How should I Go From Beginner To Master?

Alright, let's start this with basic information.   I am a  14 year old beginner chess normally rated between `1100 and 1200 (My rating has been falling  these days) and I was wondering how  could I get to 2000.   I know it's no easy task, but I am willing to work hard.   I am willing to spend hours studying books, hours solving puzzles and work as hard as I can every single day with no breaks. 

Can I get there after years of this cycle? Let's say 5-8 years of regular study and regular puzzle solving skills?   What books do you recommend to read? Please provide as many as you can! And how many hours a day should I study.  Should I also solve 200 tactical puzzles every single day?  Any diet routine that I have to follow, and anything that  improves my memory?  I have this goal and I am willing to work as hard as I can and make sacrifices to do so. Thanks. 

Hey Modern!

I'm no master, but I can give my opinion for whatever its worth!

To start, congratulations on your rating! That's a great score for fourteen! I myself didn't reach that until I was much older! I think getting to 2000 is an accomplishment you can indeed achieve! First, I will say, the most important thing is to simply play games as often as you can, preferably with a longer time control. The second most important thing is to analyze those games. This can be done with an engine, but I find that analyzing with a person of higher strength is far more helpful for people sub 1400-1600. Engines will often recommend things for players that don't make sense at lower ratings, and, though is perhaps the best move, is not the best thing to play for a lower rated player (ex. a material sacrifice for a better position, when the player has no concept of how to hold a better position.)

Those are the two most important things to do to improve your game. Books, and puzzles are great things to supplement your growth, but should not be a substitute for these.

Now, in terms of books and puzzles, I would say play plenty of tactics. I don't use the site often, but I believe lichess has free unlimited puzzles, and I'm sure there are sites that offer the same. I'd say maybe five to ten a day with careful consideration of each puzzle is good! 200 a day is just gonna fry your brain. For books, you're probably about to be flooded by people offering a library of them. I'd recommend picking up one simple book and studying it in and out. A good one is Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals, which gives you a nice overview of each part of the game, and is free on google books.

Some general tips and things to recognize for growth:

• If you keep with the game, you will get better as you get older. As your brain develops, it will be able to calculate better, look deeper in a position, etc.
• Definitely, definitely do take breaks. You mentioned you would work as hard as you can every day without breaks. This is good passion, but your brain needs its rest! Treat it well, and take some days where you don't do anything with chess at all!
• Diet is a good thing to consider! Just eat healthy and exercise! Make sure to get sleep. It affects your play more than you know!

(If it wasn't clear, I just inserted my responses in bold text to stand out from the questions)

Hi there, ModernBilal. As someone else mentioned, you are about to be bombarded with book, DVD or online tool membership recommendations by other members here.

The short answer is YES. A USCF rating is achievable under the terms you described and based on how young you are. I would be even a bit more optimistic and say you could probably aim a little higher to even a Fide Master rating. 

Before I give you my advise, let me first give you a bit of background. I was reasonably good back in the mid 90’s when I was a teenager. By reasonably good, I mean that while unrated because I never played in any official FIDE tournaments in my country of birth, I routinely beat or drew players that with official over the board ratings of 1600 to about 1700. Since I used to get simply massacred almost 100% of the time by a player in my town who was a little over 2000, I would say my rating at about 16 years old oscillated somewhere slightly under 1700. I was always a shy dude who only had 2 people who I would consider friends. That means I could spend several hours every afternoon and evening playing through the only chess book I had access to back then: The game of chess, by Siegbert Tarrasch. Then I would spend every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, well through the very late evening playing chess with other kids and the old men who hung out at my uncle’s barber shop all day and night. Then life and my own personal interests shifted dramatically, and I stopped playing chess entirely for over 20 years. Trust me, time truly flies. I have been on this site now for a few years because I enjoy the forums due to the chess news and cool equipment posts that happen here every once in a while. But I have never even played a game here. I am really old school and prefer playing over the board. Something about pushing those wooden sculptures with your own hands is something that computers can never come close to. Though I do play against Chess Tiger on my iPad ALL THE TIME.

For what it’s worth, my advise to you is: DO NOT let your school studies get affected by your chess obsession. If I had stuck with chess with the level of addiction I had in my early teens, I could have probably made it to a 2200 rating or maybe even closer to 2300. But my life would have been a mess because of it. That rating means nothing these days when it comes to helping anyone make a living with it. No to mention that that level of work is not sustainable for someone with real life responsibilities. Essentially, if you were not already a prodigy by the age of 7 or 8 years old, you are EXTREMELY unlikely to make a living through chess alone. Just a quick reality check to set the tone. Please take it to heart that chess is a beautiful way to find pleasure in a noble hobby. But even if you take it as a SERIOUS hobby, it is STILL A HOBBY. 

So bottom line. Concentrate on school, and let chess be the nice spice that brings additional joy to your life. Now, to answer your actual questions. 

It is a mistake to obsess about buying many books. Plenty of us in this place own far more books than we could master in a lifetime. Buy Capablanca’s chess fundamentals, or Bobby Fischer teaches chess, or ANY beginner rated book. Notice I said “OR”, and not “AND”. Buy one book and finish it cover to cover multiple times. While you do that, practice free tactics problems that you can find for free on the web and on dozens of phone apps. Do tactics EVERY DAY. At least 5 to 10 problems daily and TRULY work hard to understand the patters in each of the problems. Once you run out of free problems, do the same set of problems over and over until you can solve the puzzle with just a quick glance. Once you’ve done this, for a while (maybe up to 6 months), It may be time to buy yourself a better structured book. Maybe “My system” by Nimzovich, or any of the Yasser Seirawan’s “Winning chess...” series, or any of the Silman books. Again, Buy ONE book and devour/internalize it before going nuts with the purchases. All they while, play chess every day, preferably agains other people but play against the computer when that is not possible. Concentrate on the quality of the work and time, and not the quantity. I would say 3 hours a day is a great way to start, but set yourself for success by setting a base minimum of 2 hours daily spent on serious study. 

As someone else already mentioned above, the MOST important part of your improvement will be to record (on paper or via a chess app) your games and give yourself time to analyze EVERY GAME you play. Analyzing one of your games move by move for about 30 minutes, is much better than playing 100 games online while making the same mistakes over and over and not understanding WHY you lost or won those games. Obviously longer time control games are better training than 5 minute blitz games. So by all means play blitz for fun, but understand that you learn little to nothing spending too long playing blitz. Play at least 20 minute long games if your purpose is improvement. In short:

1. Study ONE method book at a time. 

2. Do chess tactics problems EVERY single day, and keep track/save the problems so that you can tackle the same problems later to assess if you really understood the pattern/concept it is testing you on. 

3. Play longer time control games. Don’t just play random chess games every day. Set a portion of your daily study aside for analysis of each and every game you play. 

4. DON’T make the rating your obsession. A GROWTH mindset is far stronger than a GOAL mindset. Focus on understanding the game deeply and learning something new every day. Once you pass a certain level of this type of growth, the rating will follow effortlessly. It just won’t happen the other way around. 

I hope this helps. Good luck, and enjoy chess. 

Because USCF and FIDE are similar. I so not have a FIDE rating yet, so I won't try to claim I know something where I don't. USCF (United States Chess Federation) is essentially the FIDE equivalent in the U.S.A. (whereas FIDE is more International ratings), so I responded with what I was familiar with. For what it is worth, I realized the difference, but USCF and FIDE are VERY similar in many ways.

The rating organization doesn't take away from the advice I gave.

lol All right

everyone has a hidden rating, their potential in them. and you dont need to do too much special things to reach it. if you have talent and you like chess you will already read and watch things to take you to your potential.

after that.. if you want to advance further.. well its not easy.. if not impossible. you have to work 8-9 hours a day.. to make just a little progress..

it just isnt worth the time if you ask me. just reach your plateu.. and forget about the rest. just enjoy the game.

Wow, thanks everyone. All these will be useful and let's see how it goes. Good luck.

A small suggestion--always try to play against the strongest players who will play against you. 

guys stop attaking him i bet hes better then u because i know hes better then me so i wish you the best of luck and also IgorKravitz stop being like this just be nice

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Solving tactics and becoming a beast in tactics with time (might need to solve tactics and visualization problems for 8 hours a day) will alone propel you to around 1800