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

Doofuss. Who is he or she or whatever doofuss is ??

I think I DO SPEAK for everyone. You play chess because you enjoy the game, winning every game would be great, but it can not and will not happen, and would also be boring. You try to improve as you go along. But you do not have a million dollar trust fund so you play whenever you have time. If you reach the summit, fantastic ! If not, great also ! If you catch a fish, great. If not, buy one on the way home from the supermarket. 

"Good" is such an incredibly flexible term, applicable in many different contexts. Can you get so good that you amaze family and friends with your ability to wipe them out on the board? Yes. I am already that good, and my USCF rating seldom climbs near 1300. (My family and friends not being very "good" at all).

Can you get so good that you are respected at your local chess club? Maybe--depending on who plays there. But if the majority of the members are under 1600 and you dedicate a lot of time and practice and study to chess, then you can easily get good enough to hold your own against them and to play some very creditable games.

Can you get so good that someone writes an article about you in Chess Life or that you topple an IM or GM in an upset victory at the World Open or that you can quit your job and devote your full time to chess? No. Not in a million years, not ever, don't even think about it.

In the final analysis, though, your goal should not be to get good. It should be to get better--better than you were last week or last month or last year. You should strive to understand more, to see more. Unlike "good," which is a relative term, "better" (at least as applied to yourself) is an absolute term. And getting better--no matter if you're a total beginner or Magnus Carlsen--is all you can ever ask of yourself.

I've been playing 6 months and have started appreciating patterns on the board, but am not serious enough to hit a book and formailze my understanding of the game. I reckon I could move up 300 points easily reading books but lack the motivation. I guess it'll only get harder to stay motivated at 30. Otherwise, only 64 squares, 32 pieces ... ;)

"The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them."  John Gierach, from "Fly Fishing the High Country"

But fly fishing is so much more thrilling! I used to study weather patterns as an intern in college ... that's one area where I worked my a$$ off to understand patterns. I guess depends on how interesting you find the gig.

bg424jg wrote:

"The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them."  John Gierach, from "Fly Fishing the High Country"

How do you know you are a 1300 player now? 

Do you play in another site and you have that rating?

Because here you only 9 games in "standard" against 1100 average opposition. Those are too few games to get an accurate rating.

To get good for what?  become a GM?  mmmmm maybe.....just play chess as a good entertainment

I just came 3rd out of 30 players in a 5 minute chess.com blitz game using my doofus style. Every now and then the slot machines kick out the coins.

it is impossible to start chess at 30 and become a grandmaster

I guess if Jake Barnett would play chess, he would put everyone in the shade. But he's too busy expanding on Einstein's theories and he's only 12.

"Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster by age 14, you can forget about it." - Viswanathan Anand

Vishy didn't exaggerate by much, but if you're already an adult by the time you start getting really good at chess, you wont reach the highest levels. I'm sure that at age 30, you can still become a chess expert (2000+ elo).

So yes, you can become very good, but don't expect to be challenging Anand or Carlsen for the World Championship title at any point. I started playing at 19, and by then it was probably already too late for ME.

Depends on

1. your definition of "good"

2. do you have an inborn talent?

3. how much you are willing to study?

4. how much you enjoy chess?

5. are you willing to learn from your mistakes?

Wrong. Impossible is nothing...

Agree with Hassen. I doubt you will become a GM, but starting @ 30 years old is totally fine. I know one guy (didn't start playing until he was middle aged) and he is around 1900 2000s rating now after a few years. He will definitely improve.

I guess you could become a grandmaster, but I doubt you would ever become a top grandmaster, one of the best in the world.  I don't see how a guy that has been playing chess from 30 years old could beat the top guys that have been playing since like 6 years old.

You seem to meet all my requirements to have potential to be a very good player. You could rise over 4 years to  become an expert 2000 and then you have potential to be a master.

You need a high rated player to give advice what to study at this stage of your game.  Tactics Trainer for sure. You are lucky there are so many resources available to help you rise up in your chess abilities.

You are already at a stage higher than most chess players ever reach! This suggests a great future!

I don't see why not. I frequently beat players who have been playing twice as long as I have. Length of time playing is not really relevant because the player who started at age six will peak and then decline. There is an upper limit to ability, so it is not like they keep improving over their whole career.

Diminishing returns.  Every incremental bit of improvement becomes exponentially more difficult and time consuming to obtain, and mental capacity begins to decline around your mid-30s.  The confluence of these two issues means that late starters will inevitably top out at a lower peak rating than those who started early.

When you read these replies, keep in mind that a 1600 player (pretty low by competitive standards) will still look like a master to a purely casual player. A "good chess player" to the general public means maybe 1400 and up.

Can you get good? Absolutely.

Expert? Probably, but it'll take work.

Master? Maybe. Expect to do little else with your free time.

FIDE Master? Possible, but unlikely. Many people try and few get there.

Realize that a class-A or even class-B player is still a very strong player, who sees the game entirely differently from the casual player. 

Disclaimer: I don't intend to dissuade you from your goals, or even cast them in a bad light. You can and should pursue your goals, and believe they're possible. I wanted instead to try to relate "good" to ELO rating to make sure you realize how high you need to get your rating to be considered "good". It's not as high as one might think.