Guy starts chess at age of 20, is there the possibility he will ever achieve GM?

The brain of a 20 or 30 year old is not the same as the brain of a little kid. 

A little kid will learn in few months what an adult person will learn in many years. Not to mention the fact that for obvious reasons a little kid has much much more time to dedicate to chess than an adult. 

To have the chance of becoming a GM you need 

- To begin at an early age

- Have a good coach

- A lot of hard work, patience and perseverance

- At least a minimal amount of talent

Then MAYBE you can make it to GM. 

A person that suddenly decided that at 20 years of age he will start learning chess has literally zero chances of becoming a GM. He can become a good player, but nothing close to a GM level. 

Talent+coaching+effort+time=GM

"A person that suddenly decided that at 20 years of age he will start learning chess has literally zero chances of becoming a GM"

I would say close to zero, rather than "literally zero." There are lots of strange possibilities out there, but it would take massive luck for it all to allign in just the right way. There are probably no examples of someone starting at 20 becoming a GM, but then, not that many people would truly try to do it in such circumstances, so the interpretations of this data are debatable. So there are limits to what we can know about this kind of question. I would say that sports analogies are not effective here, because while chess has physical aspects to it, they are minimal when compared to physical sports.

So the chances of a 20 year old becoming a grandmaster are 2 percent? That's one out of 50. I dont think that's impossible. A few years ago a friend of mine and myself went to the horse track and she bet on a 50 to 1 horse. She made over 500 bucks and we both thought this 2 percent thing is easy.

Of course it is possible. Whenever someone says, "It's impossible to become good at *insert activity* starting at *insert age*", you know they just repeat the popular narrative used to justify one's laziness. There was a Japanese guy who climbed up Everest at the age of 80+, and that guy hadn't had any serious climbing experience in his previous years, just a few "test runs" on smaller peaks. Instead of giving up and voluntarily assuming the role of an old useless retired cowboy, he said, "I'll get it done", and he did.

You can get a GM title posthumously...

YES.

Don't spam yo.

Anyways,you just might need a coach,practice on the tactics trainer and lessons.K?

Quoting it two times counts as spamming too, you know?

lfPatriotGames wrote:

cjxchess16 wrote:

In my opinion, your chance of becoming a GM will decrease by roughly 3.2% every year later than age 5, so for a 20 year old the chance of becoming a GM is 2%, which is indeed almost impossible.

So the chances of a 20 year old becoming a grandmaster are 2 percent? That's one out of 50. I dont think that's impossible. A few years ago a friend of mine and myself went to the horse track and she bet on a 50 to 1 horse. She made over 500 bucks and we both thought this 2 percent thing is easy.

Krudsparov

Lol, since when does 2% constitute nearly impossible!! 0.00000002% maybe. At 2% if just 1000 adults gave it a go we would have 20 GMs.

"For this to happen you'd have to have some 20 year-old with Fischer's level of talent, who ignored chess as a child, and then suddenly found himself (not herself, as women wouldn't be this foolish) in a position to train all the time, ad to WANT to train all the time."

Yeah, see, the thing about this is, the kind of person who would be motivated and intelligent enough to get really good at chess as an adult... probably would have already picked up the game. Given how popular of a game chess is, it's extremely unlikely that a person into intellectual pursuits would never play chess or learn the rules until they were 20. Even non chess players have probably played chess a number of times before they turned 20.

But if somehow, a person managed to avoid chess for so long, despite being the kind of person who would like a game like chess and be studious enough to study it for hours a day, then in that weird scenario they could perhaps become really good at the game. Of course, given how hard chess is, it's always much more likely that they wouldn't become really good, but that goes for all of us.

The only way a 20 year old could have a chance of becoming a GM is if he has great talent, a great coach and gives up everything in life except chess. 

No family, no job, no hobbies, no sports, no social life, just countless hours of studying chess every single day for many many years. 

Then maybe one day he will achieve the level of a GM. 

And let' s be honest, who is going to be willing to give up everything in life at 20 years of age to start a chess career? No one. 

Conclussion: It is impossible to become a GM if you started chess at 20

Yes, the person would need to devote a huge amount of free time to chess. That's a given.

"but WHY it would be done sure is."

Perhaps a love of chess, and a love of constantly discovering new ideas.

Yes? No? Maybe so? I don't know.

oldest GM was 70+

Hate to disagree. But I heard one player was 88 when he got GM title.

Do you have the name of that player?

Give me a minute.