from Silman's web site
Q: Why didn’t you ever get the grandmaster title?
A: Getting the title calls for a tremendous amount of talent, or a tremendous amount of work. I don’t have the talent to pick the title out of thin air, so complete devotion to chess would be the only way to accomplish this task. The usual way that guys like me get the grandmaster title is to play in several round robin (gm-norm) European events a year. You might bomb in four or five in a row, but eventually the stars will be in alignment and a norm will come your way. Then you repeat the process again and again until you obtain the required three norms. Unfortunately, I have interests outside of chess and am not willing to put in the necessary energy to accomplish this goal. In fact, it’s hard to get me out of my house! Having me fly to Europe over and over just isn’t going to happen.
So I decided to read The Amatuer's Mind again to try to affirm those positional concepts that Silman tries to stress so much. This book really is amazing. It's so easy to read, and every example is explained so well. This has to be one of the best chess books ever written for the amateur player. Why is it that Silman never became a grandmaster? His positional understanding seems so good. How come he never became that strong of a player professionally?