How good can I expect to become?

I think the apology should be public.

The Game of the Century usually refers to a chess game played between Donald Byrne and 13-year old Bobby Fischer in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City on October 17, 1956. It was nicknamed "The Game of the Century" by Hans Kmoch in Chess Review. Kmoch wrote, "The following game, a stunning masterpiece of combination play performed by a boy of 13 against a formidable opponent, matches the finest on record in the history of chess prodigies."^[1] (Others, such as Larry Evans,);[1], have offered different games as candidates for the "Game of the Century" sobriquet, such as the game between Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov at the Wijk aan Zee Corus tournament in 1999.)[2] The term "Game of the Century" is a bit hyperbolic. Byrne's play (11.Bg5?; 18.Bxb6?) was weak; had a strong grandmaster rather than a 13-year-old played Black, it would still be an outstanding game, but probably not the Game of the Century. Many players consider the game inferior to later games of Fischer's, such as his stunning win over Donald's brother Robert at the1963 U.S. Championship.

Donald Byrne (1930–1976) was one of the leading American chess masters at the time of this game. He had won the 1953 U.S. Open Championship, and would later represent the United States in the 1962, 1964, and 1968 Olympiads.^[2] He became an International Masterin 1962, and would likely have risen further if not for ill health. Robert "Bobby" Fischer (1943-2008) was at this time a promising young master. Following this game, he had a meteoric rise, winning the 1957 U.S. Open on tiebreaks, winning the 1957-58 U.S. (Closed) Championship (and all seven later championships he played in), qualifying for the Candidates Tournament and becoming the world's youngest grandmaster at age 15 in 1958. He won the world championship in 1972, and is considered one of the greatest chessplayers in history.

In this game, Fischer (playing Black) demonstrates noteworthy innovation and improvisation. Byrne (playing White), after a standard opening, makes a seemingly minor mistake on move 11, losing tempo by moving the same piece twice. [his bishop]

Oh God Costelus enough. Seriously. No 1900 player would EVER move his bishop twice in the opening when there are other developing moves?

Are you insane?

Costelus likes to accuse.

I suppose a corollary is that membership in his accused group doesn't carry the weight it once did.

Yes, although only among those that are familiar with that reputation.

What strikes me about this thread is that people forget a very key component of rating- that a rating only measures your relative strength against others in your pool.

If 2200 was a set bar, I would think it would be much easier to attain this via hard work than what 2200 really represents. The reality is the bar is always fluctuating, the skills of a 2200 20 years ago are a little different than today- i.e. with reduced time controls endings become less important and with computers opening theory becomes much more important.

When setting goals it is better to focus on the concrete, i.e. I want to read Bronsteins "Zurich 1953" and play through all the games or I want to learn the main variations of X opening or how to mate with bishop and knight.

Another thing about progress- even if you do put 3 hours a day, frequently in the near term you will see no improvement whatsoever. Myself, I have found that the harder I work, the worse my results in tournaments.

Only later when I took a break and came back did I find any tangible improvement in my play.

What's not concrete about saying "I want to raise my rating to over 1800 by the end of 2010". It's specific, measurable, and time-bound.

As goals go, it's ok. But I think it's better to think about how you wish to improve, and then make goals centered around that, where you have control over the entire goal. Let's say that you identify endgames as a weakness. You can have as your goal to go through Averbakh's entire Basic Chess Endgames. Or maybe you want to go through Smyslov/Levenfish's famous Rook Endings, if you identify that as a weakness. (That book is extremely dense). The problem with ratings is that it's such an easy number to look at, but what you're really probably interested in is getting better, which is less measurable.

actually I'm unaware of the reputation and even his initial accusation looked a little outlandish before the person even responded to the attack...I mean, I didn't get the impression the Art poster was trying to inflate his ego in the first place. 

It's not an accuse, it's just my opinion: I can't believe that an 1900 player can have a blitz rating of about 1200, losing to players rated under 1000! I base my belief on the fact that ALL the 1900+ players I know have a blitz rating of at least 1600. Of course, I don't buy at all the idea that "I suck at blitz, my blitz games show my ignorance of opening principles, I overlook simple tactics, yet on standard time control I am 1900+". For exactly the same reason I don't buy the idea of anonymous players who emerge from nowhere and display a super-gm strength while playing online.

If you're familiar with Costelus then you'll know that he's actually directly accusing the member in question of cheating.

My blitz is much worse than my standard though.

Which is much lower than your CC rating.

Using super Costelus logic I now deduce that you are cheating. Your ban and subsequent execution will take place shortly.

Fair point, although lack of credibility is still no excuse for outlandish accusations.

The accusation was more serious than "I don't believe you have the rating you say you have. You're making it up to look good".

It was actually "You're a cheater".

It is absolutely possible, but hard. The first problem is time - one needs to practice and study regularly to improve. The second problem is priorities - if you're thinking all day about your deadline, or that you have to pick up your kid from school, it's highly unlikely that you will be as motivated as a 12-year old nerd who has no life except as on the chess board. However, quoting one song, "if you want it, you can get it - this is life".

 I like the specific, measurable and time bound, but it is not static. All you really measure is your degree of improvement within the time versus your pool of players.

How dissapointed you would be  not improving your rating despite improving your overall play. Generally this is not an issue of course, but in the OP's case- if you want to estimate where you could be in chess strength by age 40, don't forget that the quality of play etc.. will have changed significantly since you first set your goal.

This is advice to avoid burnout, which in any long term plan for self improvement is a frequent hobgoblin. My .02 is that the vast majority fail to achieve master because they just cant keep at it. Ask them to study 3 hours a day for two months, no problem- keep it up for 5 years? Do it at the expense of better paying work or a family life?

IM Donaldson is very strong player, who has contributed a lot to US chess, in his case I am sure he will get his GM title, but if he doesn't it will be because he altered his priorities along the way.

I think that in a big enough pool the variability of the ratings is likely negligible and that they can be considered a valid and reliable measure of improvement over time.  As long as you understand what trends, such as inflation, are at play and adjust your goals accordingly it should be a perfectly reasonable benchmark against which to measure yourself.

Short of an exodus or influx of players at one end or the other of the skill spectrum I expect you'll find that a change in rating, compensated for inflation, correlates well to a change in performance.

Just to be clear: I never accused that player of cheating and I have no suspicion about this. So, please ask Kupov about his motivation and evidence.

You have no integrity, posting something like that when I offered to PM you my name so you could check my USCF over the board rating (which takes about 5 seconds).  Unless you think an over-the-board rating can be faked? 

You basically took an on-point comment that wasnt in any way boasting (more like self-depricating) and for an inexplicable reason chose to assume I might be lying, and conducted a pathetic "investigation" by looking at one blitz game. 

The accuracy of my original post is pretty much proved by the following link, where by commenting on one of my IM friends games at Chessgames.com a few years back, we reconnected after many years out of touch.   http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1316425

Anyway, I'm done with you.  My post was just intended to illustrate the obvious point that people have different native ability levels, with my IM friend obviously having a vastly higher native ability level then I.  If I had known a troll like you was lurking, I never would have bothered.