Becoming A Candidate Master Before Finishing Highschool?

My goal is to become a cm before finishing high school ends. (CM is 2000pts right?) I'm currently mostly through my sophmore year but have been playing chess for years. I feel as if I understand the dynamics and with some proper practice could become really good. My Uscf rating is currently like 1093 but it'll be going up because I recently played in a tournament.. I have only been in three tourneys so far.

I'm an aggressive player who tries to seize his advantage in the opening. What are some books that could teach me some good solid attacking techniques? I'm currently reading Attacking Manual 1 by Jacob Aagaard which has really helped my attacking. But I strive to be even better.

Do you think it's even possible to become a CM in 2 and a half years? I have the advantage being young and could study for a long time everyday of my summer vacation. Summer vacation is about 3 months. :)

I already study everyday and play a game against my automatic chess every night. I'm already on lvl 34/35 out of 79 but since reading the book I've been beating the computer pretty easily.

So what do you think?

Playing against the computer is a bad way of improving, instead you should join every otb tournament you can, that's the best way of improving, playing otb.

Read a varied range of books, don't focus solely on attacking, get a book on endgame technique aswell, don't forget a book on pawnstructure and other positionall aspects, and learn to blend them in together with attacking.

CM is 2200.

2200 is not impossible in 2.5 years, but unless you've already shown some promise, it might be aiming a bit to high, you shouldn't give up it though.

You should concentrate on tactics exercises. Class players usually drop pieces. If you notice when there is something free, you can have it and you'll win more often.

Ditto on both good posts above. Two things to add => If you are on a fast-track goal such as yours :

- invest in a coach who will critique every game loss you make and identify bad chess habits you may not know you have.

- Play a ton of slow games ... you start developing more mental discipline and get more burned about tactical mistakes because you're investing much more skin (time) into each game.   Very diff. for a 5-min game where you may normally hang a pawn and say "oh, well...I'll get him in a rematch".

I've lost to those candidate masters over and over and over and over....................

I like to think I've shown some promise but it might not be true. I'm going to start looking for a coach today because I got my parent's approval. I'm trying to get into as many tournaments as I can. (I've just recently become a tournament player.) I'm joining the local chess club too.

I'll look for the type of books you guys reccomended. I haven't even thought about pawn structure... I just have a feeling which pawn moves I play will help/hurt me.. I know my endgame needs work too.

Do you think reaching 2000 is possible?

I like to think of myself as a fast learner..

The more you play the more you'll find that a master status is truely an amazing achievement.

 I beleive you. The more I play and think that's as good as I'm going to get I learn something new that changes my whole view of things. It's like a pool. The farther you go  the deeper you realize it is and only the clearly adept players can stay afloat.

 I guess the reason why it is bad to play against computer is that

if you play against a lower rated computer opponent they will give you some sort of edge (drop a piece) and then play like a grandmaster.

the way you have to play against someone when you are up in material is another game than if you are equal or have a slight disadvantage.

if you look at higher rated opponent games they rarely exchange pieces than lower rated opponent.

honestly I think even with coaching that goal is a difficult one, but it's good that you set your goals high and I wish you the best of luck

I wouldn't be this harsh ...  playing whole games are not so helpful BUT practicing technique in "won" by Master or "drawn" by Master positions vs. a powerful engine does wonders for your confidence.

Start with King and Pawn vs. King and work up the complexity ladder ... being able to say "I can win this position in my sleep vs. a 3000 Rated computer" are great milestones in your road to improvement. They also help with your time management as well. (Chess.com allows you to do this as well!)

I'd like to put a little different point of view forward---becoming a master (2200+) or a candidate master (2000+) or even a class A (1800+) is not that hard.  First, at lower class levels tactics, tactics,( you get the idea). To progress to CM or Master positional ideas and ending knowledge become much more important.  You might have noticed that I really haven't mentioned openings.  When I was younger I made  2200+ simply playing the Colle System as white and the Modern as black.  I understood the resulting middle-game ideas better than my opponents.  While you are learning the basics, play open games in order to sharpen your tactical skills and attacking technique.  Study Morphy's and Tarrasch's games.  As you near 1800 perhaps the London System as white and the Caro-Kann and Slav as black.  Understand that CM is quite do-able.  Good luck!

I agree. Training against engines from set positions, often those that are theoretically won but still require technique to finish, is a regular part of my training regimen.

Earlier this month in http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2011/03/modicum-of-caution.html, I wrote:

"I had White and settled for a draw. This morning I played this position against Rybka 4 in order to practice the endgame that Reti claims can be won easily. Should I ever have a similar position again, even in a blitz game, I should win easily. Can I win this in thirty seconds? Ten? I started with ten minutes, but used barely three."

"The Art of Attack" Vukovic

You can reach your goal if you study 8 hours a day. ( or so I heard)

I think USCF rating categories and FIDE rating categories are different--so 2200 USCF is considered NM ( master)  while 2200 FIDE is considered CM-and it seems to change whether 2000 USCF is Candidate Master or Expert--I am not sure what they call it today

Yet nobody points out that it's really two different rating systems.

2000+ uscf is Expert, 2200+ FIDE is CM.

Alex Dunne, How to Become a Candidate Master (1986) uses the term for rating above 2000. His usage reflects the standard usage at the time that he wrote this book.

To become a Candidate Master you have to know a LOT of patterns. A mind boggling number of them in fact. At below 1200 uscf you'll need to learn basic mating, forking, skewering, pinning..etc. patterns and make it a habit to check whether you or your opponent have left any hanging pieces. That, with some decent calculation (about 6 ply ie. 3 moves) should get you to upto 1600 uscf pretty fast.

After that, there's higher levels of patterns and they get higher and higher and higher and they won't only be tactical! Eventually (if you keep practicing diligently), you'll have made CM or even FM.

Going over Master games helps once you're trying to break into Expert or Master but going over your own games helps at any level.

And in your case, you're still very young so you'll probably make it, if not during high school, soon after it, provided that you keep at it and keep your training from becoming too much like a chore.

Good Luck

I am currently playing a NM in a tourny here on chess.com that went from low teens to 2000+ in about three years when he was your age (I looked up his USCF rating card) so it is certainly do-able.  It will be a lot easier to find coaching in a city than if you are in the boonies, but stick with it there are lots of school aged masters that did NOT have to sacrifice everything to succeed.