Adult Beginner(?) to FM

[Roger de Coverly]

I wonder how many, if any, have made serious attempts to increase the playing strength significantly, and whether any have succeeeded for any length of time?

It's distorted by the ECF's unnecessary revaluation, but I seemed to have improved myself from being mostly a 170s player up to being a high 180s and low 190s player. If anything I've done it by unlearning things. that is to discard positional judgements acquired over the years from assorted books and articles that do not stand up to engine scrutiny. To use a cricket metaphor, I've never been too bothered by "playing and missing", so playing the right move for the wrong reasons, or not analysing tactical consequences in full has always been part of my style. That probably also causes poor results against original players like Basman or Surtees.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I am now doing piano more than chess.

Me too. I’ve began getting on for 3 years ago and have put in hundreds of ours of practice. I passed my grade 4 in the summer.

Hundreds of hours of piano practice, hiring a piano teacher: improvement
Zero hours of chess practice, never had formal chess lessons: no improvement

[stevencarr]

I am now doing piano more than chess.

Me too. I’ve began getting on for 3 years ago and have put in hundreds of ours of practice. I passed my grade 4 in the summer.

Hundreds of hours of piano practice, hiring a piano teacher: improvement
Zero hours of chess practice, never had formal chess lessons: no improvement

Congrats on grade 4.

Music also has a much more structured path to follow than chess.

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't think he's played any ECF graded chess yet.

There's a club training game at
http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2016/ ... 65312.html

It would be reasonable to say that he's got a fair way to go before players with ratings in the 2000s would quail at the prospect of facing him.

That said, you would be content to see him selected for your third team (of three).

[Joshua Gibbs]

for what its worth I have beaten an extremely strong player on line (2400 fide) and have been praised by a FIDE master at Atticus Chess Club who said he wanted to put effort into teaching me.

I learnt the game as a very immature adult and continue to play it though the fact that I am a nutjob hampers my over the board play.

My personal opinion is that it would be easy for an adult to become a FM with online practise and that we will see many more adult players becoming strong by playing on the net without having to bother playing IRL.

For the record Roger, Steve Carr is from Wallasey not Liverpool...

[MartinCarpenter]

... you really are pushing into the thin parts of the normal distribution there. Think it might need a fair bit of natural aptitude.

Why? By which I mean why assume that a guy who is, say, high 160s and has been playing chess for 30 years is not at 200 because he lacks natural aptitude when he has a 30 year history of not undertaking any structured or meaningful work on chess whatsoever?

The normal distribution is a distribution of a population that mostly doesn’t work. At all. Go to the right hand end and you’ll find people who’ve done loads of work. I don’t see why you assume natural aptitude would come into it at 200.

Someone who has got to high 160's without doing much work already has a major natural aptitude for chess! Whether you could hypothetically get them to 200 might be arguable - that is really quite a big jump - but its plausible.

Getting someone who naturally reached 120 without much work to 200 seems much less likely to me.

Quite a few of the 200 grades I know haven't obviously done that much work on their chess, definitely not recently.

[Brian Towers]

I think a lot of people could hit 200 if they tried hard. It is really not a high standard. I make a load of mistakes.

As you are one of those rare people who have made the journey would you care to share what those mistakes were?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Someone who has got to high 160's without doing much work already has a major natural aptitude for chess!

I find it very hard to believe i have the 'major’ natural aptitude for chess that you attribute to me.

Quite a few of the 200 grades I know haven't obviously done that much work on their chess, definitely not recently.

not recently - no doubt. But the point is they did the work at some point. How long ago isn’t so important. I haven’t done much work on riding a bike recently. I can’t still do it to the level I attained by putting the hours in.

Similar story with piano.


There’s a section in Tiger Mother where the author tells of people telling her how talented her daughters were - and how those people didn’t know of the many hours a day of practice she was making them put in

Work is very often 'not obvious'. You tend to have to do it alone for a start. That’s one of the things that’s not enjoyable about it.

[stevencarr]

I think a lot of people could hit 200 if they tried hard. It is really not a high standard. I make a load of mistakes.

As you are one of those rare people who have made the journey would you care to share what those mistakes were?

I can't remember theory very well. My endgames need work, I can't mate with Bishop and Knight for example. And R+p v R is a mystery to me.

I get tired towards the end of games, especially when playing 2 rounds in one day. This leads to blunders.

[MartinCarpenter]

Someone who has got to high 160's without doing much work already has a major natural aptitude for chess!

I find it very hard to believe i have the 'major’ natural aptitude for chess that you attribute to me.

Compared to the general population you very much do Aren't you even a little over the median for keen chess players?

Quite a few of the 200 grades I know haven't obviously done that much work on their chess, definitely not recently.

not recently - no doubt. But the point is they did the work at some point. How long ago isn’t so important. I haven’t done much work on riding a bike recently. I can’t still do it to the level I attained by putting the hours in.

Perhaps, but I dunno. I've had a (mildly flattering) ECF grade up to 193 peak, and some obvious problems, so could presumably get to/have got to 200 with some real work.

Still - when I play people like Paul Townsend/David Buckley (back at Warwick Uni) at quick play it becomes obvious that they're just fundamentally much better than me at chess. I'd have to somehow take my whole thinking process apart/upgrade it. Those two are very solid 200 grades of course!