not everyone can reach 2000

I have met people who have done this, for years, and they have not improved.

They're not stupid people by any means, and they know how to study. I don't know why they don't improve. Maybe the same reason I will not improve to 2500.

I've also met kids (under 14) who are over 2300. They don't seem to work so hard. They have coaches, but work maybe 2-3 hours a day. Some people treat it as a 2nd job, hire multiple coaches, and work 6 hours a day and will not be 2300.

If you start with the premise "anyone can be 2000" then what you conclude from your observations will be biased. I don't know what conditions, if any, would make it possible for most or all people to be 2000. To be honest I haven't met enough people. I assume you haven't either.

So we're left with statistics... like a rating of 2000 is in the 90th percentile, and the obvious fact that not everything is for everybody.

And forgive me for the bias, but it seems very difficult for young people to wrap their head around the idea that improvement is not always possible. When someone is young, they literally improve at everything, even month to month... everything, even their height lol.

So I can understand how the idea of non-improvement can be literally incomprehensible. I understand from a personal standpoint too, as years ago I stubbornly argued the other side of this with an adult. "If practice doesn't yield improvement, then they must have practiced incorrectly!" heh.

There are two actually.

"2000 is possible for everyone who tries, therefore people who don't reach it aren't trying" -- this is the first. Whether or not it's possible for everyone is the topic of discussion, not something you can assume to be true.

"2000 is possible for everyone, therefore that it's not possible for everyone is false (a rumor that should not be spread)" -- this is the 2nd, and for the same reason.

"Based off many observations" is rather comical in this case. The observation is that most people who play tournament chess regularly are below 2000.

My personal belief is that 2000+ (even 2200+) is attainable by merely mastering the fundamentals.

Learning how to use your rooks, understanding how to restrain and attack backward pawns, maneuvering against pinned pieces, properly evaluating exchanges, improving (or exchanging away) bad pieces, understanding things like tempo and initiative and pawn structures and . . . well, et cetera, and so forth.

Stuff that many coaches and books teach.

I play at the 2000+ level and, honestly, I feel that I still have much to work on before I've mastered these fundamentals. But I also feel that it's all just a matter of learning, studying, and practicing these things—and not a matter of personal talent or ability.

I also feel there's a difference between being familiar with such concepts, and having trained with such concepts in mind. There's a difference between reading about IQP positions in a book and saying, "Huh! I learned something new!" then going back to playing (which is something that a lot of players do), versus having a master-level coach who will drill you for a full month on nothing but IQP positions, until he/she is satisfied that you've mastered the concept.

Granted, not everyone has the time or resources to be coached regularly, so . . . For me, chess books are the next best thing.

For most of the players who are struggling to breach the 2000+ zone, though, I'm betting the problem isn't a lack of talent or ability, but gaps in their positional/tactical knowledge that can be fixed with the right guidance or instruction.

Well binary, you accuse me of taking things too far out of context. But you have to admit, you're doing that very thing, here.

""2000 is possible for everyone who tries, therefore people who don't reach it aren't trying" -- this is the first. Whether or not it's possible for everyone is the topic of discussion, not something you can assume to be true."

There's a weaker way of stating this, though. If one notices how many excuses people make for not trying, it's not unreasonable to suggest that they are playing chess at a level way lower than their actual capacity (because they aren't putting in the time/work to get to that capacity). If one doesn't succeed at something, how one tried is going to be a large topic of that discussion, even if not the only one.

""Based off many observations" is rather comical in this case. The observation is that most people who play tournament chess regularly are below 2000."

Well, depends on what observations you consider relevant. Perhaps great artists know a majority of great artists who became great artists through a certain method. The fact that the majority of people are not great artists wouldn't seem to be a relevant "observation," there; it would seem closer to a random observation.

""If practice doesn't yield improvement, then they must have practiced incorrectly!""

Well just from a logical standpoint, if you're changing something about your game that caused you to lose more often, then, pretty much necessarily, you have to improve. So if you don't, then you have to question whether you actually changed your game, because otherwise there is a contradiction.

I guess you could say maybe the human brain just doesn't have the capacity to remember certain things you learned, etc, but logically, it's actually not completely crazy when you consider what practice/learning literally means.

I broke 2000 in blitz in another site. Does that count?

I dread to get involved with this discussion AGAIN, but ...

I want to ask some of threads strong players if its not possible that for an improving player to learn/ or improve on an individual skill - through book teaching or coach lessons--

and in the act upon focusing on THAT fundemental do much worse on other skills.

is this problem, more about temperiment (some people have it and other don't), age ("older" minds find it harder to accomodate a more complex thought process), or perhaps time (if you have sufficient time to play, and review you can minimize losing current skills)...

I think it was Heisman that says in one of his guides to the chess improvement, that Strain is never good.  but its been awhile.  and so Much of his material is beyond a pay wall.

I can't remember what his advice for getting beyond that.

and... BTW.  Yes.  if feels like I often have this problem.  If I think about playing for pawn weaknesses, my place my peices awkwardly and they trapped. If I am playing for peice activity- the opponent locks up the whole game and its all about pawn breaks at JUST the right time.

2000 online seems awesome to me.

In fact, it is personally my Big goal- as I know I will not be able to regularly tournaments for many years....

I think this long thread is still relevant to the hope to be 2000 (online)

sure 200 push ups AND troll on the internet!

thats an awesome ability to many things at once , right there'. GJ.

They should get their own bathrooms.

I guess I'd say in reality it's not so black and white. The techniques and information we learn (even really good things like the center) are just approximations. If you apply good information incorrectly you preform badly... but in chess even the best players are guaranteed to do this at least a few times a game, in some small way.

So it's easy to say if you learned from a mistake you'll automatically improve, but that mistake can easily be substituted for a different mistake in very subtle ways. Improved observation turns into bad time management. Improving upon overvaluing pawn structure turns into overvaluing initiative. etc.

It may sound odd to say you can practice the right things in the right way without improving, but I think it's intuitive to all of us that there are upper bounds for everyone. Personally I don't know whether or not 2000 is a common limit. I just don't like when people assume it's obviously not.

This can be a nasty sort of bias though. Lets turn it to chess.

To begin with, some of the best coaches don't accept any student. They have age and rating requirements before a student is even considered. Also people who are bad at a thing usually don't pursue it, and when you improve at something reliably, it's both practical on your time and more fun.

So to begin with, a group of highly skilled people already have this sort of self selection bias. If they want to say anyone can do it, they need to find people who don't like chess because they were bad at it. And 2ndly, if the somewhat miracle method was only tried on the young and talented, then that observation is fairly useless when the discussion is that anyone can do it. 

This is also my impression.

But I'm very close to 2000 (right or wrong I believe I play at this level, I just need a few more tournaments).

So really, I do tend to agree.

But I also look around... and uh-oh, everyone says this. "To be ____ you only need the basics"

But wait, in some cases it's a 2650 player saying to be 2550 is just basics, and in other cases it's masters saying 2000-2200 is just basics. Meanwhile there's this 1600 adult asking me questions and I'm struggling to help him understand... and I'm realizing there's a lot of knowledge I use automatically and take for granted.

---

So more in line with reality, and not these personal impressions, I would say the basics are the rules of movement for each piece, the basic checkmates, the fundamental tactical patterns (like fork) and the opening principals. These are the real basics, and they will reliably get you to maybe 1200.

Things I consider basic like constantly comparing the piece activity between end variations (piece by piece) is not basic, and takes a lot of visualization and analysis experience. In many positions, it's eventually as natural and easy as noticing 2+3 > 1+2 ... but it's not a basic skill, and I wouldn't even mention such things to a 1200 player.

TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE POWER TO DO IT:

PLEASE MODS

LOCK THIS STUPID THREAD.

Yeah, it's common for learning something new to throw you off. In my experience it's a matter of time and playing more tournament games trying to use the new idea(s).

But for someone to give you a really good answer they'd have to be an experienced coach / educated in pedagogy. Different people experience different difficulties.

When I first read about Silman's imbalances the ideas were new and exciting to me. My next many games were TERRIBLE as I tried to incorporate new ways of thinking into my play.

In the end, I had read him too early, but the various ideas always stayed with me and I think they've been beneficial to my thinking and play.

"And because willingness and preparedness are not so hard"

Well I actually wouldn't agree with that premise at all. Perhaps this question would be an interesting (though relevant) debate in itself.

"The fact that you broke 2000 does not show that "anybody" can do it. It demonstrates that you have accomplished something that is rare, even with proper training. You have done what almost 90% of competitive tournament chess players never accomplish, despite their best efforts.

Congratulations again! "

This reminds me of a sort of bias in which people like to feel that they are exceptional. They like the idea of thinking they just have something that other people don't. That can lead to people thinking this is true even when it's not. They don't consider alternative explanations of their success because they're not as ego-friendly.

On the other side of the coin there are people who want to be able to maintain hope of accomplishing something even if it's extremely unrealistic.

Plenty of bias on both sides of this issue. And, binary might get this one, we see one sports team versus another :)