How good can I expect to become?

It could be difficult, but talented people like Magnus Carlsen became a GM at the age of 13 years, 4 months, and 27 days, making him the third youngest GM in history.

Only a little. In turn-based (online) chess you can use databases, openings books and analysis boards, take as long as you want over a move, go off for a cup of coffee or a sleep and return to the game when you feel up for it, but these conditions do not exist over-the-board (OTB).

Some people say that chess.com ratings are inflated by about 300 points on USCF. This is a decent average, but it is only a very vague rule of thumb, depending on how much you use the tools allowed in online chess.

I use databases, chess books and the analysis board a lot, probably depending on them too much, so my online rating is at least 500-600 points more than my OTB rating would be. Another player might play online just like he would OTB, so his rating might be very similar to his OTB rating.

As jonnyjupiter pointed out, the playing conditions are so different that you really can't compare correspondence to real time chess, let alone online to OTB. I could come up with approximations of how USCF and chess.com ratings correlate, but my system would involve alcohol and a dart board.

--Fromper

For an average person 10,000 hours is what you will need to become an IM/GM.

I have not pulled this figure out of the air, Research has shown this to be about the average amount of hours required to master most things, a musical instrument, chess, etc

So the question really is do you want to waste 10,000 precious hours of life on Chess ??

LOL. Good old... "research" ... here's the article: Peak Performance, Why Records Fall (1994) from the New York times, which I believe was at the start of popularizing the 10,000 hours b.s.

For those who aren't going to slog thru the whole thing (though it's a good informative read IMO) here's a paragraph I'd like to highlight:

"...But many psychologists argue that the emphasis on practice alone ignores the place of talent in superb performance. "You can't assume that random people who practice a lot will rise to the top," said Dr. Howard Gardner, a psychologist at Harvard University. Dr. Ericsson's theories "leave out the question of who selects themselves -- or are selected -- for intensive training," ...

Which brings us back to what goldendog said in post 14 of this thread:

"Do the studies say that those who achieve a certain level of expertise typically have gone through 10,000 hours of study/practice OR that the average person who invests the 10,000 hours will achieve that expert level?"

Self selection is one of the largest problems in this kind of research. We know that in statistics self selection would invalidate a survey, but you cannot exactly select 20 children at random and force them all to study chess. 

If "talent" mattered then we would expect to see grinders who practiced harder than every one else getting to the top and top players who practiced less then everyone else. Yet neither of these pop out when the numbers are examined closely. 

There for talent would seem to be enthusiasm to practice very hard. 

The NY times article was published back in the early days of this theory. It was pretty controversial back then. It is much less so now. Here is a book surveying the latest research on the question:

http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Nukiwaza is not too far from the truth in his 10 000 hours rule to mastery - as i have said before.

The psychologist he has mentioned - Howard Gardener - is a legend in psychology and reponsible for the multiple intelligence theory.

Were his abilities exceptional? They certainly weren't as exceptional as the abilities of 1192 GM's currently playing chess.

Are there really three thousand chess prodigies? (taking into account IM's). He made some very strong accomplishments at a relatively young age, but certainly nothing outworldly spectacular.

@musikamole

I have no doubt your advice about private lessons would have helped me.

FWIW I think chess and music are very similar (maybe because I'm drawn to music as I am to chess and suffer from a similar lack of talent!) ... I think your possibilities with chess are quite the same at 50 as they would be for a 50 y.o. starting his first instrument. Sure, go for it if you've got the time and the inclination. No, you won't ever be as good as you might have been if you'd started as a kid, but if you've got any undiscovered knack for it at all you might get to quite an acceptable amateur level.  Shooting for C or D player is by no means too high, and in fact is almost surely too low.

I actually think my phenomenal lack of progress is a bit of an outlyer even taking the limitations of self-teaching into account... you can do better.

Well, in the two years at chess.com I raised my rating by 1000 points (not kidding!) with barely more than an hour devoted to the game a day. And this is real, cause I can play pawn down at 75% strength with anyone I know and still have the game too lopsided to be interesting.

Couldn't have put any better than that. Amazing post! :)

A friend I went to high school with said that it took him about 4-5k hours to become a fighter pilot.  Of that, quite a bit was not related at all to flying - survival school, physical training, Air Force policy and procedures, etc.

I suspect he could have mastered chess in about the same ammount of time.

JG27Pyth's "ABC formula" strikes me as very well thought

Maybe you could include fighting spirit, stamina and good nerves in 'talent', so that nothing is left out of the equation.

Anyone can become a grandmaster, though it is ofcourse more difficult if you have not been acquainted with chess patterns from a young age on.

I dunno how good you will be if you spend several hours a week on chess. It depends on much more than just the amount of hours you spend: it depends on how fast you learn/pick up new things, and also how you allocate your time. For example, investing all your time in your opening repertoire is probably fun, but it won't make you a much better player. It also depends on how much you know already; studying tactics intensively for a while may gain you a few hundred rating points in only a half year, but if your tactics are already up to scratch the effect may be negligible. The same goes for studying endgames.

If I do have to estimate your playing strength at 40 - considering you're 19 now - I would say somewhere between 1800 and 2200.

I would say that is how the learning curve in chess works - you may have a huge gap in your chess understanding, and when you study that subject intensively for a while, you might improve your play very much. But usually it is a slow endeavour.

I would say the main difference between a 1700 and a 1200 is that a 1700 sees more of what is happening on the chess board than he misses, and a 1200 misses more of what is happening on the chess board than he actually does notice. In other words, 1700-players simply make much less mistakes. There really is no other difference that applies to all 1700 and/or 1200 players.

I sincerely doubt it.

Why?

Why do you think there are only one thousand GM's out of 6 billion people? Do you think that absolutely anybody has the capacity to be in that 0.00000000000000000000001%?

I think you'll find what I said more reasonable when you read it in its context, namely as a reply to the original poster having heard that "it's virtually impossible to become a grandmaster if you don't start when you very young".

And that's likely close to the truth. It's like being an athlete. You don't just pick up Football when you're 19 and then end up playing for Spain in the world cup.