefully see my rating at 2000 eventually. This being said, I honestly don't expect myself getting a title even with my commitment.

But hey, if my rating can go up from 1000 to 1400 in like 3 years of playing chess, then anything can happen. Need more inspiration? Look at Chigorin and Rubinstein.

Good luck on your chess!

Are you sure its too expencive to join a club? I pay ca 70 dollar a year at Nordstrand, but the fee is kept low because we have some income from arranging tournaments.

In Australia there's this funny weekly 15 minute tournament where some 1400-2000s play and it only costs 1 dolla for people under 16/18 (I forgot) to enter, but it doesn't really matter since 1st place actually nevermind

slowdeath22 wrote:

In Australia there's this funny weekly 15 minute tournament where some 1400-2000s play and it only costs 1 dolla for people under 16/18 (I forgot) to enter, but it doesn't really matter since 1st place actually nevermind

*please, do continue with the story

I just lost a series of chess games, very discouraging, and now my rating is 1199

Well seeing that there are 8 year olds in Russian who are 2300 I would say no chance in hell. But you could potentially get over 2000 within the next 10 years if you get enough experience and knowledge in the game. Good luck

He's 14, he will make it over 2000 much faster.

No.

-Warren Buffett

GM G. Petar Arnaudov played his first tournament at the age 13 or 14. He became GM 3 years ago.

Well, he's one in a million bro and was almost certainly of Master strength prior to his first tournament. You can't use this clear exception for any valid argument here.

I'd say focus more on being better than you were the day before every time you practice or study chess.  If you put in enough effort to really improve yourself, one day you'll wake up and be a GM.  Or you will realize that you don't have the potential and set some more reasonable goal.  But really the most rewarding feeling in my opinion is slowly getting better and better every day at something you love.

I also suggest for improving trying to play some correspondence games.  They really teach you to examine all of your moves properly (if you play them right) and I have found that they give me enough time to properly examine my moves in various situations, especially in the openings, so that in later situations I can know what works and what doesn't work.  It helps for me though that I pretty much only ever play two openings as black and I am now settling on a single opening for white.

Just have fun, study hard, and you'll get where you need to get to.

Thanks

One thing I have noticed about all GM's, is they have something very, very special going on upstairs. All of them.

Take Magnus for example. He can play 10 people blindfolded and beat them all. I can barely imagine a chessboard square for square absent of all the pieces. In my mind I can see a chess board, but it's not crystal clear. I don't really see how all the squares are connected to each other.

Magnus can also recall the thousands of games he's analyzed in books. Not only does he remember the positions, but he remembers the moves, who played the game, what city it was played in and the date it was played.

That's something very special and all GM's possess some degree of that type of mental ability. It's a photographic memory. Many people have one, but GM's really got it good (Usually). I played in a simul back in 2002 against a GM. After the simul, the GM gave me a ride home. During the ride home, he could recall every game that he played in the simul (About 20 games). We talked about the moves played in my game.

The hard truth that people don't really want to swallow, is that GM's have something that you don't. They are all incredibly, exceptional people. They are very special. People think that if they work hard enough, stay positive, be focused and give it all they got, that they can become a GM. Truth be told, you likely can't. You can get darn good at this game though: good enough to get life master or NM. But, at some point you will come up against people who are much, much more skilled than you, no matter how hard you try. Most of us will eventually hit a wall where we really aren't going to get any better. That wall is well short of what it takes to be a GM.

If you want to take a crack at GM, your best shot is to start off very young before your mind is fully developed. With luck, your brain will develop into a powerful chess tool. I'm sure there are exceptions to all of this, but older people have a slim chance at becoming GM. A childs mind is like a sponge that has space for everything you can throw at it. An adults mind is like a cluttered kitchen with some space left in a few drawers.

My advice is that at some point you are better off accepting the fact that you aren't going to get to GM (especially for those taking up the game later in life). You could spend years chasing it without every realizing that you're not going to get there. To spend thousands of hours, year after year working on chess with the goal of becoming a GM is certainly a huge waste of time for many people.

Have fun with the game, but don't pour your entire heart and soul into it unless you know that you have what it takes. The people who have it, know that they do. The rest of us need to face reality and just try to enjoy the game for what it is. There is certainly nothing wrong with that.

Look At my draw against an NM.

Thanks?

Perhaps I am just too impatient, but I find getting better quickly even more fulfilling.

I think the progress is flying fastest in the beginning, later it comes slowly, and the results doesnt improve linear. Ther will be ups ond downs, stagnation and faster progress. Long stagnationperiods and bad results can destroy the fun and make people quit chess. Especially they who are acustomed to rapid progress. Players that can dig trough that can become very good.