Chess: What does it take for a National Master to become an International Master?

There are two possible questions that you could be asking. The first is what the actual requirements are to become an International Master. These are hardly simple (the full requirements are at FIDE's http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html?id=174&view=article), but the basic concept is that you need to perform slightly better against a sufficiently strong set of opponents (some of which must be foreign, and some of which must be titled) than an actual IM would against the same, all in a sufficiently strong tournament that satisfies several requirements (the main one being that it is at least 9 rounds long). Such a performance is called an "(IM) Norm", and you will need to get three of them. Additionally, sometime during your chess career you will need to have a FIDE rating above 2400. This can be at any time, meaning that even if you never have a published rating above 2400, you might still be ok if you got 2400 in the middle of a rating period. You can even go above 2400 during the course of a tournament, before losing and going back below it. More likely, that's not what you're asking. Instead you're probably asking how you improve in strength from a ~2200 player to a ~2400 player. That's a very difficult question, and is in fact much more difficult than the typical "how do I improve my rating from x to x+y?" (where x is usually in the 1400-1800 range) type questions that amateurs so often ask. Of course, this is a localized version of the more general "how do I improve from x to x+y in activity z?", an ubiquitous question in any field. The typical answer to such questions is to focus on your fundamentals. There is no point in learning fancy tricks without having a solid background. In terms of chess, this means you should spend lots of time training your tactics (http://www.chesstempo.com is excellent for this), have a solid opening repertoire (I'll touch on this again in a moment), know your basic endgame positions, and so on. However, I say that this particular question is more difficult to answer because you're already a master level player, implying that your fundamentals are already at a reasonable level (though you can never improve them enough!). This may or may not be the case, but since it's a bit of a cop-out to give that response I'll assume it's safe to move on. If you haven't already, you will need to build a strong opening repertoire. It doesn't matter much what openings you choose to play, even if they're considered somewhat dubious, but you absolutely need to have a response to every common opening line. For Black you will need to have lines against 1. e4, 1. d4, 1. c4, and 1. Nf3. Don't worry about the more offbeat lines such as 1. b3 for now - you can deal with those later. Note that when I say "lines", I mean "lines" in a much more rigorous sense than you're probably used to. It should not be unusual for the game to stretch past move 20 or so while you're still laying back with more time on your clock than you began with. I want to reiterate that it doesn't matter at all what opening you choose (as long as it's not just theoretically terrible), as long as you know it sufficiently well. For example, I personally play the Pirc defense against 1. e4 almost exclusively. Though people are aware I play this and theoretically this opening is not considered the best, even against specific preparation I can be quite confident in getting a reasonable position out of the opening. Think about it - if you've played an opening maybe hundreds of times, your opponent who sees it maybe 2%-3% of the time is almost certainly not going to have you outprepared. And even if they do, you will likely have a stronger understanding of the resulting positions, compensating for any objective edge. In the middlegame, you will need to focus more on long-term planning than you're probably used to. It will no longer be enough to have a strong tactical vision and a reasonable sense of putting your pieces near the center. Of course, when you're playing something like the Sicilian Dragon and pieces are flying everywhere you'll have to buckle down and calculate your brilliant mating attack, but the vast majority of your moves are going to be made for achieving far smaller victories. Transferring your knight from f3 to f5? Often a good use of time. Playing Be3 and Qd2 without any clear follow-up? Not so much. You will need to understand the demands of the position more than ever. Did your opponent just give you the bishop pair in exchange for doubled pawns? Well, now you know that you'll be worse in almost all endgames or static positions - so you need to look for activity and often an attack on the king. Did your opponent accept an isolated queen's pawn position? Now you know you want to trade as many pieces as possible while keeping the pawn blockaded. Did your opponent just sacrifice a rook? Sit on your hands and calculate. It's all well and good to call yourself an "aggressive player" or a "technical expert" or whatever, but if you're looking to attack when the position doesn't justify it, you're not going to move very far forward. Finally, in the endgame you will need to know an entirely different set of principles. Don't believe what your coach told you when you were a 1500! Knowing the Lucena and Philidor positions is not all you need to know. You'll have to understand when passive defense works (hint: rarely), and when to jettison some material for piece activity. You'll need to retain strong calculation skills for transitions into pawn endgames. You'll need to be able to let go of your middlegame instincts - leaving a gaping hole on d6 probably isn't as big a deal anymore. And, of course, you'll need to know some specific positions. You probably know both the Lucena and the Philidor positions, but have you heard of the Vancura position? It's a good thing GM Levon Aronian did, or he might have missed his chance to draw world champion GM Magnus Carlsen today. Of course you know how to win with a K+R vs. K, but do you know how to draw with a K+R vs. K+R+B? Good thing GM Grischuk and GM McShane did, or they might have lost to GM Karjakin and GM Kramnik respectively. You get the idea. But most importantly, you have to practically live chess. You should be spending a lot of time with chess, even if it's just online blitz chess or subconsciously turning a position around in your mind. I've spent almost 9000 hours on my ICC account - and this isn't my first account either. Of course not all of that time was spent actually playing games, but the point is that I spend a lot of time with chess. Very little of that time feels like work however, and that's the real key. I can't remember the last time I went a full day without doing something chess related, and I often can't get to sleep because I'm trying to work out some chess position (usually quite unsuccessfully). How do you know you're doing it right? When you're asked to answer a Quora question by Weihang Fan, and you log into ICC to discover you've spent 12.45% of your life on it :)

Not a GM, but you have to get IM norms the same way you get GM norms. You have to enter a very competitive tournament with IMs and manage to place high enough to be awarded a norm. And you have to do it 3 times.

I don't believe you're a master, because masters don't have to ask. Earning three "norms" — scoring 50% against IM-or-better opponents usually suffices for an IM norm — will do. But if you change your Quora bio to say you're an international master, most of these nitwits will buy it, so congratulations on your new title!