I want to become a CM. Any advice?

I started playing chess three years ago, at age 21. I remember that my initial rating was merely 1000 elo.

Over the past three years I have made a huge progress from 1000 elo to 1700 elo.

Due to my impressive progress and my increasing interest in chess, I have recently started to wonder if I can become a CM in the future. I wonder how much time and effort will it take to improve from 1700 elo to 2200 elo.

To be honest, the raise from 1000 elo to 1700 elo wasn’t difficult for me at all. Is the raise from 1700 elo to 2200 elo more difficult?

Also, some people say that improving the rating becomes extremely hard after a player passes the age of 25. Is it true?

My goal is to become a CM in 5 years. If you’re a strong player and you think that my goal is realistic, please give me a piece of advice and point me to the right direction. Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Matan

Hmm. That's a tough question. Yes, it will be much harder. But I'm not sure how.

My guess is you'd have to put in the same kind of effort that very good high school musicians and athletes do in order to get college scholarships or go into pro leagues. That's about 3 hours per day.  You'd also have to maximize your rate of improvement and a good coach can help with that. The world-class music school, Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where I studied only in the adult program, says that if you want to gain admission to college there as an 18 year-old, you should have been studying music for 4 hours/day since age 6. Many of the students there studied under virtuosos before admission. In my logo you can see me playing Chopin in the school's ACE Recital. I would never have achieved that without a virtuoso teacher.

A lot of us began playing chess at the rated level in our 20's, rose to become respectable club-level players, but found advancement toward master ratings to be very difficult.

There are people who achieve master status after the age of 50, the one I know of was a class A (1800) player when much younger.

Hmm perhaps concentrate on some favorite openings, study them, know them, own them, practice tons of blitz/bullet games online using these, then finally play rated games.  This will most surely push to over 2000 at least.

Thank you very much guys! You gave me really good tips.

bb_gum, I practice 2-3 hours a day, every day. I'm currently studying the games of Paul Morphy (he's my favorite player). I intend to study games of modern grandmasters like Fischer and Tal in the next months. I hope it won't be too difficult for me to study their games.

The opening is my favorite part of chess. From my point of view, opening is the most important part of the game. When I gain an advantage in the opening, usually it helps me throughout the entire game. That's why I spend 70% of my time studying openings. I focus my efforts on studying the KID and the Sicilain defense.

LilBoat, I've heard about Smirnov and his courses, but I didn't know that his courses are so good. Improving from 1200 OTB to 1700 OTB in one year is very impressive to say the least. Thanks for letting me know about it.

CM JamesColeman, I would love to be a FM one day in the future. But it's probably much more difficult to be a FM. I guess I'll have to be a CM first. As you said, my love of chess is the only thing that will push me towards my goal.

MickinMD, thanks for your advice. Yes, I really need to find a good coach. By the way, I love to hear classical music when I play chess 

Possibly of interest:
Chess Training for Candidate Masters by Alexander Kalinin
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/9047.pdf

It's nice to see some sensible threads about attainable goals, like how to become a CM or NM instead of a GM. Here are some earlier threads that I thought were particularly good that might help:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-to-became-a-international-master-in-two2-years2

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-i-became-a-2100-fide-rated-in-1-year

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/for-everyone-who-asks-whether-or-not-they-can-get-to-a-certain-rating

Wanna become CM, a post is free in Delhi!

ive seen lots of people in chess.com with over 2200 ratings. why are they not CMs

anyone???

fender_guitars: CM is earned in person. The accounts you see likely anonymous.

The_Analyzer: Class A and below, maybe also expert, are called amateurs. They have day jobs and would have trouble selling books. Masters and above are typically professional chess players. Magnus Carlson took a year off from school to devote to chess.

but why are there still people with 2500 as their rating but they are not titled 

i'll do it because i want to impress my friends

2200 on chess.com isn't 2200 FIDE. You need 2200 in OTB to get the title.

This. Though I'm 2100 blitz on Chess.com, I can't seem to play so well when playing with longer time controls. I seem to play better when I have 3 minutes than when I have 30. For some reason I play weaker when I have more time on the clock. 

If you want to become a titled player, concentrate on longer time controls and start playing OTB.

Нi

"Over the past three years I have made a huge progress from 1000 elo to 1700 elo."
Realistic then is 3 years from 1700 to 2000, 3 years from 2000 to 2150, 3 years from 2150 to 2200. That is 9 years to CM.

"improving the rating becomes extremely hard after a player passes the age of 25." Not necessarily, but it becomes harder rather than easier for sure

"I intend to study games of modern grandmasters like Fischer and Tal in the next months."
++ Fischer and Tal are certainly good to study, but modern grandmasters are Carlsen, Kasparov.

"The opening is my favorite part of chess."
++This is the least important part of chess, the middle game and the endgame are much more important.
"When I gain an advantage in the opening, usually it helps me throughout the entire game."
++ This is only because the opening helps you overrun weak players, it is of no help against stronger players.

"That's why I spend 70% of my time studying openings."
++ This is completely wrong. You should not study openings at all but devote time to middlegame tactics and endgames.

"I focus my efforts on studying the KID and the Sicilain defense."
++ These are 2 of the most theoretical openings with lines 20 moves deep. Even Kasparov being a professional gave up the KID as he said he could not maintain both the KID and the Sicilian.

"I really need to find a good coach."
++ A coach is not necessary, just study of annotated grandmaster games is enough.

Improving rating after 25 may become more difficult, but not because of the brain or that your potential chess skills would diminish, but because most people concentrate on other things after 25, like job, marriage and kids. For many people there just doesn't seem to be enough time for seriously studying chess later in life. 

And 25  is a ridiculous number anyway. Humans reach teir peak abilities much later than that.

ANd about becoming a CM in 5 years. Ofcourse you can do it if you just put enough time and energy to it. Most wont.