Will playing tons of games improve your chess?

..i tried this myself ...my active games at this site only are over 650 games at this moment...i m playing here since about 3 months only ... my finished games during this time are  over1200 ...with a winning percentage of more than 75 percent for these finished games..

... i play a lot of games at the same time & this certainly improved my style ..

..you may look for my statistics at this site to get sure from that...

..CHEERS :))...

hehe

Really? Now perhaps capablanca didn't, but for most people, absolutely. You need to both know alot about chess and know how to implement them. There is no way I could get out of my 1100 plateau for years if it wasn't for the study of great books. You need both, you can't skip one or the other.

Read my other post where I elaborate on this. My player is also somewhat exceptional and is only going for 2200 USCF.

Of course I don't think an average player could get to master without much aid, or for that matter, at all. I think the average player would have a very hard time getting to 2200 USCF ever.

I am hoping some of our resident NMs will chime in on my proposal.

Don't we all just improve differently? 

Though I still believe the common denominator for "ALL" of us simply has to be a stronger player (or engine) telling us where we went wrong.  

Though like any learning process => Let's say I make mistake "A" without knowing A was a mistake.  Let's assume that the mistake was not tactical, which many a chess doctor's prescription can cure over time.

Either a book/stronger player/online reference/software tells me "A" was a mistake. Now if I got so burned by it (played a 4 hour game and the mistake made me  MAD "HULK SMASH!" MAD"), I will never make mistake A again.

Rinse and repeat in 1000s of games until the quality of your mistakes are as subtle and few as you'd like them to be.

Works for music. Should work for chess.

If I'm more in the repeat-offender idiot category (which I proudly am), I'll still keep making those mistakes.  This is clearly what seperates the good players from the weak ones.

Just my thoughts.

For what it's worth I really only play a lot of live games (though the records are all deleted now with live chess 2) and I've had a pretty decent level of improvement over the last year, going from about 900-1800 in long games. I did take some time to learn some openings though and what not.

I'm not a master though...so you know...gallon of salt :P

Yeah I was talking about the average player. I'm trying to get to master myself and since I've already studied many books on tactics and strategy (which were necessary just to get here) I'm going to need to look at a lot of master games myself if I have any hope of getting there. But then the other half is playing like them when the pressure is on in a tournament.

As I see it, a player who can get to 1800 otb without hard study is talented enough to probably reach 2200 with hard and smart work. Lessons from a master who is also a good teacher would almost cinch it. If you wanted this you just might be very capable of NM status.

It's not OTB rating though, just live. But I take it as a general indicator of chess improvement as opposed to a real gauge of skill. I've improved about 900 rating points (of course that's within the live chess pool), regardless of whether or not my rating is actually 1800. Since this thread is about improvement by playing a multitude of games I figured I'd bring that up since it has (so far) worked for me.

If that makes sense...

According to your profile you are still not yet 15 years old and @ 1700 USCF. There's no reason that NM would be out of your reach if you are dedicated and smart about how you study. Burnout would be the main obstacle.

If you can find opponents c. 200 points stronger than you to play and hang around, that would be dandy and your climb rapid.

Elubas is 15? :O

Would've had me fooled.

 that is totaly wrong. A player must study from books and analize games if someone wants to advance...

I think that's probably the case for anyone who's rating is above 2000 OTB.

Yup. For once I have to disagree with Goldendog...

I think you would improve if you play lots of thoughtful games and are able to review them afterward. If you're playing lots of games just to play lots of games, I think any gains would be small.

You have to read the post where I clarify what I mean. For example, when I say "a player" some might take that to mean any player, or the average player, but I don't mean that. In short, I'm saying a somewhat gifted player could make 2200 USCF without books or training software or lessons. See post #8.

Also note what I have my player doing. He's not just playing blitz on ICC.

When I said that lots of play v. stronger competition works, I intend that phrase to mean that such a regimen will make the average player stronger, not a master. That was a more direct response to the OP's question.

So, there were two ideas crammed into two sentences there. I clarified in #8 I think it was.

edit: If I could rewrite my first post here it would look something like this:

Since it is possible for a player to make 2200 USCF without benefit of books and software, just playing many serious games with good players and studying those games and the bare scores of master games, IMO, then certainly an average player could get stronger by just playing lots of serious games and studying them.

That's nice, and I think I have a shot at master too. Gonnosuke only thinks I could become a "very good player", whatever that means. But I have alot of different ways to study, plenty of time for chess, and a high positional understanding, probably around expert level, which is why I'm studying tactical puzzles as much as possible to get that at the same level. But I think I know what a master is at least, someone who doesn't have my weaknesses and plays much more consistent than I do. But I feel like I have the key elements.

So I do think I need more study, particularly master games (which takes silman's books to a whole new level when you're trying to analyze games yourself), as well as more experience and ironing out my weakness when I play an OTB game. It's a mix. Obviously someone like Morphy was a natural talent since there wasn't even any chess theory back then, but if he had the resources he could be much stronger than he was.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"  George Santayana

Why though, why? -- I could hop to work on one foot, too... but I prefer using both legs, it's quicker.  Why would someone ever want to try to improve in chess without studying at all. Anyone talented enough to get to 2200 without study -- could get to 2500 in the same amount of time with tenacious study -- and that's a conservative estimate. Getting to 2200 without study would make someone a prodigy... a real talent... there'd have to be some kind of story around why they hadn't gotten any coaching (and why they didn't care to read or learn about this game they had a special talent for -- so they're getting to 2200 but they don't like chess enough to study it? I'm growing more dubious by the minute...)  

But here's the real reason I wanted to post just now: I've been watching IM David Pruess multi-part series of videos on development -- They keep getting better, I just finished "part 5, Quality" -- very enlightening. I feel like I'm getting the kind of information that someone with an experienced coach on a scholastic chess team or on a quality club team would get... anyone who thinks just playing chess without studying at all is a good idea should watch these videos and think again. I'm starting to understand how opening theory arrives at those mysterious "white is slightly better" evaluations at least somewhat objectively.

 "Why" doesn't even figure into the ficticious proposal.

The question being probed is Can a player get to 2200 without books, software, and lessons?

"Should" also is irrelevant.