Chess tutoring question

[Snafu in the Void]

If you wanna understand how grandmasters think about chess (you'll be surprised, I was too), watch Svidler chess analysis on YT.

Some of the best content on the site, games are great and he's a genius at analyzing without dumbing it down for anyone.
I miss those, nowadays it's all quite superficial or just reading out computer lines

Agreed. They look at the game in very interesting ways that even people rated 2000 wouldn't.

Also, I met Svidler. He came to a national tournament I went to along with Susan Polgar. I played Polgar in a large simul, she kicked my ass in 20 moves.

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Nice!!
I like watching more than playing myself actually, or at least I used to. Svidler & Jan Gustaffson would commentate like every major tournament on chess24 from 2017-2020 or something.
It was extremely niche and not popular at all, but Svidler (although difficult for beginners) was extremely good at explaining what's going on and he's an extremely strong player himself, and then there's Jan who's just a master at maintaining a good flow between chess & other topics, amazing chemistry.

Jan got sort of ousted because his humor was extremely dry and would talk about things other than chess too.

Now they're bought by chess.com, so the broadcasts are more professional, commercial, more catered towards weak players and it's all chess.

If I'm tuning in for chess games for 7 hours and I get 4 hours excellent chess analysis and 3 hours cricket & movies I'm a happy man.

 

[polarthedog]

Tbh there is 0% chance you become a grandmaster now.
With 1300 you're no prodigy and even then it's extremely tough. Most of the pattern matching is learnt when you're a kid, it can't be all integrated if you start playing so late.

Maybe fide master or national master is possible with hard hard work.

I'd just play for fun, and join a club where you can play classical chess regularly.

Apart from that you need to play tons, and work on the fundamentals which are endgames, pawn structures and tactical patterns

Books are kinda an outdated format because you can just get all that online now. They're still valid, you just really need a physical board to copy the moves from the book to memorize them.

But you need 3 things to study.

A book/resource to learn openings, you want to have a response to everything. Then practice tactics, tactics, tactics, which improves your middlegame. Then endgame themes are also important to learn.


Didn't wanna say it, but this is true.

It's similar to learning a new language as an adult. Extremely difficult, slow, and you'll almost certainly never speak perfectly... but a 7 year old kid can learn 5 languages at the same time and be fluent.

Chess is 98% pattern recognition and memory, similar to language syntax and vocabulary.

But people do learn languages late, and pattern recognition can be learned by anyone at any age, albeit slower for most people. Some people don’t have that learning ability slowed down as they get older, I never really noticed my ability to learn anything slow down at all as I got older. I didn’t want to say any of this in my opening message though because I felt it just sounds like bragging and I didn’t want to deal with all the people who say that I’m lying/didn’t nOtice the change since it would happen over time.

Also I did start playing at 8, I just stopped at like ten. Pattern recognition and stuff like that has always come natural to me. According to the research I did I am improving(this last year atleast, since I’ve been challenged by good players) at a similar rate to the rate of the average obsessed ten year old.

From what I saw, at a level like mine, an increase of 200-300 points per year is normal, then it begins to slow down as the elo score gets higher, and the 10 year old gets older and has to deal with more schoolwork and such.

If I’m increasing at a similar rate, actually in the upper end of the average, then it stands to reason that I have the same ability to get better as a child. Obviously when i robotrip it slows me down though, when i was in prison, I was sober, so one of the main things I need to work on is not using dxm so much. Kind and fucked me up,how snafu said the reason he fell off was drugs.

I like to play while robotripping, I’m just not as good, and I doubt I get better at the same speed

 

[polarthedog]

Tbh there is 0% chance you become a grandmaster now.
With 1300 you're no prodigy and even then it's extremely tough. Most of the pattern matching is learnt when you're a kid, it can't be all integrated if you start playing so late.

Maybe fide master or national master is possible with hard hard work.

I'd just play for fun, and join a club where you can play classical chess regularly.

Apart from that you need to play tons, and work on the fundamentals which are endgames, pawn structures and tactical patterns

Hey, I just realized, I forgot to say I just started again recently at 24 ish. Idk if you thought that it took me like 10-20 years to get to 1300 or something lol. Also I wasn’t improving very fast at first because I wasn’t really challenging myself. Also, maybe in part to the fact that I never studyed any games, and I learned everything from experience. Snafus got me kinda ducked up about that lol, I never realized how important the lessons were, now I just found a shitload of lessons on chess.com i didn’t know existed, so I’m gonna start studying that.

I stand by what I said in my last message, but why would IM or fide master(what does this term mean?) be easier to obtain than gm? I’ve researched gm a bit, and know what IM is, but not much about it. I’m new to these terms. like I said, I’ve been playing, but haven’t done much research until recently, what I know about chess is mainly the things you learn about chess by playing chess lol.

 

[puke]

I heard you play dirty and always bring a shank to every chess meet-up when everyone just asked you to bring chips and dip.

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

Hey, I just realized, I forgot to say I just started again recently at 24 ish. Idk if you thought that it took me like 10-20 years to get to 1300 or something lol. Also I wasn’t improving very fast at first because I wasn’t really challenging myself. Also, maybe in part to the fact that I never studyed any games, and I learned everything from experience. Snafus got me kinda ducked up about that lol, I never realized how important the lessons were, now I just found a shitload of lessons on chess.com i didn’t know existed, so I’m gonna start studying that.

I stand by what I said in my last message, but why would IM or fide master(what does this term mean?) be easier to obtain than gm? I’ve researched gm a bit, and know what IM is, but not much about it. I’m new to these terms. like I said, I’ve been playing, but haven’t done much research until recently, what I know about chess is mainly the things you learn about chess by playing chess lol.

It's about rating, and you need to score above certain performance rating thresholds in actual tournaments to achieve norms. When you've got enough of those you can become like a Fide Master, then international master etc...

Becoming an international master is pretty much as impossible too.
There are no examples of anyone, even extreme geniuses, starting playing chess very late and getting to like 2400 afaik.

Also, this is not online rating, this is classical rating in classical games, 1300 online is maybe a 1000 fide rating.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Becoming an international master is pretty much as impossible too.
There are no examples of anyone, even extreme geniuses, starting playing chess very late and getting to like 2400.

The vast majority of gifted people have a hard cap of about 2300, just before IM level. Only true geniuses can go above that. Only freak geniuses can go above 2500 and get GM.

Two of my school coaches were prodigious players as kids, won national titles young, literally played their entire lives, and both peaked around 2300. No amount of effort can improve your ability beyond someone's natural peak.

After age 25-30 people do not get better at chess. Our brains slowly decline and lose 1% of their mass per year after that.

 

[polarthedog]

The vast majority of gifted people have a hard cap of about 2300, just before IM level. Only true geniuses can go above that. Only freak geniuses can go above 2500 and get GM.

Two of my school coaches were prodigious players as kids, won national titles young, literally played their entire lives, and both peaked around 2300. No amount of effort can improve your ability beyond someone's natural peak.

After age 25-30 people do not get better at chess. Our brains slowly decline and lose 1% of their mass per year after that.

I just don’t believe that, people can continue to learn their entire lives, About the peak thing, I’ve never heard of that. What would be stopping your from improving past the peak?

Your brain can ALWAYS increase its mass, at ANY age. This has been proven, it is never too late to learn. Like I said, most people start learning slower after about age 25, but not everybody has that happen. Look into neuroplasticity.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

What would be stopping your from improving past the peak?

Raw brain ability. Just like sports. Someone could dedicate their entire life to it and train harder than anyone, but due to physical/athletic limitations of their body they won't ever play in the NBA.

It's not that you stop learning, it's that after a certain age your functional ability to calculate tactics declines... just like a basketball player who can't jump as high past age 40.

I'm definitely not trying to dissuade you from your goal, I applaud and encourage it. But there are some reality checks that need to happen if your goal is to be among the top 0.001% of all chess players.

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

I agree yeah, for chess you don't need goals, it's great to enjoy the game and enjoy getting stronger.

But wanting to reach big goals will require playing tons of irl tournaments, so much studying, opening theory eventually.... I'm not saying it's no fun but the pressure of trying to reach crazy goals might take the fun out of it in the end.

Becoming an absolute sicko ( ) in blitz or bullet is more attainable and also impressive.

2200 lifetime chess.com blitz goal @polarthedog what do you think, imo that is sicko level

 

[Buzz Lightbeer]

People often think that chess is a pure intelligence game, and will take it personally when they're not like crazy good. But a very large part of it is really a skill like any other.
Nobody is ever really embarrassed by their poor tennis skills or something.

I do think you can get better with age, I mean, pure understanding can always improve which can superseed getting worse at other aspects, depending on where you're at in the chess journey.

 

[Opi_Kid_Rock]

Anand’s quote brings me back down to earth I find. He said many years ago that if you’re not a GM by the age of 18, you can forget about having any type of “career” in chess.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

Anand’s quote brings me back down to earth I find. He said many years ago that if you’re not a GM by the age of 18, you can forget about having any type of “career” in chess.

Right, only an elite few can practically make a living from chess as a profession by winning tournaments. If you're lucky you can work as a commentator for a chess network, but even that is probably relatively low pay. Coaching is supplemental income.

The vast majority of IMs and FMs, and even many GMs have day jobs, because unlike other professional sports you don't receive a salary to play.

There's just not enough prize money at anything but world class tournaments... and that's only of you win, too. Plus you subtract the entry fee and travel expenses.

 

[darvocet21]

Hey guys, I am trying to become a grandmaster (ya I know, that’s like a decade or more of work). I love chess, and I play everyday anyway, I have for years.
I recently looked up ways to make money off chess skills, and on every of 5e things on the list was tutoring, people pay 10-50$ an hour for tutoring.
Now this is for the future, because right now I’m around a 1300 elo score, which is not expert level. I mean that’s not bad, but I don’t think people would wanna pay me for tutoring right now.

I wanted to know what score would I have to get before someone would want to pay me, let’s say 10$ an hour since that’s the minimum. 1600? 1800? Do you need to be a grandmaster?

I would really like to do that someday, and I’m just wondering how far off that would probably be. It took me about a year to get my score up 350 points from 950 to 1300. I know that going up the next 350 points will take longer since the elo score is kinda like a sliding scale, the higher you go, the bigger the difference each additional point means In your skill level, or atleast, I think that’s how it goes. At any rate, right now I would have about a 0.015% chance of beating someone with a 2500 elo, which is the minimum elo I think to be considered a gm. So I’m pretty damn far off. I have a good head on my shoulders though, and I’m pretty consistent about practicing. I figure it’s pretty achievable, i just have to want it enough and for long enough.

But ya. It would be cool if I couldn’t get customers at a 1600 if I charged low enough, I mean there’s kids who’s parents want them to learn who have never played before, how Good would you have be to tutor a beginner? I’ve taught lots of people to play well who were originally beginners. I mean, I can’t make them better than I am, but a 1600 rating IS NOT low, and that takes years of work. They wouldn’t outgrow my rating for a long ass time.

What do you guys think? Please don’t step on my dreams, I am serious about this, and I’m not trolling. I’m very passionate about playing chess and I love teaching people. Plus I have trouble holding down regular jobs, playing cHess doesn’t feel like work to me, it would be great if I could get paid to play.

Would be great! No trolling from your friend who signed up the same day as you polar