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On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

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Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#4
Cool that the author does this, and has found a method that works for them! However, to be able to spend 2 hours a day on this seems like an indescribable luxury to me. And the quote about netting about 1.5 ELO per day sounds like a linear growth is assumed, which I can assure will not be the case past the initial massive improvements one gets from "not knowing the rules" to "actually starting to get it".

I love solving the odd chess problem here and there, and I whole-heatedly recommend lichess.org for that. The website and app are both great and the problem database is huge and varied. All free, too.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#5
Congratulations that's a great achievement. I think that almost everyone should be able to achieve a solid 2000 elo rating, with enough dedication over the years. Doing tactics puzzles is one of the most important factors for fast improvements.

> Some day, I want to become a titled player. A candidate master needs an ELO of 2200

2000 and 2200 are completely different skill levels. I have some friends who play chess for more than 10 years in a chess club, starting as a kid, but haven't reached titled skill level yet and probably never will.

My personal advice is: focus on the fun part of chess, there will always be a stronger player, but that doesn't matter.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#6
I've been watching a lot of GM Daniel Naroditsky's "Speedrun" series, where he plays games and teaches you why he's making the moves he's making vs alternatives, starting at a very low rating, to get back to a 3000 rating. He's a great teacher, and I've gotten a lot out of watching that series.

He streams them live, and then edited videos of the games on stream are uploaded on his YouTube channel. Here's the YT playlist for the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytkf3qZTj74&list=PLT1F2nOxLH...

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#7
post #5

Congratulations that's a great achievement. I think that almost everyone should be able to achieve a solid 2000 elo rating, with enough dedication over the years. Doing tactics puzzles is one of the most important factors for fast improvements. > Some day, I want to become a titled player. A candidate master needs an ELO of 2200 2000 and 2200 are completely different skill levels. I have some friends who play chess f…

ignorant question time: isn't ELO relative not absolute? if everyone gets better doesn't that just make it a lot harder to get to 2k?

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#8
post #7
post #5

Congratulations that's a great achievement. I think that almost everyone should be able to achieve a solid 2000 elo rating, with enough dedication over the years. Doing tactics puzzles is one of the most important factors for fast improvements. > Some day, I want to become a titled player. A candidate master needs an ELO of 2200 2000 and 2200 are completely different skill levels. I have some friends who play chess f…

ignorant question time: isn't ELO relative not absolute? if everyone gets better doesn't that just make it a lot harder to get to 2k?

Lots of new players that join up, drop their ELO points into the "bag" and then leave (or if online, sign up new accounts). ELO "points" aren't a finite resource.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#9
post #4

Cool that the author does this, and has found a method that works for them! However, to be able to spend 2 hours a day on this seems like an indescribable luxury to me. And the quote about netting about 1.5 ELO per day sounds like a linear growth is assumed, which I can assure will not be the case past the initial massive improvements one gets from "not knowing the rules" to "actually starting to get it". I love solv…

I would not be able, or rather willing, to spend two hours per day playing chess at this point. However, it is all about priorities. If playing chess and improving is valuable to you, everyone can make the time.

Re: On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

#10
You should use lichess.org instead. You would have unlimited tactics per day which come from real games played on the website, endless number of studies made by other players on opening theories, free analysis of your games, and all these statistics about your progress and more! Like "do I win more often or not when Queens are traded?".

Good luck!

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