How many hours of chess training to reach elo-1600?

Bale 2900 

Just guessing I'd say 2650 - average premiership player, 2350 average championship, 2050 average league 1, 1750 average league 2.

So if chess had the money and popularity of football then everyone over about 1700 would be a pro 

1600 should require no "training", just learning basic principles and playing whenever you feel like it. That is just my opinion of course. I define training as in: books, coaches, etc. I don't think anyone needs that to reach 1600.

You can have Bale 2750 and Ramsey 2710 

Tarrasch gave advice (long before ratings) to beginners saying that they should seriously train before entering OTB play.  That advice rings true more than ever considering k-factors.  Theoretically you could be an NM with a rating of 1500 for the following reasons:

1. Start with a very poor performance.
2. Abstain from rated competition for awhile, playing only training games and doing intense chess study and being coached for a couple of years.
3. Obtain NM norms, but due to K-factor your rating won't reflect your actual current strength as past performance gets factored in.

@GreatOogieBoogie NM in U.S.C.F. is achieved by reaching 2200 rating. So no, you could not, at least not U.S.C.F. You could get Master norms I guess, but even those require minimum rating.

three years ago my bullet rating was 1700+  but now <1600

one year ago may tactics rating was +200 than current.

but, i achieved my highest blitz rating 12 days ago.

Actually with the rule change now you'd just need the norms instead of the rating and norms.  To obtain a norm I thought you needed a certain performance at a tournament?  Since rating gains are limited and previous losses are baggage you'd need quite some time to make it.

http://chessimprover.com/chess-master-vs-chess-mastery/

If you CTRL + F norms or to get to the relevant part.

But the norms are for FIDE. The article you linked talks about the fact that NM is achieved by 2200 rating.

"To gain the master title, you must achieve a certain number of norms or you must achieve a certain rating"

They're comparing FIDE to USCF.  In FIDE you need the rating and norms. 

NM now has norms as well.

A 1600 blitz player on this site is almost certainly better than someone rated 1600 in standard.

Even more so now they increased the standard ratings.

@Scottrf Hmm. I guess I didn't know that. But norms are not required for U.S.C.F. NM, are they? I thought you could get 2200 and just be NM, no?

That used to be the case but has changed now I believe.

I'm not so sure about that. I still think it is just rating because I know of several examples in the last two years of people achieving the title by getting to 2200, so the only other explanation would be that they already had the norms.

How about you start a separaate thread for that instead of spamming here. btw Robben's overrated because hes kinda old now and not as good as he was in his prime.

comparing Ronaldo and Neuer is like comparing Long distance chess to bullet

Despite his age, he's in his prime.

It's more interesting than this overdone topic anyway.

i am not sure probably just 4-5 months. i started played chess for 6 months and play Blitz for less than 5 months and I am now 1600. I learned chess by myself and play.