I guess somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand (based on interpolation of my own number), but I'd be interested in a more precise figure. I can't seem to find the answer anywhere on the internet!
I don't see how you could possibly believe that your experience to date would give you any insight into what an average might be.
I guess somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand (based on interpolation of my own number), but I'd be interested in a more precise figure. I can't seem to find the answer anywhere on the internet!
I don't see how you could possibly believe that your experience to date would give you any insight into what an average might be.
Thank you, very helpful. Exactly what I was looking for
About rated longchessgames. Between 1000 and 2000 rated longchessgames there are a lot of masters.
Can't tell you. We're very secretive about that.
Before I became class A, I went over at least 1,000 master games, mostly from the Tartakower/duMont book.
NM Dan Heisman claims he went over 10,000.
I guess somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand (based on interpolation of my own number), but I'd be interested in a more precise figure. I can't seem to find the answer anywhere on the internet!
I don't see how you could possibly believe that your experience to date would give you any insight into what an average might be.
Thank you, very helpful. Exactly what I was looking for
You are welcome.
Since you've only made it to 1,000 or so (970 blitz) and have have improved your rating by 300 points or so since you started, I am guessing you drew a line estimating an improvement of 300 points every 3 months and then you figured that would take about 5 quarters or so at that rate to pass 2200. Since you have played about 2,000 games, multiplying that by 6 (the 1 you have done plus the 5 to come) gets you to 12,000 games. Perhaps you rounded up "to be conservative".
Your estimate may actually turn out to be the case but we can't know that today. It is theoretically possible even if it seems only remotely plausible. Achieving master in only a couple of years is only done by a very small group of people- the kind who make the newspapers.
Instead of trying to extrapolate from your own limited experience, you need to find data from some group of people who have actually made it to master and see if your rate of improvement is possible.
Where to get the data is the main problem. Anecdotal evidence is highly unreliable.
It would be interesting for Chess.com to make this data available. There must be some people who have achieved such increases while members of Chess.com, even after you weed out all the people who turned out to be using electronic help.
What is meant by average?
Mean, mode or median? 
@sea_of_trees I've played around 1600 games in my first 4 months, meaning that even at my abysmal <1000 level of play, it would be only around 2 years before I reached 10,000 games. Of course, this is mainly bullet/blitz - I'm talking about EVERY chess game a GM has ever played - perhaps to the nearest hundred.
@notmtwain this is exactly what I meant in the OP: I can't find the data anywhere and am curious to know if anyone has been able to. Your analysis of my mathematics is pretty much spot on, though - cheers for replacing the sarcasm with info x)
@Murgen I doubt there even is a mode. If you can find either of the other two I'll be impressed x)
I've played over 400 10-min blitz games in my first week of online chess. Any good player plays 3min or even faster games, so they should easily have at least a thousand games per month - depending on how much quality they seek,that number could easily be above 5k games a month...until they get bored and play less.
So the total number for a GM who also plays chess online? Hundreds of thousands...
I asked my friend to ask his chess instructor, and apparently he just said "enough games to make you want to quit" which doesn't answer the original question at all, but is kind of inspiring, depressing, and funny at the same time I suppose. I think his chess instructor is just lonely.
notmtwain wrote (idk how to cite something):
You are welcome.
Since you've only made it to 1,000 or so (970 blitz) and have have improved your rating by 300 points or so since you started, I am guessing you drew a line estimating an improvement of 300 points every 3 months and then you figured that would take about 5 quarters or so at that rate to pass 2200. Since you have played about 2,000 games, multiplying that by 6 (the 1 you have done plus the 5 to come) gets you to 12,000 games. Perhaps you rounded up "to be conservative".
Your estimate may actually turn out to be the case but we can't know that today. It is theoretically possible even if it seems only remotely plausible. Achieving master in only a couple of years is only done by a very small group of people- the kind who make the newspapers.
Instead of trying to extrapolate from your own limited experience, you need to find data from some group of people who have actually made it to master and see if your rate of improvement is possible.
Where to get the data is the main problem. Anecdotal evidence is highly unreliable.
It would be interesting for Chess.com to make this data available. There must be some people who have achieved such increases while members of Chess.com, even after you weed out all the people who turned out to be using electronic help.
A lot of the time, when you get to around 1500, your progress slows to a grind. I asked a couple of my friends who like chess, including an instructor about this. The reason is, that when I was a rating of maybe 300, I could 4-move or something else obvious and get a ton of points really fast. The higher you get, the more likely it is that your opponent will be able to defend you, and so once you get to maybe 2000 you may even be making backward progress. It requires a steady mind, time, and huge amounts of determination if you are a normal person to even make the grind to 2100, and it keeps getting harder as more tactics stop working. The guess of 12000 is definitely too low, as it is an uphill climb 600 onward. I would say maybe even 80000 games, and that wouldn't even be at the high end of the spectrum. Even if your rating was 2700, grandmaster norm matches are even tougher. This is partially off my own experience and that of a couple people that have similar ratings to me. But I did consult people that have 2000 rating too so.... I think that it would take a long time. In the words of a specific chess instructor, It would take more than enough games to make you want to quit.
Levy mentioned on a stream fairly recently he has played over 500k games. He's one of the best IM's out there and is obviously well known and reputable. Since that's the case for him and he quit chess as a kid for 2 or 3 years id assume GM's have way more. So low end 500k high end maybe over a million. Haven't been able to find more accurate answers online. Definitely 500k+ though.
Slightly off topic, but personally speaking I have around 9k games played. About 5k of those were me just being bored and playing bullet or blitz and not taking chess seriously. I now play rapid mainly. I always only played on my phone and occasionally played while driving, eating, or when I haven't slept in days because of insomnia so not concentrating much. In the last 2 weeks I've stopped playing to fall asleep and I've only been playing on my laptop and I've gained almost 200elo. I've won almost 20 games in a row so I expect to plateau around 1650-1700. I may even go higher. So I've played maybe 1k games seriously. Hopefully I can reach 2k elo by the end of next year and 2300 or so the following year. Just started playing chess in the last couple years (in the last year consistently). Trying to make cm's, nm's, im's look like fools getting to their lvl or higher after only a few years of experience
Levy mentioned on a stream fairly recently he has played over 500k games. He's one of the best IM's out there and is obviously well known and reputable. Since that's the case for him and he quit chess as a kid for 2 or 3 years id assume GM's have way more. So low end 500k high end maybe over a million. Haven't been able to find more accurate answers online. Definitely 500k+ though.
Slightly off topic, but personally speaking I have around 9k games played. About 5k of those were me just being bored and playing bullet or blitz and not taking chess seriously. I now play rapid mainly. I always only played on my phone and occasionally played while driving, eating, or when I haven't slept in days because of insomnia so not concentrating much. In the last 2 weeks I've stopped playing to fall asleep and I've only been playing on my laptop and I've gained almost 200elo. I've won almost 20 games in a row so I expect to plateau around 1650-1700. I may even go higher. So I've played maybe 1k games seriously. Hopefully I can reach 2k elo by the end of next year and 2300 or so the following year. Just started playing chess in the last couple years (in the last year consistently). Trying to make cm's, nm's, im's look like fools getting to their lvl or higher after only a few years of experience
That's crazy to think about, considering that there are 1 million seconds in 12 years.
Levy mentioned on a stream fairly recently he has played over 500k games. He's one of the best IM's out there and is obviously well known and reputable. Since that's the case for him and he quit chess as a kid for 2 or 3 years id assume GM's have way more. So low end 500k high end maybe over a million. Haven't been able to find more accurate answers online. Definitely 500k+ though.
Slightly off topic, but personally speaking I have around 9k games played. About 5k of those were me just being bored and playing bullet or blitz and not taking chess seriously. I now play rapid mainly. I always only played on my phone and occasionally played while driving, eating, or when I haven't slept in days because of insomnia so not concentrating much. In the last 2 weeks I've stopped playing to fall asleep and I've only been playing on my laptop and I've gained almost 200elo. I've won almost 20 games in a row so I expect to plateau around 1650-1700. I may even go higher. So I've played maybe 1k games seriously. Hopefully I can reach 2k elo by the end of next year and 2300 or so the following year. Just started playing chess in the last couple years (in the last year consistently). Trying to make cm's, nm's, im's look like fools getting to their lvl or higher after only a few years of experience
That's crazy to think about, considering that there are 1 million seconds in 12 years.
No, 1 year = 3.1536mil seconds = 0.5256mil minutes
exactly the insight I was looking for
I guess somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand (based on interpolation of my own number), but I'd be interested in a more precise figure. I can't seem to find the answer anywhere on the internet!