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On the server I've seen quite a few 1800 players upset FMs and IM's. Although this is blitz it still shows that at this level they at times can be competitive. Also found that 1800 players seem to have good skills but just seem to enjoy the game.

Lots of advice on what to do ... but here's some on what NOT to do, based on the behaviors that I am currently not exhibiting to get better:

1) Not be  strong willed enough to win at all costs or get burned by a loss => rather lazily shrugging it off with an "oh well, I'll remember to not do that again" and still repeat the same mistakes. In other words,  being OCD about mistakes is CRITICAL. You need to approach being psychotic about winning all of your games to get onto the fast lane for improvement.

2) Not review enough instructional + annotated Master games because they take too much time and I'd rather just play with the time that I have for study.

3) Not have stronger players/coach constantly critique you OR even worse, being a little too thick-skinned to give a damn about what they're saying.

4) Being on the edge of the work/fun barrier.  What's fun for a titled player or an expert is not necessarily fun for me.  When all this studying/practicing begins to resemble work, I will tune out. I f I have to deep grind 5 candidate moves with tons of forcing lines for atleast 10-15 minutes before I can stand a chance of picking the right move to play, chances are I'm going to avoid the work and even more likely => I will stop having FUN.

In general, the fast improvers find it fun to go over tons of games, practice a heck of a lot,  eat/breathe chess so that it rarely resembles work.   

If you don't find this intensity of involvement fun, you're only kidding yourself pretending that you are going to last the long haul with the work needed to be put in.

I've found all of this to be true as well. I've been able to push past a couple of these barriers, but I still find chess improvement to be more work than fun. Good self-critical analysis, Shivsky... Small wonder that I gravitated toward the Weasels!

And thanks for the advice on how to win our tournament game! Haha... Now I know I need to put you in a situation where 30 mins. of calculating 4-5 plausible candidates is necessary. The 'calculation thing' is one that I proudly have been able to push past. I now love to calculate!

...now if I could only get good at it!  : )

Lots of good posts here. I like #55, Crazychessplaya's post, the best. Arf!

   i used to lose a lot more when i played for fun :D    before i realized how competitive online chess can be :D  

       then again sometimes having fun makes you play better

       ~ i don't see any reason why someone couldn't become a 'master' after studying and practicing a while ~ only took me 20 years to play as decent as i do now :D

    i'm a right-brainer tho so chess didn't come naturally to me.  except the shape of the pieces and patterns and moving pieces around appealed to my o.c.d.!   :D

Not with that attitude you won't.

Good advice! 

Well, an over 20 years old player getting to master strength is a rare occurence. An important thing that no one mentioned up to now is bad chess habits. Once you get them, because of a long period of non-theory, uncoached play it's very difficult to overcome them, escpecially when being an adult. So, I'd suggest to Ruy1Lopez to not put the bar too high.

Huh???

As I have always understood it, the Peter Principle reads:

"in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

While I have experienced this many times at many different jobs, I do not understand how this has to do with reaching Master level at the chessboard.

In other words, what this has to do with chess I have no idea...

Please, someone contribute some actual insight to this topic!

...and to all those who think that the OP should "not put the bar too high" I would say:

Who are you to tell someone where to put their personal bar???

Better advice might be: "Don't be afraid to set the bar very high, but make sure you understand that very few players ever get to that level - and more importantly, make sure you understand what it takes to get to that level before you embark on such a project."

But "Don't set the bar too high"???

The worst advice I've ever read. Just because you didn't reach your 'bar' doesn't mean you should discourage people from setting theirs at whatever level they want. If anything, you might ENcourage someone. But you would rather see no other human being surpass your level, right?

Ludicrous...

Set 'the bar' at whatever level you want. Then work hard to achieve it, knowing full well that no matter how hard you work, you might never get there. If you truly enjoy the work it won't matter. If you don't truly enjoy the work then you're in the wrong endeavor to begin with.

Dear Ruy1Lopez,

Please do not get disheartened by the comments here. Anyone can become a master. Onlything it needs a directed & focussed effort. Scattered efforts will lead us no where. You can visit http://chessthinkingsystems.blogspot.com/ and see how world champions have emerged.

Sorry... I did not find anything there about "how world champions emerged."

All I saw was a lot of product pitching.

Name one world champion that 'emerged' from your system.

Ruy1Lopez: there is advice to take and there is advice to ignore. jps7chess is trying to direct people to a product page. That's it. If you think the product can help you, then buy it. If not, then don't...

But please don't blindly invest money and time into chess improvement. Use the chess skills you already have to 'separate the wheat from the chaff' so to speak. Then you will be able to intelligently invest both time and money into your chess improvement. And at that point you will start to actually improve.

I agree with ChessCrazy22. But there are 11 links activated on the site regarding different chess thinking systems. Product links are mainly to make the site attractive. Plain text makes it boring to read.

 Once you get to the 1800s there are a lot of cheaters on the live chess server. Trust me!

COuple of things.  Quality, not quantity.  You don't need to study 4-8 hours a day.  You need AT LEAST an hour of FOCUSED and DIRECTED(as in not just random practice.  It must be directed at improving on something specific). 

If after an hour of training you aren't mentally tired you probably aren't working hard enough.  Remember you need to be 1% better everyday and if you are not mentally tired then you are not getting better. 

Last thing- don't let people tell you you can't do it. 

I don't fully understand it, but one method described to me by an administrator at another site involves intentionally creating short disconnections--short enough to be perceived by the server as lag, rather than disconnects.

To me, online ratings mean absolutely zero. So, don't even try to compare them to a real rating.

I play on ICC, but I do so for practicing certain aspects of my game, and don't worry about the rating that much. My rating there is a little lower than my real rating, but I know many people around my same real rating whose ICC ratings are hundreds of points higher or lower than their real ratings. I'm talking about for all time controls, by the way.

As for making master...why not? This idea that a person either has or doesn't have what it takes is not giving the whole picture. When I first started playing tournaments 15 years ago I was a very weak player already in middle school. And believe me, I was not talented...plenty of people in New York City would tell you that. You know what is the key factor to getting where you want to get to? You must keep improving.

This improvement doesn't need to be steady, and it doesn't need to be consistent. But, over a long period of time, you need to improve. Eventually you will find yourself reaching higher and higher.

As for myself, to illustrate: 

I reached 1000 USCF afer my first year of tournaments.

I reached 1400 USCF after my next year of tournaments.

I reached 1600 USCF after another 1.5 years.

I reached 1800 USCF after a further 4.5 years.

I reached 2000 USCF after a further ~5 years.

I have been 2000 USCF since December 2008, still working hard.

So it took me more than 12.5 years to reach USCF Expert. But you know what? I'm not done yet

Has the whole experience been frustrating? Hell yeah. But I constantly take in new ideas and ways to view chess. I would say that I didn't start to understand chess (even a little) until the summer of 2008. I have the knowledge of a master (and even more) but my practical play is not consistenly master-level yet. Once the lightbulb goes on fully, I will reach master.

As others have said, don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't do it. Because you CAN do it, if it's that important to you. It doesn't matter WHY you want to achieve your goal, it doesn't need to make sense...if YOU want to achieve this goal, you can make it happen. Just take a hard look at what parts of your game you do badly and work on them, but when you play tournaments accentuate your strengths. Don't fight against YOUR CHESS--something I did for far too many years.