When will I stop improving?

Oh, then I guess if YouTube videos from the likes of Hikaru and Chessbrah count, then I'm in the same boat as you were.

Not really hikaru and chessbrah, I didn't watch a lot of them. I watched the st louis channel one, but didnt like a lot of their videos since it was an hour long, and honestly, that's too long and filled with too much fluff to be good.

Mostly hanging pawns, which @llama47 says is not fantastic since he contradicts himself sometimes, but was good enough for me at the time.

And a lot of the lessons here, like mastery - strategy and mastery - openings helped.

@maxkho2, I’ve found your answer to my first question in contrary to what you expressed, so I suppose either the claims in your question are wrong (you are either sandbagging or you had some childhood experiences of chess, or simply cheating) or your answer to me was not honest:


Here is the contradiction: you claimed that without putting effort and by chilling around and playing a bit or watching some videos you improved astronomically fast, very good job so far. Then in response to my question, you said you should see if it is worth to put the effort to get the FM title.
FM is almost entry level title, it doesn’t need any norm, just rating, for such a talent it should be as easy as drinking water, so if that was your background you don’t need to put extra effort on it and talking about putting effort is not on the same line as your claim.

I think you might have misunderstood what I was saying. Here is what I said:  it gives me an idea of whether I can rely on chess as a solid alternative source of income in the future. For example, if I can become an FM or IM in the next year and a bit, then I will no doubt be able to charge potential students a decent sum.

What I meant by that is that it's good to know IF I can become an FM or IM next year ─ not whether I should put effort into trying to achieve one of these titles. Of course I'll put as much effort as I think is required regardless of the answer to the question. Besides, I didn't know how easy it would be to attain the FM title before I posted here, and it might have easily been that loads of effort had to be put in for me to get this title. In this case, I'd still be ready to abandon my routine of just playing chess and not doing any studying for the sake of achieving my goals. So I don't really see any contradiction here.

Online ratings are about 300 above a real otb rating. So you're probably an expert now but getting to FM or IM is a whole different game. You definitely have a natural talent but now you will have to work. Like I said before...go to some real tournaments and you'll see real quick how good you are. If you plan on getting a title to supplement your income by coaching then obviously you have to play in real tournaments so what are you waiting for?

I am myself in a similar situation as you are. I started playing chess mid December last year and so far I was able to reach 1700 without any effort and time devoted to studying it. I haven't been in chess world that long to answer you properly wheter or not you will be able to reach FM title in a year. I simply don't know and am not familiar enough with that to have an opinion. But based on everything you have said and using simple logic it seems like you won't have many troubles if you decide to play OTB and go for a title. Hitting a plateau is unavoidable and will happen at some point, we can't possibly know when its going to happen and I think no one can give you a right answer at which point you will stop naturally improving. But it is going to happen and its great that you are already aware of that fact. With that being said, you should enjoy every moment of your current chess journey, chances are it wont last long as you already are 2000+ rated (much more). I haven't either played OTB yet and am looking forward to it. I wish you all the best! I was wondering how long it took you to reach 1800 and where were you (what was your rating) one year after you started playing. So I could compare them and see if I have a bright future too :D I have no idea wheter or not my natural improvement stopped, it seems like it did, but maybe it just got slower. Once it does stop, we both will have to definitely devote atleast 3 hours per day if we want to achieve something meaningful, read books, solve tactics, practice endgames and much much more. I don't believe you would be average club player if you started playing OTB, and even if you become one its not bad start at all, some folks work for years to reach that level and many of them even stuck there and can't improve. So, I would ignore few people here commenting on something that wasn't the question.

Also you play a lot of quick games that are a waste of time and possibly a way to get a false sense of your skill. Getting wins by timeout or blunders is not chess. Play 30 minute games or more against strong opponents to start. A real otb game can last 6 hours. You're almost comparing apples to oranges here. Don't waste your talent with online 1 minute games. Go play real chess and hopefully you end up with that title.

You have great talent, now go find a chess club and join the ECF.

Play in real tournaments and you will find out how far you can go.

maxkho2 I am thinking you will top out around December 13, 2021. Also avoid mass transit altogether on that Monday. I'm getting some weird vibes.

300 might be a bit of a stretch for people who are active both online and OTB, but for me, the rating difference might easily reach 300 points given that I'm totally new to OTB, so if that's what you meant then you're right. I'll see how far simple practice takes me, and if I still haven't reached FM level after a while, then I'll actually start studying as you recommend.

The thing is ─ I have wanted to play OTB for a while, but there are no tournaments available for me to participate in. Besides, I'm somewhat busy at the moment and just taking a week off would be unfeasible, but I'll have a lot more time in a couple of months' time.

Thank you for your response! It's kind of funny that the answer to both of your questions is the same ─ it took me a year to reach 1800, and consequently, I was rated 1800 one year after I started playing. So you're improving at around the same pace as me, maybe even faster. The only thing is ─ I had only played around 1500 games by that point, and there was a 4-month hiatus that I took from chess in my first year. I started playing more often when I hit 1800. So you might need to do the same if you want to be on track with my progress.

I don't think that natural improvement has stopped for you. Just be patient and I'm sure you'll keep improving! 1800 is a tough spot to be in because the folk above start to get a noticeable bit stronger. But I'm sure you'll be even stronger than them in the near future!

Almost all games are won by blunders, even at GM level

Several classical games are won by timeout too, I almost got flagged in an open tournament recently

So... I don't know what real chess is

"When will I stop improving?"

Never !

You were destined to improve, that's IT. just face your luck. some people are poor, some are ugly, most are stupid, and yeah... some are improving. no one asked you. stars direct your fate. you'll improve until it's over - when the angel of fun comes to take one's soul. how do you think Magnus feels? pretty lame, right? 'lonely at the top'.

Solmyr sounds like the supporting character that makes a big speech to motivate the main character of a novel.

cocky

@Immaculate Slayer... Obviously I was talking about him playing bullet games which is usually both players making ridiculous moves to try to win by timeout. Try to follow the conversation 😉

No, it's not obvious, as you said "quick", which implies all time controls on chess.com (rapid, blitz, and bullet). Also, blunders and timeouts are not the main reason of quick chess being bad for development. Its problem is the constant time pressure and consequently a lower quality of play in comparison to classical chess. You're lacking some logic.

Don't waste your talent with 1 minute games is what I said. Go back and read it.

 

I made it easy for you 😉