How many years to become good at this game?

Almost certainly you will never become a Grandmaster. Less than 0.01% of players are strong enough to make it to Grandmaster level AND they only got there with the help of extensive lessons from very good coaches from an early age.

You can certainly become good with study and practice but if you equate "good" with "Grandmaster" then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. 

The best way to improve rapidly is by finding a good coach, but if that is too expensive there are many other ways to improve for free.

Oh, if you want to say SOME players were GM strength but couldn't get the title because travel restriction, then sure, that's fairly well known. It was... Kasparov I think (?) and a few others, they completely skipped IM or were IM for less than 1 year, something like this. So yeah, they were GM strength but didn't have the title.

As for Kasparov reaching master strength in 200 hours, his interview that I remember said it took him roughly 3 years so... you can do the math if you want.

As for Lasker, either the quote is being taken out of context, or he was an idiot. Not much else to say. Of course it's worth noting that FIDE titles and ratings didn't exist yet, so context is important.

IIRC a long time ago "master" meant at the chess club you didn't have to give anyone odds. This is how "ratings" worked back then, there were no numbers, just a hierarchy of stronger players giving weaker players odds. If you gave no one odds, you were a local master. For all we know that meant 1500 strength.

#44

"As for Kasparov reaching master strength in 200 hours, his interview that I remember said it took him roughly 3 years so... you can do the math if you want."
++ Can you link to that interview? He must have been of grandmaster strength at age 15 as he found an improvement of the Fischer-Botvinnik game.

"As for Lasker, either the quote is being taken out of context, or he was an idiot."
++ Lasker held a PhD in mathematics and was the world champion for 27 years, certainly not an idiot. Lasker also founded the Soviet School of chess, after he fled from Nazi Germany to Russia in 1933, so the whole generation of Botvinnik etc. is of his teaching. The quote is not taken out of context either. Lasker and Capablanca spoke of themselves as 'masters'. The grandmaster title was introduced by the Czar of Russia and only bestowed on a select few, like the informal super grandmaster of today. So when Lasker said 'on par with a master' he meant of such strength that he Lasker himself or his peers could not give odds i.e. about 2000 present day. The quote is an argument for doing the right thing and not doing the wrong thing, i.e. quality over quantity (hours).

In this same spirit of less is more:
"Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I have learned or read. Since then, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without. (...) I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight."
So he meant that in 200 hours he could convey the little he had stored in his memory and could apply.

Lasker disapproved of opening study as dead weight: 
“Show me three variations in the leading handbook on the openings,
and I will show you two of those three that are defective.”

I don't have the interview, it was a long time ago that I read it.

And this might surprise you, but I have heard of Lasker... I've been doing this a while. "Context or idiot" was rhetorical, but I guess it's easier to pretend not to realize that than respond to my point about there not being ratings or titles or FIDE at the time of Lasker's quote about masters.

I can't wait for you to start quoting this in every topic about openings as proof that every modern opening book is defective.

(Makes as much sense as believing Lasker was talking about modern master strength)

#49
'respond to my point about there not being ratings or titles or FIDE at the time of Lasker's quote about masters'
++ I have responded to that.
After the St. Petersburg 1914 tournament the Czar of Russia conferred the title of grandmaster on Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall.
They kept referring to themselves as 'master'.

There are retroactively calculated ratings: 2878 for Lasker in 1894
http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/PlayerProfile.asp?Params=199510SSSSS3S073076000000111000000000000010100 
So yes, Lasker was of modern super grandmaster strength. The quality of his moves was.
Even his concepts of the Berlin and of the Sveshnikov (then called Lasker-Pelikan) are still valid.

#50
It is not about this or that particular opening book. It was the general opinion of Lasker, Capablanca, Nimzovich that opening study is ballast, i.e. it does not count towards the 200 hours needed to gain 2000 strength.
Indeed every modern opening book is defective too: while it is printed games are being played that bring the defects to light. That is why all modern grandmasters use data bases instead of books.

This history of the GM title has nothing to do with my point, and I think you know that. Similarly my #50 had nothing to do with openings or books. I don't think you're taking this conversation seriously, so there's not much for me to say.

I've been playing since I was 14. I'm now 65. I still suck at chess.

to become a GM, you must be very very good at chess. An Elo rating of at least 2500 at any point in their career (although they need not maintain this level to obtain or keep the title). ...
Two favorable results (called norms) from a total of at least 27 games in tournaments.

A movie quote comes to mind:  "In the Tibetan philosophy, Sylvia Plath sense of the word, we're all dying. But you're not dying the way Chloe is dying."

I.e. you don't suck the way the OP sucks.

fear not. it will never happen.

Three.

?

yeah thanks

there are more than 600 million people who play chess according to fide. there have been about 1700 gms since 1950. do the math.

you are NEVER going to be a GM. end of story.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/grandmaster-trends-1972-2020

this is a good read. about "what does it take to be a grandmaster" "grandmaster learning curves" ages, their numbers & statistics, answer to "can anyone be a gm?" question.. and some more.