I just started playing this year at the age of 30, is it too late to get good?

Hello, I was wondering if there's anyone else here in my same situation - you never played chess as a kid or even as a teenager, and only started playing as an adult. If so, what is your rating, and have you been improving much?

Yes, it's too late to get good.

Just kidding. It would help to start with a firm endgame foundation first.

While you learn basic tactics.

What is age? What the mind can conceive the body can achieve! 

Thanks for the responses Damon and Platolag. That's part of the reason I asked actually, I have been spending a lot of time lately studying tactics, and the endgame, but I'm starting to wonder if since I did start so late in life, maybe I'm investing all this time for nothing. I would like to hear from other people who never played as children or teens and how their progression has been.

Me... I'm 34 and I just started playing 2 years ago. I always knew how every piece moves but never did really play the game. And I've made a lot of progress..

Don't pay too much attention to my Live/Online rating here in Chess.com I haven't played that much but I hit a really low rating when I started and in very little time I was able to raise it to a more appropiate rating.

I play mostly in FICS, I've beaten 1600-1900 rating players there so I know that If I play more frequently here I can increase my rating... but Its not really important for me. I use Chess.com as a learning tool and it has really helped me a lot.

I joined this site at 35, I've played probably a total of 50 games before that. I guess it depends on what you believe is good. With limited study(like myself) you can b competitive and have fun. To master the aspects of the game takes quite a bit of time which is easier at younger age . Bit as previously stated the mind can do anything. Then of course there's natuals in any sport or game.

Not at all too late to get good, but too late to get great.

It is never to late to start a hobby like chess. If you regularly play and study you could become an expert player within a few years. 

I learned the bare-bones basics of chess when I was 14.  Unfortunately I dropped the game only months later.  Picked it up again -- at age 30!  ("Fischer fever," 1972).  (Interestingly enough,  I still remember some of the material from that little instruction book from age 14  - one of the main reasons it helps to start young!)

After a couple of years flub-dubbing around,  I realized I needed solid work in tactics.  I was already "into"  endgames;  I still remember how enchanted (Yes! The only word!) I was at discovering basic K+P endings, the Opposition, etc.

A modest amount of tactical work and calculation (solving puzzles on the bus commuting to work) led to a 150-point (USCF) rating jump in less than a year.  I never made it past the mid-1500s,  but it doesn't matter. I loved the game,  the competition,  the working with young kids in school programs,  the TD-ing.  Yeah,  I sometimes fantasized about being a world-class GM,  but the fact of the matter is you can have a fantastic experience with chess at any level.

Now, at 70, I'm enjoying 'learning'  the game all over again with the videos and other resources here.  Not that I'm going to get much better, but simply because learning and playing chess is invigorating, mind-expanding (crucial at 70!) and -- fun!

I'm 32 and I started about 5 years ago. Start with mastering tactics and endgames, you'll be fine.

I started learning at 29, from book.

Didnt have comp.,till I was 33.

Good will and free time is all you need for any game, inc. chess.

Thanks for the replies everyone, a lot of interesting comments here. Though I do find it a little disheartening that there has been no really high rated player commenting to say he started as an adult.

Disheartening, maybe, but not surprising.

I guess I would settle for a 2000 ELO rating. I have more time to spend than just a few hours a week, since I started I've been spending at least 4 hours per day, and often all I do is chess related stuff from when I wake up to when I go to sleep. When I started earlier this year, I had a 800 rating, but that was just because I barely knew how the pieces moved, didn't know about castling, en passant, pawn promotion, etc. So I've already improved 500 points in 7 months (as I'd say I'm at least a 1300 player now) The game does interest me but I worry that I'm going to spend all this time and a year from now I'm still going to be low rated just because I didn't play at all when I was younger.

I think you could even become a GM, providing that you have the natural talent and work hard for a long time, say 4 hours a day of training with quite a few tournaments

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/inspirational-adult-improvers

I'm 32 and started playing about 9 months ago. I've gone from 800 to 1300 in 10-minute blitz (and about 1600 turn-based), which I realize is not very good, but it's been good progress for me. I definitely have to study...well everything...but I lose a lot of games because of missing simple things in the endgame or tactics, so I guess it's time to get onto chess mentor and tactics trainer some more, but my mistake is to just keep playing and not spend enough time studying. I'm also still just making really silly mistakes in the middlegame at times (walking into forks, losing pawns, etc.). I feel like if I can at least clean up these really silly things and improve my endgame and tactics, I should be able to keep moving up a bit. But I'm also curious how likely it is, with dedication and quality study, to move up to something like NM or FM at some point. If there are others out there who have started 30+ and moved up, I'd love to hear it! :)

to cheech1981: see the link above your post.