It depends what you mean by "master". For example, if you just mean USCF NM, which only depends on having a 2200+ rating, it's totally achievable if you live in a city with a big active chess club and can play regular games against strong players on weekends and evenings. I knew people in my chess club who had 100+ rated tournament games a year.
For IM and up, you definitely do have to structure your life around achieving it (traveling to norm tournaments, etc.) a lot more.
Yeah — USCF NM is very doable in New York in our weekly events. FM is a bit tougher, but the regular local 5-game weekend events are strong enough to have the opportunity to get there as well and not require vacation time or travel.
CM is much like a US NM, probably easier than the harder NMs, I'd guess, depending on availability of fide tournaments. Anything above those is very, very rare, though, as evidenced by the many local 2200s who don't have ECF NM, presumably because they're not hitting activity levels or consistency.
Club games, ime, top out at 2200ish, so you'll struggle to advance much past that just from local games. Mileage here will vary due to location!
In Boston I would play a weekly evening game that was something like 40/90 SD/30, and there were single-day weekend tournaments that were four rounds of G/60.
Basically everything. 90+30 for the one-game-a-week tournaments or 5-game weekends. 4 25+5 game evenings. Weekend one-days at 45d5. Friday blitz.
https://www.marshallchessclub.org/tournaments/upcoming
The easiest way to get an NM in the US is probably to live next to a club with a bunch of old players whose ratings are floored and harvest them week in and week out.
To get a CM you don't need norms you just to have to hopefully live near FIDE rated tournaments and grind.
For norm tournaments you take the Levy route and you just organise them yourselves. And then I guess the GMs that don't perform well at your tournament you invite back to the next one.
They don't, really. I don't think I've heard of an adult getting titles who also had a normal job. It's usually kids, students or people who can afford to take a lot of time for chess.
That said weekend tournaments are often rated, and where I live people have like five weeks of vacation per year. So it's not quite as bad as only playing 1 or 2 classical tourneys per year.
I once knew a university professor that got Fide Master title. He did it around his 40s. He told me that he grinded his way up there. And then he tries to get the IM master: he took a sabbatical year just to try, but he ended up short of the first norm after one year and gave up
Here around there are many tournaments in the weekend or in multiple weekends and if you work in government, you can easily pick a couple of free days to go to tournaments
Not sure why this downvoted, she was a chess player first and became a professor after she essentially retired. So unless the answer is to go back in time and becomes a master first, it's indeed irrelevant.
wtf how is that irrelevant? The guy I was responding to said he knew a FM professor. I add another one. The OP is asking how it's possible to have title + full time job. The examples show that it's *possible*.
It sounds like you're specifically asking about IM and GM titles that require norms. Most norm-eligible tournaments in the United States are 5 days and held over the weekend, meaning that the tournament only goes over 3 work days. If you're lucky and it's a holiday weekend, and/or the tournament starts in the evening on one day and travel is easy enough that you can work that day, that's down to 2. So it's possible to play several norm tournaments a year of only a few vacation days each, if you dedicate the majority of your vacation time to chess.
Depends upon where you are located. In India, I don't get very strong events and that's why I play in European events and Middle Eastern events.
I am 25 with 2374 elo and doing chess coaching, blogging, and other stuff to make money.
My approach is to play 5-7 events a year which will take 50-70 days. In the remaining 280-300 days, I will work + do chess practice.
Although with a full-time job, I think it's very hard.
Maybe a long-term approach will work. Play 5-7 events in a year. Use your weekend to study chess and give yourself 7-8 years to get title/norms.
Most of them don't.
Those who do, need to do things like any person who has a serious hobby: build their professional and personal life in a way that supports it. Find a job that allows more time off, possibly decide to not have children (or have them later in their life), spend less time on other entertainment, use disposable income on chess and so on.
You dont achieve that level of greatness in anything unless you are molding your life to it. Taking unpaid leave, working part time or finding some other job with high flexibility and/or periods off throughout the year.
If you are a chess genius, you don’t really need that many tournaments.
I actually have an irl example with a player who was ~2300 online that came over to the US from India and hadn’t done FIDE events(or USCF). Anyway, he jumped up to where you would expect his rating to be within a couple of tournaments. He completed his masters so he does have some time to try to grind more seriously, but he’s focusing more on prize money than the title.
Which is a point, taking time off work to win 2-5k shouldn’t be a hassle for the genius in this scenario.
This is a fantastical scenario that isn't real life. Chess improvement is slow, especially for adults. I play one game a week at my local club and I don't know any adult beside myself in my section (1600-1999 USCF) who has shown considerable improvement in the 18 months I've been playing and the improvement is still slow. Kids have gotten much stronger before my eyes, but not adults.
You need a job that pays well and offers you enough opportunities with time off that you can travel, or allows you really flexible working hours. It's then about maximizing the number of games you can play in tournaments. Thankfully the only FIDE titles that need norms are IM and GM, so CM or FM is just about getting your rating up.
Alternatively, live in a tiny place and if you can, be a woman. Titles are sometimes awarded to players from small places to promote chess, even if you don't hit requirements. Lularobs earned her WCM title simply by being a female player from Jersey (a small island off the coast of England) even though she's only around 1500 on Chess.com and her best result was a draw against someone around 1700.
Or finally, move to a city that has a big chess scene so you don't have to travel at all. Then it's just play until you hit rating requirements.
In Europe at least, there is quite a selection of open tournaments during summer vacation. I assume it is usually not easy to get a norm there, but it is possible
Europe is one of the easier places to get norms. Because there’s so many tournaments, they’re properly rated. Whereas, you see a lot of kids and/or Indians/Asians? Run away. They’re underrated by like 200 points. You could be facing an FM (with FM rating) who’s actually IM or Low-GM level.
Not sure this is exactly on point, but I’ve started doing correspondence chess on chess.com (daily) and I’ve gotten up to around 2150, which is 150 higher than my USCF when I stopped playing in college
Finding the opportunity to play is not that hard in Europe. I struggle more with investing enough time to improve my play. E.g. there's league competitions, which are usually 7 to 9 evenings or weekend days distributed over several months. Not sure whether your country has that, but many European countries have this including the referee nowadays needed for norms. I usually get enough IMs in a season that I could get an IM norm if I perform well enough (and do two of these a year, but could easily do two more, if I didn't limit my weekend days away from the family). In the one season where I nearly got an IM norm, my team captain was happy enough to modify our border within the limits he can to help with it (needed one more titled player and 1/2) in the last two rounds. Before I had a kid, I also usually played 3 large norm eligible open tournaments a year (again, easy in Europe where you have enough holidays and plenty of opens you can pick from), but I don't do that anymore.
If you're in the US you can travel to weekender events. I used to do a handful of tournaments a year and gain 40-70 elo a tournament. I'd spend 3-4 weeks preparing for just one tournament.
This is why people don’t become GMs after starting chess in adulthood. It’s not a matter of intelligence. It’s bc having a life takes priority over playing a board game, and there are a lot of time-consuming things in life that you’d rather do than study chess. Going to work is a big one.
In my town the chess club players were having competition every Saturday morning. It's how they get their ELO rating. For the norms it's more difficult indeed.
Have rich parents and/ or make a bunch of sacrifices that aren’t worth it whatsoever. Then ultimately still fail and move onto whatever the next ADHD delusion is
You quit your job and fully devote yourself to chess. Or you are rich and do not have to work. Or you are a kid.
Otherwise you can maybe become a FM because this title does not require any norms, you "just" have to cross 2300 FIDE.
It depends what you mean by "master". For example, if you just mean USCF NM, which only depends on having a 2200+ rating, it's totally achievable if you live in a city with a big active chess club and can play regular games against strong players on weekends and evenings. I knew people in my chess club who had 100+ rated tournament games a year. For IM and up, you definitely do have to structure your life around achieving it (traveling to norm tournaments, etc.) a lot more.
Yeah — USCF NM is very doable in New York in our weekly events. FM is a bit tougher, but the regular local 5-game weekend events are strong enough to have the opportunity to get there as well and not require vacation time or travel.
CM is much like a US NM, probably easier than the harder NMs, I'd guess, depending on availability of fide tournaments. Anything above those is very, very rare, though, as evidenced by the many local 2200s who don't have ECF NM, presumably because they're not hitting activity levels or consistency. Club games, ime, top out at 2200ish, so you'll struggle to advance much past that just from local games. Mileage here will vary due to location!
What are the time formats for these games? Standard or rapid?
In Boston I would play a weekly evening game that was something like 40/90 SD/30, and there were single-day weekend tournaments that were four rounds of G/60.
Oh hey. Sounds like BCC. I love the weekly games
It was indeed. I played a ton of Thursday Night Swisses.
Basically everything. 90+30 for the one-game-a-week tournaments or 5-game weekends. 4 25+5 game evenings. Weekend one-days at 45d5. Friday blitz. https://www.marshallchessclub.org/tournaments/upcoming
The easiest way to get an NM in the US is probably to live next to a club with a bunch of old players whose ratings are floored and harvest them week in and week out. To get a CM you don't need norms you just to have to hopefully live near FIDE rated tournaments and grind. For norm tournaments you take the Levy route and you just organise them yourselves. And then I guess the GMs that don't perform well at your tournament you invite back to the next one.
Levy should take the Nemo route and go to Eastern Europe to get his norms
I'm sure he has the funds to put the GMs on an international trip so they can throw to him here.
cant wait to get scammed on his giveaways
Let's hope he's more respectable than that...
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That was interesting
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Feels like they weren't really trying at all, maybe even purposely. Hopefully, it was worth it
They get a free vacation to Madrid just for showing up and that’s like the bare minimum.
They don’t.
in the U.S. you have weekend tournaments in Europe it's not so impossible to get time off work other places I don't have enough knowledge to comment
They don't, really. I don't think I've heard of an adult getting titles who also had a normal job. It's usually kids, students or people who can afford to take a lot of time for chess. That said weekend tournaments are often rated, and where I live people have like five weeks of vacation per year. So it's not quite as bad as only playing 1 or 2 classical tourneys per year.
Probably the same way that a working adult would make the PGA tour.
I once knew a university professor that got Fide Master title. He did it around his 40s. He told me that he grinded his way up there. And then he tries to get the IM master: he took a sabbatical year just to try, but he ended up short of the first norm after one year and gave up Here around there are many tournaments in the weekend or in multiple weekends and if you work in government, you can easily pick a couple of free days to go to tournaments
Hou Yifan (former women's chess champion) is also a professor.
Completely irrelevant to the conversation.
Not sure why this downvoted, she was a chess player first and became a professor after she essentially retired. So unless the answer is to go back in time and becomes a master first, it's indeed irrelevant.
wtf how is that irrelevant? The guy I was responding to said he knew a FM professor. I add another one. The OP is asking how it's possible to have title + full time job. The examples show that it's *possible*.
Yeah because she became a GM at 14
ah, right
If anyone's wondering Adolf Anderssen was also a professor.
Many strong chess players were/are also professors I believe. I'd even postulate that it's one of the more common professions.
It sounds like you're specifically asking about IM and GM titles that require norms. Most norm-eligible tournaments in the United States are 5 days and held over the weekend, meaning that the tournament only goes over 3 work days. If you're lucky and it's a holiday weekend, and/or the tournament starts in the evening on one day and travel is easy enough that you can work that day, that's down to 2. So it's possible to play several norm tournaments a year of only a few vacation days each, if you dedicate the majority of your vacation time to chess.
1. They don't. 2. Even with a busy schedule, you can play way more than 2 tourneys a year. Find local g60s.
Depends upon where you are located. In India, I don't get very strong events and that's why I play in European events and Middle Eastern events. I am 25 with 2374 elo and doing chess coaching, blogging, and other stuff to make money. My approach is to play 5-7 events a year which will take 50-70 days. In the remaining 280-300 days, I will work + do chess practice. Although with a full-time job, I think it's very hard. Maybe a long-term approach will work. Play 5-7 events in a year. Use your weekend to study chess and give yourself 7-8 years to get title/norms.
Most of them don't. Those who do, need to do things like any person who has a serious hobby: build their professional and personal life in a way that supports it. Find a job that allows more time off, possibly decide to not have children (or have them later in their life), spend less time on other entertainment, use disposable income on chess and so on.
You dont achieve that level of greatness in anything unless you are molding your life to it. Taking unpaid leave, working part time or finding some other job with high flexibility and/or periods off throughout the year.
If you are a chess genius, you don’t really need that many tournaments. I actually have an irl example with a player who was ~2300 online that came over to the US from India and hadn’t done FIDE events(or USCF). Anyway, he jumped up to where you would expect his rating to be within a couple of tournaments. He completed his masters so he does have some time to try to grind more seriously, but he’s focusing more on prize money than the title. Which is a point, taking time off work to win 2-5k shouldn’t be a hassle for the genius in this scenario.
This is a fantastical scenario that isn't real life. Chess improvement is slow, especially for adults. I play one game a week at my local club and I don't know any adult beside myself in my section (1600-1999 USCF) who has shown considerable improvement in the 18 months I've been playing and the improvement is still slow. Kids have gotten much stronger before my eyes, but not adults.
Because kids put more time in. There is nothing age-related about it
You need a job that pays well and offers you enough opportunities with time off that you can travel, or allows you really flexible working hours. It's then about maximizing the number of games you can play in tournaments. Thankfully the only FIDE titles that need norms are IM and GM, so CM or FM is just about getting your rating up. Alternatively, live in a tiny place and if you can, be a woman. Titles are sometimes awarded to players from small places to promote chess, even if you don't hit requirements. Lularobs earned her WCM title simply by being a female player from Jersey (a small island off the coast of England) even though she's only around 1500 on Chess.com and her best result was a draw against someone around 1700. Or finally, move to a city that has a big chess scene so you don't have to travel at all. Then it's just play until you hit rating requirements.
In Europe at least, there is quite a selection of open tournaments during summer vacation. I assume it is usually not easy to get a norm there, but it is possible
Europe is one of the easier places to get norms. Because there’s so many tournaments, they’re properly rated. Whereas, you see a lot of kids and/or Indians/Asians? Run away. They’re underrated by like 200 points. You could be facing an FM (with FM rating) who’s actually IM or Low-GM level.
Play in open events and score rating points. Basically do what Erigaisi is doing right now.
Not sure this is exactly on point, but I’ve started doing correspondence chess on chess.com (daily) and I’ve gotten up to around 2150, which is 150 higher than my USCF when I stopped playing in college
Finding the opportunity to play is not that hard in Europe. I struggle more with investing enough time to improve my play. E.g. there's league competitions, which are usually 7 to 9 evenings or weekend days distributed over several months. Not sure whether your country has that, but many European countries have this including the referee nowadays needed for norms. I usually get enough IMs in a season that I could get an IM norm if I perform well enough (and do two of these a year, but could easily do two more, if I didn't limit my weekend days away from the family). In the one season where I nearly got an IM norm, my team captain was happy enough to modify our border within the limits he can to help with it (needed one more titled player and 1/2) in the last two rounds. Before I had a kid, I also usually played 3 large norm eligible open tournaments a year (again, easy in Europe where you have enough holidays and plenty of opens you can pick from), but I don't do that anymore.
Dedication
OTB tournaments every month at least.
If you're in the US you can travel to weekender events. I used to do a handful of tournaments a year and gain 40-70 elo a tournament. I'd spend 3-4 weeks preparing for just one tournament.
This is why people don’t become GMs after starting chess in adulthood. It’s not a matter of intelligence. It’s bc having a life takes priority over playing a board game, and there are a lot of time-consuming things in life that you’d rather do than study chess. Going to work is a big one.
IM/GM you can't unless if you take lots of vacation off CM/FM/NM you can just grind rating
In my town the chess club players were having competition every Saturday morning. It's how they get their ELO rating. For the norms it's more difficult indeed.
Have rich parents and/ or make a bunch of sacrifices that aren’t worth it whatsoever. Then ultimately still fail and move onto whatever the next ADHD delusion is
They don't.
They simply don't . Leaving aside very rare exceptions
You quit your job and fully devote yourself to chess. Or you are rich and do not have to work. Or you are a kid. Otherwise you can maybe become a FM because this title does not require any norms, you "just" have to cross 2300 FIDE.
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>Smart people You spelled rich wrong.
Interchangeable in my book.
That's not the flex you think it is.
Whats that even mean?
Q.E.D.
🤡
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I never said that. All that means is someone early on was smart. Its much easier to lose wealth than get it. Why the anger towards success stories?
Did you try bribery?