What did it take for you to get your title?

An interesting question, but I wonder if most answers will be not too thrilling.

e.g. "I've read 50+ chess books cover to cover, I've spent 10,000+ hours training, and I play regularly in (real) tournaments."

And in my case, that wasn't enough, lol

If you want to se the progress very carefully, follow this blog: http://blog.chess.com/KaydenTroff

I think he's going to be gm some day.

I think the idea that if a person just puts in the time of xx hours and reads a certain number of chess books ( such books must be studied btw and not just read ) that they will become a titled player is a mistaken one. I have known people that did all these things and never rose above C, B, A class and some of them were obviously intelligent people with professions like MDs , lawyers, etc..... Its like believing that everyone who goes through the necessary hours of law school will pass the "bar" and become practicing lawyers , it just doesnt happen that way.

If that's directed at me, you got the wrong idea.  I'm saying (nearly) all titled players are studied players, not studied players are titled players.

I don't have a title of any sort. Other questions?

500 grand in unmarked bills

 What I said wasnt aimed at anyone in particular , just this concept that I see that many people hold that all they have to do is X amount of study/work and anyone can be a titled player. I think this concept is mistaken because many "fail" even after going beyond the X amount of work/practice. Its like school, if you take 100 people and they all study the same material for say 10 hours and are then tested over this material they will not all make the same grade and some will even fail. Only a few will excell ( = GMs ) and the very top one may score 100% and be a genius ( = world champ ) ! 

That is someone's asking price (in Euro) to give away a GM norm.

Do you know who I'm referring to?

Well, I will tell you to the truth. To be honest, a normal person cannot become a titled player (such as an International Master). It doesn't matter if they do no studying, 1,000 hours of studying or 10,000,000 hours of studying, or how many books they read, or even, unfortunately, what "approach they have to getting stronger". All of these things can help them significantly, but, to be quite frank, to become an International Master requires a huge amount of talent in addition to these things. Those little kids who you see topping the rating charts for their countries for their age groups aged 9 or 10? Half of them will fail to become IMs, not just because some of them will wither as they grow older and fail to improve further, but because half of them just do not have the necessary talent. It takes a lot of talent to become an IM, not just the right approach.

This concept of natural talent vs hard work (or nature vs nurture) has been debated for centuries. 

On the "natural talent" side of the debate, you have Mozart, Michael Jordan and Paul Morphy.

On the "hard work" side of the debate, you have Laszlo Polgar who raised all three of his daughters to be world class chess players, two of whom are grandmasters (Judit Polgar and Susan Polgar). 

Two great articles on the Polgar's and the nature/nurture issue are here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3294892/Queen-takes-all.html

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2010/08/nature-vs-nurture-is-there-such-thing.html

Most talented kids don't make it to IM because of all the things outside of chess that pull them away, not because they didn't have enough talent. 

 @NM Reb,

I respect your opinion on this matter, since from some of your other posts you have indicated that you are a self-made/self-taught NM.  What was your study and practice plan like?

And if innate ability is a requirement to get a title, how does one know whether they have it or not?  We hear about the likes of Morphy watching his father and uncle playing, at the age of 4, never having played himself, but pointing out missed mating opportunities.  So maybe someone with innate ability, after 2 or 3 months of serious playing like me, would be around 1800 or 2000, where an average guy like myself is around 1400?  I can't think of any other way this innate ability would manifest itself in someone who is new to the game.

EDIT: Where do you get this bold, all-encompassing generalization? Do you have documented proof to back up your claim?

For starters: I am wondering if you ever considered that not every kid (even in your own defined category) grows up wanting to get a chess title.

 What I am saying is that there is no  magical formula/recipe/study plan  that guarantees any particular level in chess. What works for me might not work for someone else and vice-versa. Some work at chess their entire lives and never break 2200 , and being an IM or GM is much harder than breaking 2200. My point is that many people fail and the higher they set their goal the more likely they are to fall short.

It took me 11 years to make NM 1973-1984 and since then I have been stuck between 2200-2300 not managing to break 2300 since 1984 ! I suppose I have reached my peak and now at age 57 dont really expect to improve, now I start fighting to not lose ground too fast. Before becoming NM I studied a LOT more than played , probably 70% of my time spent on chess was studying and 30% playing. That worked for me but someone else might do better playing more than studying. After making NM the ratio of study to play swung drastically in the other direction and since the internet I probably spend 90% of my time playing and only 10% studying.... if that much .  I think the easy access to a constant supply of opponents can easily be a hindrance as well as an aid to chess advancement if one doesnt manage it well. I think if the internet had existed in 1973 I would never have made NM because I wouldnt have spent the time studying that I did. Its too easy to play and/or waste valuable study time talking about studying and playing in chat rooms. 

You called it out, sir.

I can not answer about the way to the title, but I have some insight about 'chess talent' by hanging with (very) strong players. Most of the times, talent in chess can be spotted by the ability to see things fast and to recall details :

• I show a recently played OTB game to some guy who is 2200+, and in a fraction of seconds he sees the combo I spent 3 minutes calculating during the game,
• You show some typical endgame manoeuvre to a group of young chess players, then you set up exercises : the industrious youngsters solve the exercises similar to the examples you've shown, the talented young player solves the study with a twist...
• GM Cvitan plays a blitz game and at some stage he plays what seems like a dubious move...We think it was a lapse, so at the end of the game, we ask him - he sets up the exact position in a matter of seconds and show almost instantly the 4-5 moves tactical sequence which refutes our suggestion : that's GM talent...  

I should add that the ability to calculate fast and accurately is also a good sign of chess talent (not the only one, but certainly a good one ) 

Forums and chat rooms are how I stay connected during the day.  I can't have a chessboard on my screen at work ;)

@hicetnunc,

Your anectdote about GM Cvitan reminds me of something I read about recently.  Unfortunately, I can't remember where, so I can't credit the source.  But they had tested a person's ability to be able to recall chess positions, and they found that the ability was strongly correlated with the person's playing strength.  In other words, a strong player had better position recall than a weaker player.  But this only applied to positions that would normally occur in a game.  If a position was presented with pieces placed randomly all over the board, there was no correlation between the ability to recall and the person's playing strength.  This leads one to believe that the ability to recall positions is something that can be learned and improved with experience, and not necessarily an inherited skill.

You are referring to the experiment by Dutch master Adrian de Groot and published in 1965 as "Thought and Choice in Chess." You can read a summary of the work and findings here.

ADDED: There are more citations of works in psychology and chess in the same link in case anyone else is interested in how strong players think when playing chess in a clinical psychology sense.