How far can you get in one month of training?

By now, the story of the "Month to Master" guy, Max Deutsch, playing Magnus Carlsen has drawn a lot of commentary, as can be seen at the above-linked ChessBase article (which also has the original Wall Street Journal video article link; it's an entertaining watch).

The mastery challenge is an interesting outgrowth and example of the "Personal Growth" movement, which like the older "Self-Help" category contains a lot of good ideas under its umbrella, but also a lot of puffery.  The idea of trying to challenge yourself exponentially rather than only incrementally is in fact one way to achieve personal breakthroughs; Max in fact did quite well at the other challenges, which were all realistically achievable skills (if not easy at all).  His success with them reflected the mechanism of effortful study, while the emphasis on constant learning is, in any case, a great brain health practice.

Naturally Max didn't even come close to beating Magnus, because chess is far too complex an activity/sport/art.  One parallel would be someone who took French in a classroom environment for a few years being asked to win a debate with a native-speaking Sorbonne philosophy professor; it's just not going to happen.  Similarly, an amateur tennis player is not going to suddenly raise their skill level in a month to beat Andy Murray.  This is one of the attractions of chess for me, as a matter of fact - it is infinitely deep and you will never stop learning on the path to mastery.