| Depends what you mean with ordinary people. It might take a construction worker around 1 billion years or so ;-D On the other hand, I have to admit that it would take me with my fragile body also 1 billion years to build a house. I’ve played club level chess in my teenage times between being 15 and 20 years old. I’ve even won a regional youth team title, but only at the 8th board (out of 8). But hey, still glorious times! :-) :-) After learning the first rules, I became interested about chess. I think it took me half a year up to 1 year of studying by myself (reading a basic book about chess and re-playing multiple games) before I decided to enter a chess club. Then I pretty fast was playing tournament chess. And I believe this title I got finally maybe two years before learning my first chess rules. So that’s not too long. My basic recommendation is: If you’re really interested in chess, you must buy a basic chess book asap or learn from similar resources. A basic book which covers all the basic topics will be enough. I’ve got a book of 200 pages only. That’s enough. With that knowledge along with studying other players’ games (those games will be in that book, too), you’re ready to be a club chess player. There’s a huge difference between someone who has read that book and someone who has not I can tell you. Without learning about basic strategy and tactics and principles, it will take you years before you really get a certain playing strength. There's really a HUGE difference between someone who has read that book and someone who has not. Theoretically of course, you could learn all this by yourself. But it would take you ages. So you can really forget about that. You must of course be willing to invest some time. I think in my first year after learning the first rules, I’ve read this book and re-played really a lot of games of other people. It became a dominant hobby at that time. But you also need not to do it the whole day or so. If you’re interested, you will do it anyhow regularly. Just like a normal hobby that you’re interested in. Finally, just to mention, before entering that club, I actually had nobody to play with (that was in the 90s by the way, so no internet chess available). I bought a basic chess computer, but I didn’t play with it too often. Actually I was most of the time studying theory and re-playing games within that first half a year or year before I entered the chess club. But despite having not much own playing practice, I at once defeated a lot of (weaker) club players there. So basic knowledge and analyzing games seems to help a lot, even as a beginner. |