How To Improve

How to Become a Chess Professional

Have you got what it takes?

Your desire to become a professional deserves respect. First of all you should arm yourself with patience, as the way from an amateur to the professional of an international level (Elo=2400, or even Grandmaster) will take you 4 – 5 years.

You will need these years to:
1. Prepare the opening repertoire of a professional player.
2. Learn the positions, typical for modern chess openings schemes and variants, and work through their typical strategic and tactical moves.
3. Learn standard methods of playing the most frequent types of endings: rook, pawn, etc.
4. Play 300–350 games with strong chess-players and analyze them in detail.
5. Gain experience and the necessary psychological training to conduct a tournament fight.

When the amount of the ongoing work is that large, your fitness, state of mind and belief in the fact that your abilities are up to the aim becomes very important. If you are not older than 50 and are ready for the forthcoming ordeal, we wish you good luck and are ready to give further methodical and organizational help.

“The one who tries will manage the way.”

IM Valeri Tsaturian