How long would it take an average person to go from beginner to x rating?

http://www.chess.com/tournament/quads-i

There are so many learning tools-great learning tools available in today's world that I think a above average talented young person could be an expert by age 18.

This with 3 hours a day study.

Just have to use your resources wisely.

Nobody has mentioned the most important variable.  Is it a made for TV movie with inspirational music in the background?

The average person cannot become an expert at chess. Most who post here are above average in intelligence.

Correction, ponz.  Most who post are brighter than the OP.

An IQ of 150... but how many IQ points separate each standard deviation?

In any case, being extremely intelligent (ignoring the obvious... just being extremely good at succeeding at IQ tests) and being a genius are not the same thing.

A person could be extremely intelligent without being a genius and vice versa.

Also neither of those two things would necessarily translate to superior perfomance at chess - unlss one's specific area of genius was chess of course!

Fischer claimed he would be a genius in any field.

I'm sure he believed that, but despite his tremendous accomplishments in Chess, he was an absolute failure as a Human being. Just an illogically hateful man.

Actually, according to some recent research about Creativity, any person can become an expert in anything, but it takes 10,000 hours of focused, concentrated practice.  It does not just mean 10,000 hours playing Blitz over and over, but the 10,000 hours would be divided into studying different various aspects of chess.  And clearly 10,000 hours isn't some magic number but used to represent some fuzzy amount of time that it would take most people to achieve really a lot in that particular field (chemistry, writing, musicplaying, sporting, painting, chessing or whatever).

Plenty of people put 10,000 hours of practice into football and fail.

I'm not sure this is an apt comparison. There's just too many differences between chess and football. For example no 13 year old will ever make the premier league, yet multiple 13 year olds have become grandmasters. While talent will certainly affect your ability to become a great chess player, I think chess ability is more subject to environmental factors (i.e. training) than physical sports. While a kid of average athleticism who will grow to be only 5'3" will never make the NBA no matter how much work he puts in, I think a kid of slightly below average intelligence would have a decent shot at becoming a grandmaster if he devoted 16 hours a day to chess for the rest of his life.

Oh yeah, NBA = National Basketball Association for those unaware.

@55. He said 'anything'.

Looking at some of the sub 1000 players here, I think they could put in 100,000 hours and not be a GM.

People like to be told anything is possible. It isn't.

I know people at work who have put 10,000 hours in and are still useless.

The biggest issue with training is that the hours alone do not make a difference. The one, single, thing you always keep in mind when you're practicing ANYTHING is: what am I trying to get better at now?

I've been noodling around with my guitar for the last two years. I'm not becoming a better player at all, because I am not working towards anything in particular. The one month where I sat down with an instructional dvd and practiced those lessons over and over I improved greatly.

Step 1: declare your intent with your training. Step 2: practice those exact things you need to get better at. Step 3: analyze what you're still lacking in that area and make that the target of your next training session.

No matter if you're playing chess, music, doing calculus or programming, practicing something specific will make the most of your training. Practicing without purpose is a waste of time.

Chess is a game attracting kids with super-IQ. So all those superkids have an Iq far above normal.

13 year old GM´s are very few. It was Magnus, Karjakin, maybe Sam and a chinese or two. Not more than ten I guess.

I have a clubmate at 12. He, Andreas Tryggestad, is supertalented and studying hard , and might become GM in the age 14-18. He is at 2074 fide now. He is the 12 year class Norwegian champion now.

There are not one singel player in my club that started after 18 that is rated above Andreas, as far as I know.

After Magnus, Aryan Tari is probably going to be the second youngest Norwegian Gm ever. He is at 2487 now and 15 years old. I hope he will become GM at the age of 16.

Yeah, it sucks to have an Irish name that means handsome from birth... You have to carry around a gigantic swatter or a stick to keep the women at bay...  Éirinn go Brách!

Dude, recycling saves planets!

Yes, I realized it was silly, later, after further reflection, to call someone an expert because of 10,000 hours of practice!  Also I forgot the right factoid! The right factoid I meant to say was that 10,000 hours of focused practice enables a person to be truly creative about something.   Another angle here is that if a person drinks alcohol or smokes dope the whole time they are trying to become an expert, then they will probably forget every single thing that they tried to learn.  I apologize, HueyWilliams, for bringing up such a factoid again, and disturbing the otherwise pristine landscape of chess.com.  I hope that you will feel better soon.

The fact is that to get from beginner to X rating, it takes an average person Y amount of time (on average)

NKorea-2014, no need to call names.  I love this site because it is free of trolls and generally very polite.  There is something in your post that is incorrect but I politely will not point it out.  See?  That's how it's done.  If you can't help someone, just move along.  We are all here to improve our game.