3 Excuses That Prevent Us from Becoming Stronger Chess Players

Today I have compiled a list of the 3 most common excuses that chess players all over the world make, that they think prevent them from becoming a stronger chess player.

Curious? Maybe these are the very same excuses you make as well? Let’s find out!

1. I don’t have a coach

This is by far the most common excuse I hear. Many chess players from 10 to 60 years old keep on saying the same thing. They truly believe that because they don’t have a coach or cannot afford one, they cannot become better at chess. This is a gigantic misconception!

There are many strong and very strong chess players who never had a chess coach and became really good. The brightest example is the all-famous World Champion Bobby Fischer. There were a few chess players during his career who suggested him things, but he never had a permanent coach, or any coach in fact, in the classical sense of this word.

There are many more IMs and FMs who have never had a coach and make it to that 2400 level just by hard work and dedication. I personally know at least 5 NMs, 2-3 FMs and an IM who achieved that level without ever having a chess coach.

To makes things even simpler for you we have developed a 21 day chess training course that will provide you with all necessary training materials to work on your chess for the whole 3 weeks.

You will work on many very important elements of chess such as positional understanding, practical endgame techniques, game analyzes, position evaluation, GM game analysis, tactics training, etc.

Now you cannot say that you don’t make progress at chess because you do not have a personal coach, since with our course you definitely will!

2. I’m too old

That is another very common excuse that many chess players make nowadays. They say “oh no, I’m too old to improve I should ‘ve started playing when I was a kid.” You may think that only somebody who is at least 65 years old would say something like that. Nope, I saw many 20 year olds who think that they are way too old for chess already.

There are many examples of when chess players become titled players later in their career: Viktor Ciocaltea of Romania became a Grandmaster (GM) when he was 47, Geza Fuster of Hungary became an International Master (IM) when he was 59, Larry Kaufman became a Grandmaster (GM) when he was over 55 years old and so on. There are many more FIDE masters, National masters and Candidate masters who got their titles being 50, 60 and even 70 years old!

And somebody tells me that they are too old for chess in their 20s or 30s?

3. I don’t have time

That’s the last excuse chess players use to show that they’re absolutely certain that they don’t have resources to become a stronger chess players. They all have busy lives, jobs, responsibilities which surely cannot let them work on their chess. When you ask them how much time they spend playing chess weekly, many say, “oh, not that much maybe 2 hours at the chess club twice per week and some 3-4 hours of online blitz”.

Indeed that’s no time to improve. If they would just take 2-3 hours to study chess out of these 7-8 hours they spend on playing weekly, the results wouldn’t take long to come.