Road to Grandmaster

ChessBase article: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6725

I missed that article. Too busy to read yesterday.

Congratulations on landing your own article on chessbase.com.

1678 blitz? Way to go Grandmaster :p

I must be the only person aiming for FM.

If you want to become a grandmaster you need talent. If you don't have the talent, all the studying that you are doing is in vain. I hope you can prove me wrong.

2300 Fide Elo is required for the FM title. No norms or anything, just 2300 elo, and you are FM.

People have no idea how hard it is to get a 2000 fide rating. Most club players never get passed 1800.

I Have seen some talented players, but like 99% never get passed the 1800-1900. In most cases they are used to win games with tactical pressure, but once they meet some strong players who don't make (small) mistakes they stop improving.

In fact most club players with a +2000 rating are older experience players who played for years on club level. Some club players i know reached the +2100, but once they got older they dropped a lot of rating. Just saying it is not that simple and logic as some may think it is.

I think you need to keep this rating for 30 games - at least it used to be that way...

From chessbase:

Now Will is attempting to improve from a Class A chess player to a grandmaster, and proposes to do this without failing his degree (an MSci Joint Honours in Physics and Chemistry), without dropping his other hobbies (guitar, Go, Mandarin Chinese and more)

Good luck with that 25:1 odds was very generous considering this.  Yes, slow and steady will be the only option, I'll be sure to check back in 20-30 years to see how you're doing.

It is interesting though, assuming your interest doesn't fade, I wonder if the brain is able to make meaningful improvement after a certain point.  The graphs on that article seem to follow along with the idea of a ~8 year curve for progression in chess after which improvement is incremental.

No kidding, these numbers are way too ridged.  Every player is different in what ratings are achievable after a given amount of practice.  Regardless of strength though, notice the class A club player and the world class GM will both see a similar rating plateau after which only small gains seem to be possible.

I am sure you never once looked up an opening line, never studied basic endgames, have never read any annotated games- You just sat down and played and it all came to you by osmosis.

Yes, pretty much sums things up

Hey! Solving studies definitely counts as "study"!

I did notice that on his blog, our intrepid GM-to be seems to be following a good program to develop chess skill. I will be interested to see if the less is more approach might work well in keeping a steady rise in rating.

Whether he does or doesn,t do it he is certainly providing a lot of interest in chess outside the normal small 64 square world and that is no bad thing, William Hill are the biggest bookies in the UK and the papers will pick ths story up.

He also does not look geeky like most chess players, and that will smash a few stereotypes, so come on get behind him.

Go for it I say.

Wonder what odds they would give for him doing it in 5 years.

Going from Class A to Master seems like a tough enough step. Get there first then determine if you still want to pursue GM status. :)

I wish you well...

Jerry 

see, u hve to also have life skills like me. i can swing the girls as good as i can swing bishops on the board. But im nooooooooooooooot neeeerdy  lol nerds are the people who wear giant glasses and have teeth, and eat carrots constantly, nd do no sports at all. (sorry thats stereotypical)

As opposed to all you cool people without teeth.

Yeh? I hear this a lot, and please tell me what exactly makes you believe that a person of average chess talents can earn a grand master title starting late in life when there are thousands of players who (some even playing chess for their livelihood) are unable to break out of the international master level.

Lets not even talk of those FM/NM/CM half wits.