How much can you improve your chess skills as an adult?

Hi everyone, 

I have never really played chess, but I decided to take it up as a hobby during the lockdown. Is it possible to improve and actually become good at chess?

Hi,

It is definitely possible to improve if you have time to put into chess. Improvement might not be as fast as it would have been younger, but with patience you can achieve quite good results, at least to a good club player level. I played a couple of years as a child (that was the time of Kasparov-Karpov games) and then had a long break and started again a few years ago and now during lockdown times I've had more time to study. I have improved somewhat (perhaps 200 points in 1,5 years in daily chess), obviously younger ones improve their level faster, but I'm at a level, where games are enjoyable and also I can enjoy watching top level chess.

How much you improve depends on how much work you put into it.

An adult beginner can improve quite a lot, but typically 2200 FIDE is considered impossible... in other words if you were a true beginner at age 20 and later got a master title you'd be a minor celebrity.

And "good" is relative of course. Can you become good enough to win 100% of your games against all your family and friends who play casually? Yes. Can you become good enough to visit small local clubs and be as good as more than half the people there? Yes.

Hi, I have been playing since December, I am 87 years of experience living but have not played chess except a few games when I was in the 5th or 6th grade. My page only showed 5 games that I played early on. Does anyone know why? Thanks 

Games you play against computers aren't saved, so I think you've only played 5 games against people with that account.

llama47 Thanks I guess I will have to start playing humans.

It's possible to improve quite a bit as an adult.

When I joined chess.com, I was in my mid-50s and my most recent rating was around 2000.

Now I'm nearly 65, and my chess.com rating is 2351.