In my opinion the GMs "who train 8h evryday": they don't learn relatively new things, they polish what they had learned their whole life.
Just like blackbelts in martial arts. Akwats pratice the basics more than anything wlse.
Hi, I believe if you have autism, you have to be careful concerning the stress that can be present during a tournament. I play only online but on the board, maybe with noise around, pressure, psychology can play an important role and your emotional state will need to be stable. So you have to make sure you can relax.
Concerning how to prepare, I think it can be safe to tell you to do the opposite from what I am doing since I play for fun short games here mainly... I believe you should play only long enough games, study tactics and endgames. But also use books and lichess opening database to learn a few openings and be familiar with these ones to avoid blunders at the beginning of your games.
I believe the next step should be to know more about strategy to try to structure your pieces in a way that will lead to tactics and endgames you master.
And the idea to have a coach is certainly a good. As for the number of hours, 19 hours seem too much for me, because you could lose motivation if you do not progress as fast as expected, and your brain and body need rest to be in good shape and learn. Remember our brain also needs sometimes a few months to memorize correctly what we have learned recently. But perhaps if you have the Asperger form of autism, your brain is able to do this process faster.
Be careful anyway to your health, take pauses, make a planning like 2 hours reading a book, two hours playings, two hours analysing your mistakes, 1 hours studying tactics, etc. (I just used random numbers here, I do not know the optimal number of hours)
I am not a professional but I think what I am saying should be reasonable to try to make progress.
@DragonChess1 As I was somewhat of a social misfit for many, many years, I very much relate to the situation you find yourself in. As a young teen, we moved from the city to the coutryside, about 1hrs walk from the village which consisted of a bar and a small convenience store and which was populated by people who had lived there forever. Times where very tough economically and I could not find a job. I had nothing in common with kids there (except drugs and alcohol) and getting back home after a day or night out was always a major inconvenience, especially during the long winters we have here. So, I stayed at home a lot and read a vast amount of books. As soon as I could, I would save up what money I could and travel a bit, hitchiking and working here and there for room and board while other people my age were attending university, working or starting a family. So, I can somewhat relate to your experience and am glad you have found a passion that can occupy you. I would just like to suggest that you consider that passion as a gateway for "getting out of the house" and "creating lasting and worthwhile relationships" rather than as one more reason to "stay at home" and "live in isolation". Even though things looked quite bleak to me from my perspective as a young man, I eventually obtained a degree in History and Anthropology. I still floated about for a number of years, like a ship without a rudder. Tree-planted in British-Columbia and lived there in a converted school bus for a few years, like a wildman of sorts. Eventually moved back to my "home province" and met a woman who picked me out of the gutter and became my wife. Twenty years and a law degree later, the house is paid for, our relationship is stronger than ever and we have four sight-reading multi-instrumentalist children, fluent in both English and French. Which goes to show, you never known what events will transpire to bring you safely back home. So, don't despair and whatever you do, always consider whether the road you choose brings you closer or farther away from creating and maintaining lasting relationships because only the former seems viable, from my perspective as an older guy. It may take you a while to get yourself out of your rut, perhaps with lots of false starts, but surround yourself with people who believe in you and day by day the tide of your life will start to turn in your favour. Finally, some personalities on online platforms can be pretty toxic: they sublimate personal issues they can't deal with in real life by passive-aggressive posts designed to momentarily gratify them by gifting others with dispiriting, disheartening and sometimes insulting comments. My suggestion to you is to ignore those people completely, as most healthy people do in real-life with those sad examples of humanity.
@Sarg0n I know for a fact that it is possible to be learning 6-8 hours a day, effectively.
How do I know that? Well, when I was a student and preparied for exams (I was studying theoretical physics, so no passive learning and easy exams) I was using chess clock. I would start learning in the morning, and started the clock. Everytime I would interrupt my learning I would hit the clock. Even if it was just for a few minutes, to stretch, go to the bathroom or grab a glass of water. By the end of the day I would have realistic result - left clock would show me how much time I spent learning, and right clock how much I spend doing other stuff.
When I was learning most it was between 6-8 hours of pure learning.
The interesting thing is that if you would ask me how much time I spent learning, I would tell you 10-12 hours a day. But actually it was 6-8 hours... distractions and small pauses pile up enormously.
I agree with @tpr ... my opinion only, i suggest you take up something like piano or programming because those can actually get you somewhere... but becoming a ChessMaster will not change your life. Not unless you are above 2600 FIDE, as "Hakon Hapnedes " said BUT
if you say you have found your passion in chess and will study if for 16 hours daily, then congratulations!!.. But start with the end in mind, If you walked to your grave and the only thing you accomplished was that you became a grandmaster in chess, would you be satisfied, if Yes than WOAHOO start firing away...
...... My opinion only.....
Hey guys, so I stepped back and really consider what I was doing. Maybe 19 hours is a little on the excessive side. If 2 hours a day is really the most someone can learn effectively then I will just work on different things each day. A lot of people on here helped me a lot. I am going to start building my chess book library and do more longer games. Even if I can learn just for 6-8 hours like @LukaCro stated then it still frees up a ton of time for me.
I am not sure how I will do in physical chess tournament matches but if psychology plays a role then I will just have to keep a poker face. I am not sure how fast I will progressive but I will set short term goals for myself.
@PixelatedParcel Thanks for your story, it really makes me feel good hearing how things turned around for you.
re learning, I thought this article was interesting. https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/
the difference between elite violinists and averages violinists was not the amount of practice each group did, it was about the same amount in both groups, 50 hours a week.
elite violinists spent more time on deliberate practice
they batched their practice into 2 sessions a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon whereas the average violinists practiced sporadically throughout the day.
elite violinists got more sleep.
that article linked to this article https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2010/01/06/the-grandmaster-in-the-corner-office-what-the-study-of-chess-experts-teaches-us-about-building-a-remarkable-life/ which is about a study of chess players, basically the amount of time you put into studying chess isn't the most important factor, what and how you study is. 4 hours of the right kind of study will beat 12 hours of haphazard study.
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