Becoming a Chess Grandmaster

This is a very factual article explaining how to become a grandmaster, but I feel like it needs a disclaimer:<p>I know that Hacker News likes the idea that if you work hard enough then <i>anything</i> is possible [especially when there&#x27;s so many easily available resources], but when it comes to becoming a grandmaster it has to be said that it&#x27;s <i>painstakingly hard</i>. If you actually intend to become a grandmaster you&#x27;ll essentially have to make your full life be devoted to chess for <i>years</i>. We&#x27;re talking about making it your full-time job for at least 10 years. Yes, that&#x27;s how hard it is. Today there are countless of IMs (the title just below GM) that has played since they were small kids, won a bunch of tournaments when they were teenagers and yet they realize that becoming a GM is so much work that it&#x27;s not worth it.<p>If you like chess, then play chess! It&#x27;s a fun game with an amazing depth and a huge player base. But if you&#x27;re just starting out: Please forget about having &quot;becoming a grandmaster&quot; as a goal.

I&#x27;ve stopped playing chess as a teenager having reached ~2360. I was national youth champion, a vice-champion, 5th in the world at one point. I played 100+ games every year. Each game could last up to 5-6h. Some games were exhausting, some not. After each game you had to prepare for another one - study your opponent&#x27;s games, prepare openings and variants. This effort took tool on some and older players were visibly weird, plenty were alcoholics. I used to say that football (soccer) players have bended legs, chess players have bended minds.<p>Anyway, if you want to make chess your profession (you don&#x27;t need to be a GM to make a living), keep your mind healthy!

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lichess.org" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lichess.org</a><p>I can&#x27;t recommend enough lichess.<p>It&#x27;s been featured on HN numerous times [0]. Will always be free and has an extremely interesting tech stack.<p>Note: lichess isn&#x27;t just about playing chess with other people online. They have great &quot;training&quot; section (e.g. how to mate in X moves, pick the best move available, etc). I almost enjoy the training section more than playing against someone else.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26910579" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26910579</a>

IM checking in. My cousin became a GM while still a teenager. There will come a point sometime in your life (for me that was the ripe old age of 14 or 15) when you realize that you are simply not smart enough to make the cut. When that point come, the best thing to do is bail, play for fun and focus on academics.

&quot;I am definitely not believing that is has to do something with Biology. People telling “female are just less smart” or some bullshit like that are living under a rock and not in the 21st century.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m happy to read that. So many guys have hard thoughts about women on this topic. I&#x27;m nevertheless sad that women are not more present in &quot;guy&#x27;s stuff&quot;. They might reverse this way of thinking and put themselves forward. But the education even in developed countries is still deepening a gap gender. E.g. dollies&#x2F; make up&#x2F;dance for girls, cars&#x2F; shirt&#x2F;football for boys. We don&#x27;t mix enough &quot;gender interests&quot; and we inculcate this difference in kids even not on purpose. I hope it&#x27;s changing

I found this interesting: &quot;Most active Grandmasters are living in Russia. A whopping 256 Grandmasters are registered under the Russian Flag. The United States of America has 101 active Grandmasters, while 96 Grandmasters are playing for Germany.&quot; That&#x27;s:<p><pre><code> pop gm gm per 1e7 US 333091348 101 3.0 RU 146001137 256 17.5 DE 84070834 96 11.4</code></pre>

Related: there was a recent article in the New York Times about the problems with this process: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;07&#x2F;13&#x2F;sports&#x2F;chess-karjakin-mishra-grandmasters.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;07&#x2F;13&#x2F;sports&#x2F;chess-karjakin-mis...</a>

&gt; There are much fewer female Chess players, so it is logical that there are less female GM’s<p>But even relative to the total number of female players, much smaller % reaches GM.

I do not believe everyone has the mental capacity to become a grandmaster. In case you think that&#x27;s overly harsh, I&#x27;ll expand that to say I&#x27;m almost certain I do not have the mental capacity to become a grandmaster. It just takes a different type of analytical thinking ability.

I gave up playing chess seriously after watching the one grandmaster I ever played compete in the US championship, and learned that he was driving a cab to make ends meet.

For anyone thinking that it might seem more possible than others are saying, remember that many online and country rating systems are equivalent to <i>lower</i> FIDE ratings—adding as much as 250 points to what you have to achieve from where you are now.

If you want to have a more engaging round like real life battles, try to play chess with a clock. Give 15-20 min to each one without any adding system, or 5min (or less) if you want to play FPS-ish chess.<p>There are some apps to simulate these clocks. See also adding systems if you want more variety.

I recently started playing blitz games on lichens.org. It has a similar rating system. It takes 10 min a game and I have been having lot of fun. Wish it translated to fide points.

Chess is a boring game about memorizing patterns.

It&#x27;s crazy how low the percentage of women chess grandmasters and black chess grandmasters is. I wonder how many grandmasters are aged below 15 years old. It&#x27;s amazing how players play against each other despite the age difference.

&gt; It is sad that I have to mention it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with their race, but with opportunities.<p>As if access to opportunities has nothing to do with race.

The choice of color scheme in the &quot;Chess Grandmasters Per Country&quot; pie chart doesn&#x27;t strike me as particularly well thought through, especially in terms of accessbility.