What rating is a good time to start focusing on getting a title?

Over a span of 3 years, I have played multiple games on chess.com, chess clubs and lichess. In all these years I have gone from 300 ELO on chess.com, to about 1800 ELO. As a result of my grinding, I am confident that I have improved my ability to think strategically and analyse my positions in openings and endgames.

As I am nearing 2000 rating in all my chess.com ratings, and am deciding to play more OTB games, I have been wondering when I should focus on getting a CM or FM title.

Also, regarding my objective to gain a title, what may help me achieve a title and what types of tournaments will I have to attend to gain one?

Cheers, PikachuDestroyer 

You must focus on attaining 2000 rating on Fide first. You need to realize to become an FM, you must become a CM first. So there is no logical explanation to focus on FM before CM

Actually, your chess.com rating is way less than an average CM. So do not set a hight goal like this. It will not achieve  you anything. You should set a small goal tournament by tournament.

Yes, I estimated that in 2 years, I would get many more rating points, about 200-500.

"when I should focus on getting a CM or FM title."
++ If you are 2000 now, then 2200 = CM should be in reach within a year.

"what may help me achieve a title" ++ Tactics training, analysis of your lost games, study of annotated grandmaster games,  study of endgames, especially rook endings.

"what types of tournaments will I have to attend to gain one?"
++ FIDE rated international open swiss tournaments.

Just because you've gained hundreds of rating points each year doesn't mean you'll continue to do so. The stronger you get, the harder it is to improve. You will hit a wall. Whether your wall is at 1800 or 2000 or 2200 remains to be seen.

The time to start thinking seriously about titles is when you hit 2100 OTB. Which is way harder than 2100 on chess.com. 

#7
If your coach tells you to work on opening theory, then you should fire him.

You are incredibly far away from obtaining a title and shouldn't even think about it yet. So am I. I struggle to even get close to 2000 OTB. While I would need 2200 for a title. Now the reason why it is so difficult to reach 2200 beside you being an absolute patient mastermind is that you are gaining very few points at a time once you are above 2000 unless you beat strong masters, which you most likely will not. So give yourself time to gather experience over the next years, because 1800 really is... well it is good don't get me wrong, but in the world of competitive chess it is absolute nothing. Good luck to you. Play any tournament, it really doesn't matter.

Opening theory becomes more important as you get higher up in the ratings. It's not the only thing that matters, but it does matter.

BTW, I'm saying this as someone who's frequently out of book after five moves. Studying openings helps me find good moves even in unfamiliar positions. You know how they say low rated players should just learn general principles? Opening study helps give me more precise and refined "general principles". It's not about memorizing long lines of moves, it's about understanding things like "in Benoni pawn formations, black should not trade away their dark squared bishop".

You are kind of contradicting yourself. The way you suggest people should study openings is helpful, but that is not how the average Joe studies openings. They memorize some lines that "always work promised" and don't understand why the mentioned opening is beneficial.

This does not only apply to youtube, but a lot of coaches as well. I had a teacher once who told me about a certain Queen's Gambit Declined line as black, but he couldn't explain why certain moves where good, so I didn't play it. Years later I made a chessable course over the very same variation and studied it in depth so I finally discovered the harmony and multipurpose of certain moves and see the whole purpose of everything.

However, back to the teacher, telling me this stuff was absolutely awful. He packed out weird lines of former repertoires and showed them, 100 deviations what I should play next if this and what should I play if that. That is not how you learn chess. It's rather the path to losing all joy in the game and achieving absolutely nothing. And that is how usually teachers, youtube and so on teach openings. Sadly. In the end you have to really put a lot of time into just one move and understand it, as well as you possibly can.

And finally coming back to your point, as you pretty much said yourself, it sure as hell wasn't opening knowledge that brought you this far, but a pretty good understanding of tactics, endgame skills, patience, experience and much more. Not the correct opening repertoire.

Pattern recognition. Openings have patterns too.

He disses opening theory in every thread he gets a chance. Get off my lawn! My best win ever in an OTB game was against someone a few hundred points higher than myself. I knew what he played against my KG line, and I studied the theory, found an error in what he usually played, played it instantly, got a winning position, and won easily. Yep, theory is useless.

Yes it is useless. You didn't win. Your opening book won, not you. So it might fill you with joy, but your chess hasn't improved by this win. At high level there won't be any reoccuring opening mistakes that you can exploit anymore and you will be stuck with what you know about chess only. In the end your whole repertoire will be kind of useless.

Well, she prepared for the opponent, found a flaw in his play and exploited it. Sure, that thing alone will not make her much better, but it is the way how you plug holes in your play, and it gets you better, little by little. Actually you could argue that she made both herself and her opponent better, because she exposed his weakness for him to see it.

As for masters not making mistakes in the opening, even that is not completely true. They might not be -4 on move 10, but they can get under pressure a few moves along the line, because of some inaccuracy and after a while they crack and lose. The principle is the same just the mistakes are in general more subtle, and preparation is certainly a lot more important on that level.

As for me, I don't try to memorize too much, I play a game and look if there was some major mistake on my part in the opening. If there was, I try to correct it for the next time and build gradually without learning lines like some poem.  For me, the point of the opening is mostly to get something where I don't have a bad position so I can play the game.

Don't be a dummy. Does that mean when one GM beats another GM because of opening prep, that they didn't really win? Today Shankland beat Karjakin because he knew the opening better, Karjakin got into a losing position, and resigned on move 26. Get real. As many people here already know, I have a condition that makes it very hard for me to calculate. The only way that I will ever win a game in chess against a better opponent OTB is to outprepare them. I may not be able to calculate, but I have an excellent memory, so I'm going to play to my strengths, thank you very much.

Yes thing is, she is not a master. So she should actually become a master first and after that try to outprepare opponents. On that level it is nothing more than avoidance of real chess. It wins the battle, but loses the war. A memorized line won't improve your skill and calling a memorized line your best win on that level is kind of awkward to me. I can agree with a lot of what you said @nklristic but not with her initial bragging post.

Your attitude is very confronting and condescending, it's what actually makes me disagree with your whole statement so much and I would prefer you to talk in a more neutral way and not calling me names. You can't compare yourself to GMs, you ain't that great. And I am new here so there was no chance for me to know you suffer from any form of condition. Of course you should play to your strengths, but if preparation is the only way of winning for you than chess might be just the wrong sport for you.

I have a very similar situation to yours. Good memory, bad calculation - however, just because my personal strength lies in memorization aswell, doesn't mean it is the main tool of succeeding in chess for the average chess player. The truth couldn't lie further away. In short: Differentiate between what is best for you - and what is best in general, because there might be a huge gap in effectiveness between what helps you win and what does actually help people becoming good at chess.

After all the reason why you don't understand the very true point of @tygxc is that you only think about your own perspective. You really don't need a coach to teach you openings, you can do that one alone. And for most people opening knowledge won't help them at all - some might even get worse by memorizing it. And after long self reflection I realised that opening knowledge even harmed my own chess, although I do have a good memory.

You just don't get it. Not everyone can be a Master. I have a WGM friend and know WAY more theory than she does, but she will beat me every time. I *fully* understand that I lose because she calculates better. You're missing the point. I've tried. I've played since I was 7. I've had coaches. I played on a team. I've done everything you're supposed to do to get better. If I were to wait unti I were a Master, I'd be dead first. It ain't gonna happen.

Do I crutch on theory? Sure. So what. It gets me to a better middle game, and from there I have a fighting chance. I never would've made it to nearly 1500 USCF without a very disciplined approach to a mental checklist and my knowledge of opening theory and knowing when I can exploit a mistake. Without it I would have been stuck at 1000 trying to play the fried liver like every other nerd.

My attitude is very confrontational because you said that my most cherished victory was "useless" and that I didn't really win. I am, and will always be, very proud of that moment. What the heck do you want me to feel other than defensive. So yeah. I'm going to be a little bit touchy on the subject.

You don't get it. ^^ It is perfectly fine for you to play and study however you want and suits you best. It is just not what makes the average chess player great and that is why it shouldn't be taught by coaches primarly. You attacked this guy here for saying coaches shouldn't teach openings, but he is actually right. They shouldn't. There are plenty of good reasons for it.

And I can assure you even you, no matter what condition you are suffering from, can actually improve your game by other factors too than just learning everything by heart. For example recognizing certain structures and understanding their meaning has nothing to do with calculation, but with pattern recognition - the main tool for learning chess. Evaluation is much more important than some weird opening line.

Besides you are a human being and share certain aspects of biology, so drinking more water and getting better rest will also improve your calculation ability, no matter what condition you are suffering from. Your condition is neither representative for all chess players nor is it a total limitation to your abilities making you rely on nothing more than pure memorization. I am happy for you that you are good at it, but I fear it won't bring you far. 1500 is like the absolute average, so what... I had games like yours where I knew the theory from start to end, but I would not brag with such wins or draws, because it wasn't my achievement, but stockfish's.