How Long Should it Take to Become an Expert
Possibly the strongest argument against the belief that becoming a good chess player requires a special gift is to compare chess to other intellectual disciplines and ask 'What is required to become good in that discipline?'
The data on this subject is very clear: in every intellectual discipline, from Ar chaeology to Zoology, becoming accomplished is a matter of time, work, and practice, not heavenly intervention. Mounds of empirical data support this claim.
- Figure 3: Adult class player Chris Dingle (USCF ID 12675450) improved from 1573 on 6/98 to 2101 on 6/99, a rate of improvement that is almost double mine.
Let's work through a calculation that crystallises how much work is required to progress from being a novice to being an accomplished practitioner. If I wanted to learn about archaeology - a subject that I know nothing about - I could take a two-year course at a local university and earn an Associate's degree. After receiving this degree I would certainly know more than 99% of the people in the world about archaeology.
How long would it take to get this degree? Assuming that I take four classes per semester, spend ten hours per week for each class, and each semester lasts fifteen weeks (all very generous assumptions), it would take me 2400 hours (4 semesters x 4 classes/semester x 10 hours/week x 15 weeks/class) to earn my Associate's degree. The actual number of hours is probably half this amount.
Given that a similar argument holds for all other academic disciplines, not just archaeology, it should also apply to chess. Becoming an accomplished chess player should take approximately 2400 hours.
Some might argue that in calculating how long it takes to become an accom plished archaeologist I was comparing myself to the population at large, not just to those who are interested in archaeology and hence the analogy does not apply to chess because chess ratings compare chess players to other chess players and not to the general population.
There is some truth to the statement. However, very few chess players are professionals while someone with an associate's degree in archaeology would certainly be a professional archaeologist and would be far superior to the population of people who are interested in archaeology.
Let's say then that a person with an associate's degree in a particular field is in the top 10% when compared to people who are interested, either as amateurs or professionals, in that field. This will allow a direct comparison to chess ratings.
According to the USCF website, someone who has a rating of 1900 is in the top 7%-11% of all chess players. Hence, according to our calculations, it should take approximately 2400 hours to reach this level and become an accomplished chess player.
This is certainly in line with my experience. It took me about twenty months to achieve a rating of 1900 and during that time I studied two to three hours a day for a total of approximately 1500 hours of study (2.5hrs/day x 30 days/month x 20 months). In addition I played approximately 200 chess games, each of which took a approximately three hours for a total of 2100 hours of study time (1500 hours + 200 games x 3 hours/game).
Note that this argument applies to becoming good, but not great, in a particular discipline. This calculation holds for reaching the top 10% in a population composed of both amateurs and professionals interested in a particular field. To become one of the top human beings in the world - in chess or in any other discipline - a special gift may be needed. But even in this case, several authorities, most notably Laszlo Polgar, would argue that chess perfection is a product of nurture not nature.
There is also one other caveat: to become a top 10% player in 2400 hours of study you need to follow a program of study. A person who wants to receive a degree in archaeology must follow a planned, carefully thought out program of study that includes attending classes, writing papers and doing homework. Randomly examining archaeology texts will not lead to top 10% mastery.
Despite this seemingly obvious fact, many chess players seem to do exactly this - follow a course of random study. Once a chess player learns the rules of the game, there appears to be virtually no clear understanding of how to continue.
How can it be that reading a certain book is good for the Class D player, the Class A player, and the Master. Does this work in any other discipline? Imagine a mathematics textbook being equally informative to someone who has just learned how to count and a university professor.
In this book I describe the exact study plan that I used to improve 400 points in one year. You will no longer have to wonder whether openings should be studied before endgames or endgames before middlegames or middlegames before openings. My study plan lasts five months and for every day during that 150-day period you will know exactly what to do.
To summarise, becoming an Expert or a Master can be achieved over time through hard work - a special gift is helpful but is definitely not necessary. There is no doubt that some people may have a predilection for chess and they will not need to work as hard to achieve a particular rating. However, just about everyone can become an Expert for the same reasons that just about everyone can become a good archaeologist or zoologist.
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