What is the maximum acheivable ELO for a newbie

Let's take a person with a very high level of IQ who is but new to chess. He is given training by an expert on chess for 3 days with general principles of chess strategies, tactics and principles of opening and end game. He is not given opening repertoire. If he plays a tournament (not a blitz or time constrained one) with this exposure he got, what is the maximum ELO rating he can attain in that tournament. I guess it cannot be more than 2200, whatever be his IQ. comment.

1500? Explanation isn't going to help much, he needs experience and concentration so that he'll stop dropping pieces.

I think intelligence has more to do with chess than one might think, so I'll go for about 1800, given the time constraints are generous. The shorter the time the worse the new player will perform I believe.

2200?  lol, no, that's way too high.  World class players who made Grandmaster at a very young age took years to get to 2200.  (maybe not years of tournament play, but years of experience/instruction, etc).

IQ is nice, but intelligence is very broad and chess skill is very specific.  Their concentration would matter a lot IMO.

Also, I'm guessing you mean playing strength because depending on the tournament even winning all your games may not get your rating to reflect your strength.

I'd consider 1300-1400 an exceptional case.  But with only 3 days of exposure to chess, I think 9 out of 10 geniuses would still be around 1000 rating.

But 3 days? That's nothing. I don't think I've ever seen a chess player of any age who managed to get to 1800 a year after learning the rules.

Actually, I can think of two examples of people learned chess extremely quickly: Jannes van der Wal, multiple world champion in draughts, got to 2300ish within a few years after starting to play chess for real, and Yoshiharu Habu, one of the most gifted Shogi players ever and undisputed champion reached IM strength in chess almost immediately after starting it. But they're not real newbies, of course.

Yes, I could see how a super-strong shogi player could reach IM instantly.

If we're talking no chess or chess-like experience and doesn't even know the rules, 3 days is hardly enough to make any progress no matter how intelligent you are.

I tend to agree. I think 2200 is too high.

One thing is, there are a lot of fundamental mechanics to learn before you can really start applying what people think of as strategy.  Two masters hunched over a board may very well be cooking up a grand idea to attempt to impose on the board.

Amateurs though have to work furiously at the board to keep from losing pieces to elementary tactics when playing a master.  To the master such moves are so ingrained that often literally no effort is needed to avoid simple tactics and their energy can be spent on formulating a crushing strategy (that is, if their opponent hasn't lost their queen yet )

i agree. I think strategy and tactics that can be taught in 3 days or so would be too general. A master must be aware of various alternatives at every stage of play.

but i have one more question. A computer program does not have any intelligence or experience. It works as per the algorithm. If a person can mimic the calculating power of a computer to some extent (for example, there are some prodigies who do arithmetic calculations extremely fast) then probably he can achieve some decent rating. But in this case his method of playing will have to be similar to that of the algorithm. But in this case opening repertoire is required and end game database is also required.

Deepblue in 1996 could evaluate ~200M position per sec. If you think that just super good at calculate is enough to get some decent rating, you are completely wrong.

Three days is just long enough to turn a newby into a muppet.

1300, top whack.

1600 I guess

I think even 1600 has to be way way too high.

 Muppet is one of my favourite words.  :)

 I agree, there are some people on this site that seem to think 2200 OTB is a easy thing to get to, after 3 days they would be fortunate if they made it to 1200. OTB chess is way different then playing on line and it takes considerable work to reach 2200.

An intelligent person with A BIG WAD OF CASH could easily make 2200 quickly.  Anyone rich out there feel free to bribe me to throw a few games.

You're Scottish, a meat pie and an Irn Bru would be sufficient.

Happy new year to one and all!

There is nothing so fascinating as speculation, especially when it is unprovable for then the imagination can wing its way up to the heights, and all sorts of plausible reasons can be given. This reminds me of the endless but interesting speculation about other life forms in the galaxy.

Perhaps the greatest exponents of this imaginative art are the media; give them a grain of truth and they will build a mountain.