Yeah, it is pretty much the ultimate when it comes to a skill ceiling for a game. When I was playing over the board about 14-15 years ago now (geesh that passed by fast), I ended up class C USCF, getting just over 1500. I mostly played at some clubs that a NM ran here in town, and they always played G/30 which was painful at the beginning. I was terrible at managing that time. So the first time between being the first time doing it, and playing at G/30 I got schooled. :) I think my first provisional rating from that was like 500 or something lol. Shot up over that next year to 1500, but also got married and a dog at the same time, and my wife travelled for work doing sports television at the time, plus the next year our first daughter was born. So I wasn’t able to focus on it nearly as much, and on the rare occasion I did go to play, being rusty I was just gifting away rating points, which shouldn’t matter and I know its not important, but I’m sure it still played a part in not being back to uscf chess now for 13 years. I’ve done stuff online, and spent hundreds of hours on various tactics servers over the years. My chess book collection continued to grow over that time as well, thinking one day I would get back to it. I’ve curbed that a bit the past few years, but still like to pick up anything Aagaard puts out.
I really should get back to it after getting diagnosed with ADHD last year, besides helping with the chaos in my head when analyzing, I think it is easier now to just look at it as a game and having fun, and not as some exam to determine whether you are a genius. I definitely have found it easier to play other multiplayer games since then anyways. It would be interesting to see where I would fall after a year of playing again. At the very least I should play on lichess for fun.