Road to Grandmaster

[Arshad Ali]

"A non-IM player who works hard and is coached properly will eventually make IM."

OK. Take coaching by say Karpov, hard work from an early age and plenty of tournament practice, and an IQ of above 110 then I believe it's possible.

Not sure but was it Jon Levitt who gave the formula for the highest standard one could reach as (IQ*10)+1000? So to reach 2400 one would need an IQ of around 140.

The gravitational pull of a player's inherent limitations prevent him from reaching the stars. The "law of diminishing returns" sets in. I'm roughly 1800 strength now. With a year's hard work of honing my openings and constant practice, I could probably raise it to 1900. The same effort over the second year will result in only a 50 point increase; over the third in a 25 point increase. Summing the infinite series: 100+50+25+12.5+6.25+... yields a 200 point increase. 2000 represents my "wall." This law holds for everyone, but with varying strengths. For Carlsen, it may be 100+90+81+...., which yields a 1000 point increase, so he can reach 2800.

The big mistake would be for me to linearly extrapolate the first year's increase and think: "Hmmm, at this rate, I should hit IM in five more years." Ain't gonna happen. I'm sure virtually every IM has entertained hopes of becoming a GM -- but most don't make it. The 100-point gap between IM and GM defeats them. I'm sure most GMs have entertained the hope of reaching 2600 strength -- but again, that 100-point gap defeats them. Each step up the ladder becomes disproportionately more difficult. As Botvinnik pointed out a long time ago.

[Justin Hadi]

For what's worth I think GM is beyond an average non-IM player even if they do have the great coaching.
You need to have something more - talent.

I don't really disagree with you here - diminishing returns is a major factor.

Levitt's formula is pretty controversial. Others, such as Azmaiparashvili say anyone can reach IM.

[Joey Stewart]

How did he get on at the 4ncl this weekend? I was too interested in my own teams performance to be especially interested, at the time, but now I was looking at some of the norms achieved and it reminded me of Will.

[Roger de Coverly]

How did he get on at the 4ncl this weekend? I was too interested in my own teams performance to be especially interested, at the time, but now I was looking at some of the norms achieved and it reminded me of Will.

I don't think he was playing.

[Joey Stewart]

I wonder what he has been up to - there seems to be alot of talk about blitz on the website lately, I hope this is not going to cause a distraction from the real game, as he really needs to be taking every opportunity to play fide rated events with the full time controls in order to get the feel of grandmaster play.

[Will Taylor]

I'm semi-retired until the end of May for uni exams. After that the next 3-4 months will be largely dedicated to chess.

[David Grobler]

time to kick-start this one methinks.....
Our hero is performing rather well at Sheffield yes?

[Roger de Coverly]

time to kick-start this one methinks.....
Our hero is performing rather well at Sheffield yes?

He has four from six. Qualification score for the next British Championship is 7.5/11. So 3.5/5 on the second week is the target.

[Gareth Harley-Yeo]

can we start a Peter Lalic road to grandmaster thread?

[Will Taylor]

time to kick-start this one methinks.....
Our hero is performing rather well at Sheffield yes?

He has four from six. Qualification score for the next British Championship is 7.5/11. So 3.5/5 on the second week is the target.

Thanks for telling me that. I didn't realise you could qualify for the main tournament in the Major Open.

can we start a Peter Lalic road to grandmaster thread?

Or perhaps a Jean-Luc Weller thread.

[David Grobler]

[/quote]

He has four from six. Qualification score for the next British Championship is 7.5/11. So 3.5/5 on the second week is the target.[/quote][/quote]

Thanks for telling me that. I didn't realise you could qualify for the main tournament in the Major Open.

oh yes.........keeep going my friend....you are doing well !!

[Will Taylor]

Thanks for the encouragement, David. I'll try. I sort of hope I do Weller-nough in the next couple of rounds to have a crack at JLW, but perhaps that's an unwise hope.

[MartinCarpenter]

JL really isn't that scary Well his nerves in time trouble are albeit for his teammates too at times..... He spent a lot of last year being utterly ruthless vs ~160 strength players and only OK vs the ~180's, he played. So it'll be interesting to see if he can keep this up.

There does seem to be a definite stumbling block around ~190/200. Some of that is talent, but a lot of that must be down to the strength of opponents that people can sensibly get.

Actually it occurs to me that JL next year could be a real case in point. Board 1 in the York evening league averages ~170, the several opens about Yorkshire mostly aren't that hugely strong. Even the Yorkshire league is only truly chunky around board 1 or 2, and to be honest the only way he'll get that high is if we play him for York B, and I suspect the captain might be reluctant to do that
(York A are really very strong for the moment.).

The 4NCL and some other leagues probably better for this of course, but I do suspect its a bit of a generic problem. Once you're scoring ~75% a year its very tough to usefully improve.

[Will Taylor]

Does anyone know of any strong IM/GM coaches based anywhere near Durham (apart from Jonathan Hawkins, who doesn't want to take on any more coaching at the moment)?

Thanks,

Will

[Joey Stewart]

I think Nigel Davies lives somewhere up north - his videos seem quite good, so he might well be worth an ask.

Also, Danny Gormally was somwhere in that part of th world last time I checked, but I am not sure what sort of a coach he would be as I have not seen much of his material.