Road to Grandmaster

[ThomasThorpe]

hmm, that would be a very good aim to go for. And yes, I agree, crossing 2300 at a younger age is normally necessary to reach IM/GM. The way I've been going, 10 points seem slike nothing, but I'm sure that after this season, it will get harder to improve. I think after next season, it'll be clear as to what my goal is.
Nevertheless, the advice is well taken Roger.

Many thanks

[Michael Jones]

I personally think FM is a reasonable target to aim for.

There's an old rule of thumb which says that if you can improve 10 points a season and aim to reach FM/IM/GM standard in your early twenties, then progress can be measured by taking your age multiplying by 10 and comparing to your ECF grade. FM is about 215/220 (being 2300 International) - so you target to get there at 21 or 22. A sort of final year university goal. Many players who have gone on to reach IM and GM standards have crossed 2300 at a much younger age of course.

Bear in mind that once you get to 18, you may well have to choose between chess and university! It's been a joke at Warwick for the last few years that chess grade and academic success have usually been in inverse proportion - we've had four 200+ players in that time, two of whom have dropped out of their courses after the first year (not that they necessarily regret it - one is now an IM and probably making a better living out of chess and poker than he would have done with any job he got with a degree), the third was forced to drop virtually all his extra-curricular activities in order to avoid having to do likewise, and the fourth has hardly played at all. A 170 got a pass degree, the 140s-150s have mostly got 2.1s or 2.2s and it's been the players graded 120 or below who've got 1sts (with one exception this year, a 150 who got a 1st). If you get to, say, 180 by the time you leave school, you'll probably have to decide whether you want to pursue chess as a career or take the 'safe' option of a degree.

[ThomasThorpe]

Well, they do say you need to get the balance right, and the better at chess you get, the harder the balance is. I'll plan to do both, and do well in both. I know that Uni will come first, unless I've made drastic improvements in the next 3 years (which let's face it, is unlikely!)

[Arshad Ali]

Bear in mind that once you get to 18, you may well have to choose between chess and university! It's been a joke at Warwick for the last few years that chess grade and academic success have usually been in inverse proportion - we've had four 200+ players in that time, two of whom have dropped out of their courses after the first year (not that they necessarily regret it - one is now an IM and probably making a better living out of chess and poker than he would have done with any job he got with a degree), the third was forced to drop virtually all his extra-curricular activities in order to avoid having to do likewise, and the fourth has hardly played at all. A 170 got a pass degree, the 140s-150s have mostly got 2.1s or 2.2s and it's been the players graded 120 or below who've got 1sts (with one exception this year, a 150 who got a 1st). If you get to, say, 180 by the time you leave school, you'll probably have to decide whether you want to pursue chess as a career or take the 'safe' option of a degree.

The only exception I can think of is John Nunn who got a first at Oxford and continued playing some sort of competitive chess. Don't know what kind of degree Luke McShane got at Oxford. Short and Adams never went to U. University study and competitive chess don't mix. Should be a government warning: If you play chess, don't go to U; if you go to U, don't play chess.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Bear in mind that once you get to 18, you may well have to choose between chess and university! It's been a joke at Warwick for the last few years that chess grade and academic success have usually been in inverse proportion - we've had four 200+ players in that time, two of whom have dropped out of their courses after the first year (not that they necessarily regret it - one is now an IM and probably making a better living out of chess and poker than he would have done with any job he got with a degree), the third was forced to drop virtually all his extra-curricular activities in order to avoid having to do likewise, and the fourth has hardly played at all. A 170 got a pass degree, the 140s-150s have mostly got 2.1s or 2.2s and it's been the players graded 120 or below who've got 1sts (with one exception this year, a 150 who got a 1st). If you get to, say, 180 by the time you leave school, you'll probably have to decide whether you want to pursue chess as a career or take the 'safe' option of a degree.

The only exception I can think of is John Nunn who got a first at Oxford and continued playing some sort of competitive chess. Don't know what kind of degree Luke McShane got at Oxford. Short and Adams never went to U. University study and competitive chess don't mix. Should be a government warning: If you play chess, don't go to U; if you go to U, don't play chess.

There are other exceptions, Jonathan Rowson being the most obvious. From his Wikipedia article:

"After taking a year out to study chess in the wake of this success, he went to Keble College, Oxford University where he earned a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Rowson has an interest in Eastern thought and, following a year at Harvard, completed a PhD thesis on Wisdom at Bristol University, supervised by Guy Claxton."

I daresay some of the other chess grandmasters that went to Oxbridge (or other leading universities in the UK and other countries) buck this trend, though I actually agree with the thesis that chess playing is hazardous to disciplined study at university - I certainly wasted time playing chess when I should have been studying!

There is an interesting article by John Saunders here on chess masters who attended Cambridge University:

http://www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/uploads/Fil ... gelife.pdf

I must confess that I only briefly flick through this alumni magazine when it arrives (and sometimes not even that), so I must have missed this article when it appeared in 2004. It is well worth reading though.

[Roger de Coverly]

University study and competitive chess don't mix

It's a generational thing. In the 1960's the students (Hollis, Basman, Whiteley, Hartston, Keene etc.) had the edge. Basically if you left school at 18 or earlier and took up employment, you only had two weeks holiday a year. So you could, for example, win an Easter tournament and qualify for the British Championships only to find that you didn't have the holiday entitlement to compete. Of the marginally later generation, Nunn, Stean, Mestel and Speelman were all Oxbridge and medium to high powered academically. Tony Miles broke the mould by dropping out of University to become a professional player. Later Short, Conquest, Adams, Sadler followed his example by not going to University in the first place. Even in that era , the "number 2" player (Hodgson, Norwood etc.) did attend University -perhaps to take advantage perhaps of the flexible scheduling of someone not formally employed. From Sadler onwards, the pendulum swung again in favour of university. So the Hunts, Matthew Turner, Jon Parker, Jon Rowson, Simon Williams, Luke McShane, the Perts and others all took the degree route. Gawain Jones and David Howell have yet to attend university. I don't know if they ever will.

[Arshad Ali]

I must confess that I only briefly flick through this alumni magazine when it arrives (and sometimes not even that), so I must have missed this article when it appeared in 2004. It is well worth reading though.

I had no idea Crowley ever played chess. His fame (er, notoriety) is based on other, er, accomplishments.

Of the marginally later generation, Nunn, Stean, Mestel and Speelman were all Oxbridge and medium to high powered academically.

If memory serves, Speelman got a second in math. It's difficult to juggle chess with the hard sciences/engineering (which are difficult enough without chess). Out of idle curiosity, I wonder how many of the uni-bound chessplayers have opted for easy courses (journalism, PPE).

[Phil Neatherway]

Arshad,

You're not seriously saying PPE is easy, are you?

[Arshad Ali]

Arshad,

You're not seriously saying PPE is easy, are you?

Well, er, I read math at King's College London. And I did hear that Nigel Lawson earnt a first in PPE while mostly boozing and playing snooker -- which is inconceivable in math (or engineering) no matter what your intellectual gifts are.

[John Foley]

Out of idle curiosity, I wonder how many of the uni-bound chessplayers have opted for easy courses (journalism, PPE).

PPE attracts a lot of high-achievers for an "easy" subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_pe ... rom_Oxford plus Jonathan Rowson and Raaphy Persitz.

Perhaps anyone would be driven to debauchery in clubs like the Bullingdon if the alternative is to write a critique of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.

[Arshad Ali]

PPE attracts a lot of high-achievers for an "easy" subject. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_pe ... rom_Oxford plus Jonathan Rowson and Raaphy Persitz.

Sure. As the Wikipedia article indicates, those oriented towards a career in politics. Not high achievers intellectually (no future in that).

Perhaps anyone would be driven to debauchery in clubs like the Bullingdon if the alternative is to write a critique of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.

Didn't know the likes of Kant (and Fichte, Hegel, Schilling) were taught at Oxford. The English suspicion and antipathy towards architectonic German thought. Thought there was a bias toawards arid analytic philosophy.

Anyway, drifting way off-topic here (and shall soon be rapped on the knuckles by a zealous moderator).

[Michael Jones]

Out of idle curiosity, I wonder how many of the uni-bound chessplayers have opted for easy courses (journalism, PPE).

Very few that I know of. Yes, it's a stereotype, but it's broadly true: probably at least 3/4 of the chess club members I've known at Warwick have been maths students. Off the top of my head I can think of one biologist, one physicist and no-one who did a degree in a non-science subject. It's not a pattern exclusive to chess, though; a disproportionate number of university orchestra members are also maths students.

I wouldn't say we're off topic - the original title was "Road to Grandmaster" and we're just discussing whether or not university should be a stop on that road!

[John Foley]

Didn't know the likes of Kant (and Fichte, Hegel, Schilling) were taught at Oxford. The English suspicion and antipathy towards architectonic German thought. Thought there was a bias toawards arid analytic philosophy.

On the contrary, Kant is a giant much respected in Oxford.

Philosophy 101. History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant

See http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/admissio ... scriptions

[Warren Kingston]

PPE?

[Maxim Devereaux]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that hard work is a great substitute for natural talent in chess, and you can certainly get to IM that way, and probably GM too, if you are a moderately intelligent person. You won't ever be world-class, but that's not the aim here.

As someone who was a relatively late starter, not joining a club until I was 15 (and on the basis of one tournament a year over the preceding few years, graded around 120 at that time), my own progression is perhaps interesting to the case in point. My progression after being exposed to regular play was quite rapid: from around 120 at 15, to 144 at 16, 179 at 17, by which time I had got up into the top 10 or so players of my year group, and then 180 at 18, having more or less run out of players to compete with in my part of the country.

I then went to Oxford to study Physics, but this was in the early 90s, and it was my first exposure to playing chess on the internet - I was a member of ICC before it went commercial, and the ability to play strong players on demand was very useful. It was also the case that playing for Oxford in the Oxford and District league, I met far more strong players than I had done previously, and this also helped my development.

Although my (then BCF) grade took a few years to consolidate as I struggled to cope with the new class of player I was competing with, I was gaining a lot in chess knowledge, and the next major step in chess study was the advent of Chessbase, which I was introduced to by someone I knew at Oxford, and got my own copy of a few years later. From 180 at 18, 182 at 19, 188 at 20, and then 208 at 21, as the results of my work began to make themselves felt.

On the subject of chess and academic study being incompatible, I did eventually get a 2:1, by swotting hard for my finals, but I did also manage to fail (and have to retake) one of my first year papers, and my marks in the others were singularly unexceptional, because of the amount of time I spent on chess (and corresponding lack of time spent doing academic work). I probably spent 20-30 hours a week on chess during my time at university, but that counts time spent playing blitz on the internet, and while this can be somewhat useful, I am nowadays not convinced that it really does very much good for ones long-term development as a player, and that there are far better ways to spend study time. 10 hours a week does sound rather little to me though, if one is trying to reach the highest levels.

Since passing 200 ECF, I have become relatively unconcerned what my ECF grade is, since it means more or less nothing compared to FIDE rating. Indeed, this year it is 206, almost the lowest it has been since 1998 (on the basis of having submitted several tournaments I played abroad during early 2009 and did badly in for ECF grading, and not having played anything since apart from 4NCL), yet I am immeasurably a stronger player now than I was twelve years ago.

The real problem starts when you leave university and have to have a job. Finding time to study chess is very difficult when working full time, and even when playing a weekend tournament (for example), it is difficult to play to your full potential if you have a job which requires you to use your brain and are worn out by a week at work. I personally made relatively slow progress between 1999 and 2005, and I think this is the reason. As much as any other factor, I also think this is why we see relatively few adults make large rating increases. It's not that it's impossible for them to do so, but simply a matter of opportunity.

Becoming freelance in 2005 was a big factor in giving me the opportunity I needed to become an IM. Being able to work for a long period, and then take a corresponding very long holiday in which to study chess and play in tournaments was a massive improvement over the way things were before, and this was almost immediately reflected in my results

My problem on my breaks from work these days is more one of burnout. I do love to play chess, but playing several tournaments almost back-to-back is very exhausting, and can leave you feeling quite sick of chess, as well as uninspired and lacklustre in your play. I burnt myself out badly in 2009, and took more than a year (and a pretty poor 4NCL season) to get over it, and to a lesser extent did so at the end of 2006 also.

In 2009, I reached a peak rating of 2437 before my burnout cost me 50 rating points. I believe that level is attainable again, and even higher, if I can be disciplined with myself and apply the lessons I have learnt over the past few years. I have had a couple of fairly near misses on GM norms, much like I did with IM norms for some years before achieving my first, so I believe I *can* still become a GM, but it will take quite a lot of hard work, even from a starting level of almost 2400.

As for the OP, GM is not a goal I would set myself at around 1900 strength - you have to make milestones along the way - FM and IM being obvious ones, of course. Be prepared for there to be setbacks too. Personally, I'd consider 4 years to go from 1900 to 2200 realistic, and probably 2 more years for each 100 points after that.