How good at chess could you become without playing a single game?

but if you studied others games and watched people play online as well as doing tactics and studying chess books you could improve without playing?

Well, making analysis is like playing yourself. Analyzing someone elses game is fairly similar to playing against another person.

I guess the only difference is you don't have time pressure like you would OTB?

Anyway, I imagine a person could be a very strong grandmaster without ever playing a game if they did everything else besides play and they did it for many years.

But it's not practical, and a fairly bizarre scenario. No one should recommend this type of training.

Lol. Macer never actually played a game. He is truly Amacing

How good can you get w/o ever playing? Not very good. However then again, if you never played how would you know how good one is.

It's interesting to me how many people are saying you couldn't be very good.

How do you think 19th century / early 20th century players became so good without the internet, clubs, and years between tournaments?

Sure if all you do is solve simple tactic puzzles and watch videos you're not going to be very good. But if you do real work, comprehensive work, and lots of analysis, then you're going to be about as good as you'll ever be.

This is a good question!

I said after years of training without playing a game, they play 50 bullet, 50 rapid, 50 blitz, etc. After that how good would they be?

Yeah but you can't train without playing. Sooner or later you have to play. You could study and study and study, but eventually you have to put it on the board. You can't just train by reading, you read of a great opening, but sooner or later you have to train over the board. When you train over the board, that is playing.

It needn't be playing the whole game, but its still playing the opening. Then you train end games otb, and again that is not playing the whole game, but that is playing the endgame.

Playing is very much part of the training. So you cant really say training without playing. That has no meaning.

However if you say if they only read openings, read middlegames and read endgames, I don't think they would be bad, but they won't be great either. However their rise once they started playing will be fast.

nice. The whole point of this thread is to see the different opinions on a very unlikely but interesting event. Thanks to all for their input so far!

I agree if all you do is read, you won't be very good.

But if you do analysis while you read, and e.g. guess the move exercises with games from strong players, then functionally you're basically playing games. Not always from start to finish, but you're playing.

 yes of course they could analyse and watch games.

Well... that's an interesting question. Even though you don't have to play chess to learn chess, because you could just read a book or look at diagrams, the best way to improve will always be playing chess. You cannot really explore chess and the different possibilities of moves and strategies without playing. Reading alone cannot develop your perception of the chess board, therefore I believe you could learn chess and the techniques without playing, but it would be very difficult to improve from there ^^

You wouldn't call beating up on CompterEasy 86 times a day "games", eh Macer! 

Everyone learns things differently. Some learn fastest just doing the thing they're trying to learn over and over again, others want to watch tutorials, some want to read it from the books, one needs a teacher to learn anything, while someone else could learn a lot themselves. I doubt that learning chess without playing chess would be very efficient for the majority of people, but I don't see a reason why some exceptional talents couldn't become a GM level players by just studying through books and analyzing games of grandmasters. I don't think it's a viable option for majority, but crazier things have happened. Of course we will most likely never know, since it's hard to imagine someone wanting to become a really good chess player without ever playing chess...

They would have time management problems as JamesAgadir said, but they could be really good (>2000) from day one in daily. I am kind of an example of this. I had played very little chess before I started playing here, but I had read and knew about strategy and tactics. When I started playing, daily was pretty natural and easy to me, but when I started playing rapid, had huge problems with time management. Then, I started playing blitz to help my rapid game and I went down to 717 before I started rising and it took me lot of time to manage to pass 1000.

Everybody is different though, but I am sure they will have much easier time with daily and would probably do rather well.

Just saying... you can incorporate time management into your non-game training. Just use a clock and give yourself a time constraint. I've done this because I have time management issues, and it's helped me.

I realize training for years or decades without ever playing a game is pretty silly, but as a thought experiment it's interesting, and I still think the answer is a person can become nearly as good as they'll ever be if they do all sorts of training.

Of course it's not likely someone can be GM strength... no matter what they do.

But this is a thought experiment. A hypothetical. No one (and certainly not me) is recommending this is the ideal way to train.

As I explained, you can functionally replicate the processes of a game without actually playing a game.

I assume people who say "no way" are not familiar with some of the more difficult chess training exercises like thoroughly analyzing games on their own.

That's why I'm not saying as good as they can be. Definitely you have to play to be as good as you can be.

But lets say someone like Carlsen, who I guess we can all agree has some incredible natural aptitude for chess (yes he had to work, but what I mean is his work paid off better than everyone else's work)

So take a Carlsen type person, and have them do a lot of timed analysis... that's basically what a game is. I think such a person will be GM strength without having played a game.

Of course this would be a very silly way to go about it, and you can't reach your full potential without playing OTB chess.

The longest tourney I've been to was 4 days 10 rounds. One round we started playing at about 10am and my last game finished just before midnight. It's very difficult. There are a lot of practical things you learn, time management, energy conservation, and otherwise, but I don't think this would hamper someone 1000 or 2000 rating points  (instead of 2800 people are saying they will be 1800 or 1000, I think that's crazy).

Suppose someone who never played but only studied everything also got up to 3500 on chess.com's Tactics Trainer.  This person then decides to enter the Open Section in local major tournament and is paired up with a USCF Expert in the first round.  

How do you think he'll do in his first OTB game at G/90 d5 Sudden Death time controls against the 2000+ Expert?

I wouldn't be surprised at any of the 3 possible results.

I recently saw a guy sort of like that. Not exactly, but pretty close.

He mostly solved puzzles and plays crappy trap openings online. That's it.

I'm talking bad like the Englund gambit... an opening so bad I had to look it up the next day after I saw him play it, because I didn't know the name.

He actually beat two experts... even though he had dead lost positions. He got a provisional rating over 2100. Sort of a miraculous tournament for him... because his next tournament reality hit, and he lost almost all his games (playing mostly experts and class A players).

I guess this wasn't really your question though, you said the person studied everything. In that case they'd probably do better than this guy