Titled players, what did you do?

People who are completely self-taught titled players (i.e. no chess coach), what study methods did you use?

I just did my thing. A little bit of everything.

Cool! How long did it take?

I started playing when I was 8ish. Played my first FIDE rated game in 2005. FM by 2009. IM in 2017. I had a long break somewhere after I became an IM so the gaps are a bit inflated.

I started watch how old gentlemens playing in park when I was 10 years old. Then I got few chess books from library and friend (you know some base chess books with rules, theory etc. Later I got few books by Mark Dvoretsky and Botvinnik. I've never had a coach or team or something like this. Chess was never my main thing. First time I played in regional U18 tournament at age 12 and won it. Im not playing chess already 20 years :)

Getting started at the age of 16 I had to spend some tens of thousands of hours, theory and praxis. Reading many books, hundreds of tournaments, >1000 tournament games.

Btw, the best German national rating I have had ever is: now! (2171, usually the „harder“ currency compared to Elo.)

will see we some day GM sarg0n?

Nay, some decent reults every year but further titles are pretty unrealistic. ;-)

@Sarg0n even FM?

Aiming for higher titles take a lot of effort, time and money. It's not something you can just do.