FACT: You can't improve at chess

Here is a nice one : steady improvement over 11 years.

And notice that the guy didn't start at 1200 elo...

http://www.chessgraphs.com/?name%5B0%5D=Gharamian%2C+Tigran&format=standard

Taka a look at "Chess for Zebras"

https://www.chess.com/blog/soler97/quotchess-for-zebrasquot-a-review

It may convince you that you are both right and wrong...

I'd hardly call November "ages ago".   I play my daily games as "real chess" though.  I don't consult books or computer analysis during my games.   I do take my time though and will analyze the position 3-7 moves deep.  My goal is to get better, not to have an artificially high rating.   I used to be a club and OTB tournament player, so I guess you'd consider me to be "proper".  However, like you suggested, I didn't study the game when I was young.  I only started studying when I was about 22.   Then, my rating and playing strength took off and continue to improve to this day.  I have yet to peak.   My poor short-term memory is the only thing holding me back from becoming a Master, in my opinion.   

Some people are just driven to be the best they can be, at everything they try.   I always had varied interests and didn't stick with any one hobby for very long, but I am well above average at: chess, video games, pool, poker, singing, dancing and sports.   I'm not the best at any one thing though.  Jack of all trades, master of none here.  lol

@#27

This I like from that article.

.....you have to unlearn so many of the things that made sense to you. The most important kind of learning for improvement is "unlearning". We need to correct some of our limiting assumptions. Unlearning means constantly looking at the baggage we bring to chess and working on the part that is most problematic.

This is extremely difficult because it is natural to want to make sense of things, and to impose order on chaos with rules and categories. Real thinking is uncomfortable. The idea of unlearning is to see your habits of mind as habits, and therefore to have more self-control and hence flexibility during play.

My thing to overcome was the fear of certain pawn moves.   For example, as black, I used to do everything I could to prevent moves like e5 or g5, which dislodged my knight at f6.  I also hated pawn storms against my kingside.  I've learned how to maneuver around aggressive pawns now though and am more comfortable castling queenside, if needed.   I also find weaknesses left behind by my opponent's pawn pushes more often now.   

Unlearn = I play chess since 2012, when I was 8 years old. I used to think " Petroff is trash " . In a real life blitz tournament, I had nothing to play with Black. I was playing with my 1600 friend. ( he is also Ankara 13 year olds champion ) it was obvious that I'm going to lose. Then I decided to give Petroff a try. Then he blundered and I won. Now I'm playing Petroff. It should be noted that I go into zeitnot in 90+30 games.

Yeah, I was never a fan of the Petroff's Defense.  As black, against e4, I have played the Philidor (when I first started playing tournaments), the Center Counter Gambit (briefly), the French (for most of my tournament career) and several variations of the Sicilian.   Now, I open with the Sicilian and sometimes transpose into a French, if the situation warrants it.   That usually gets players out of their book.   

GM Korchnoi reached his peak after age 50.

So did I.   It can happen.  

You definitely can improve but from what I've experienced there are a couple things.

1) You WON'T improve exclusively by playing (especially, doing thousands of online blitzes won't do much), improving requires dedicated studying, learning concepts (things that you won't invent by yourself OTB), practicing tactics and pattern recognition, getting advice from stronger players etc. There is a lot of knowledge you need.

2) Being a grown up make things a lot harder (this is my case). But not hopeless.

3) "Hello I've been playing chess on patzersarenoob.gov.edu for 7 months and I am currently 1500, in how many months can I expect to become a grandmaster?" ...
If this is you mean by improving please stop. Frankly, that will never be the case unless a miracle happen, becoming GM is way more huger than you think. It is like "hi  I've started violin last christmas, when will I become a professional musician?" "I've started gym, will I bench press 300 soon?" etc etc.

 Improving is possible but with realistic goals.

If you want to improve, but don't want to do the hard work of studying. You should quit chess-Kasparov.

There is alot of validity to the observation that aptitude has more to do with chess performance than many people want to admit or discuss.

As a teacher, I can say equivocally that no one learns at a slow and steady rate.  That's not how learning happens.  Learning happens in jumps, and it's true for just about anyone in any field.

Think about, I don’t know, art.  When kids start learning to draw, they suck.  They can’t even fingerpaint properly, and it’s just a mess.  They don’t even have the fine motor control to draw lines where they want them.  Once they develop that, though, huge breakthrough.  Now we get pictures that are more than random splotches.  Now there’s a delay.  The question becomes, will the child draw a lot or do they only draw during art class?  If so, they improve minutely if at all.  Those that love drawing and do it a lot?  They get better faster, which gives them confidence to draw more, which gets them better faster, etc etc.

Are there art prodigies, kids that can just draw amazing out of almost nowhere?  Sure, I guess, though not at five years old.  And even these naturals, they improve even faster when exposed to art education, art training.  Indeed, much of drawing is education: knowing perspective and foreshortening, the colour spectrum, using different strokes to produce different effects, composition arrangement.  These things and so much more are not some innate talent but knowledge that needs to be acquired.  Once you have it and apply it and understand it, your ability skyrockets… and then it will plateau until your skill develops more and you are ready to learn the next piece of knowledge.

If you don’t like art, look at math.  Kids learn to count, then to learn to add and subtract.  That’s a huge increase right there, even if it looks like nothing in the big picture.  Things then level off, with slow increases as they learn multiplication and division.  These are all still playing with numbers, essentially glorified counting.  Things then speed up as algebra is introduced.  Things are tough, and progress is different for different people, but soon people are doing math that would be impossible six months earlier.  That’s a huge increase.

And if you’ve ever studied math, you likely felt that one eureka moment, that light-bulb going off where suddenly things make sense.  Before you were dutifully studying but not making much progress.  Then, in a flash of insight, you just get it.  Your math ability has taken a quantum leap forward, and this isn’t related to just math but to any subject.  Sometimes, it takes a thousand tries or a thousand hours, but then you just get it.

Slow and steady progress largely doesn’t exist, in any field.  Things happen in bursts and starts.  Long plateaus are normal.  We’d all prefer if it weren’t the case, as it is much easier mentally to see steady progress, to see our efforts rewarded rather than seemingly doing nothing, but it just doesn’t work that way.  Again, I’m a teacher, and I’ve worked with hundreds if not thousands of people, both young and old.  I see it firsthand.

In my head, I think of it like videogames.  When you ‘level up,,’ your stats get a big boost.  Each level up takes experience points, and they take more and more the higher you get.  If you always do the same thing, though, if you always remain in the beginning stage, fighting beginner monsters and getting very little experience, then eventually your progress will seemingly stop because you will never get enough experience that way.  This is the problem most self-learners have.  They think something worked once so it will work forever, even as the gains long since level off.  You need to go to the next, tougher stage, fight the next boss, even if it is really hard and outside your comfort zone, if you want that next level.

Wow, that was a lot more than I  planned on writing.

TL;dr: Very few things in life go at a slow, linear rate.  Learning happens in jumps and starts, with periods of pleateaus.  It’s not fun, but it is what it is.

You have a much higher rating than me, so you should know better. However, I have been playing 50 years. You have to learn all the openings first. That is a long and tedious process that many (myself included) are not willing to devote the time to. Those that do will always be able to trounce those who don't. It's like when I play a strong computer program. I never get past 7 or 8 moves before I find myself down a piece. Bobby Fischer read over 4000 books before winning the world title. Your post isn't controversial, it's nonsense. It's like saying high school and college are worthless. Spend 3 years studying openings only. Once you get past the openings, then you will see how good of a player you are and unless you refuse to learn from your mistakes, you will improve.

People usually hover because they do too much work on openings and not enough on tactics and learning how to attack in general. And then there's the question of how to improve. Your average player (including myself) may not know how to improve their game any more than a high schooler knows how to learn rocket science. Usually when we learn things we're taught by people that are already experts. But everyone doesn't have that luxery. So most folks just end up all over the place trying to figure out what the heck to do.

Meanwhile little kids with coaches, strong sparring partners and organized regimens shoot to the NM title before being old enough to drive. Improving at chess isn't impossible at all. But I doubt most folks know exactly what they need to do to jump the next hundred points and then the next. When you go to parks you'll find a lot of older guys who got really good at chess by just playing all the time and get to maybe 1900 strength. But it's pretty clear that that way is probably the least efficient.

That's true. The point is that it's possible.

I believe that grandmaster status is comfortably within everyone's natural ability. Also, that's exactly how people become grandmasters - through decades of practice.