I'm glad there are no more Randy Mosses. Gifted, but a prima dona head case. Give me an old school workhorse like Andre Reed any day of the week. Incidentally, Randy Moss couldn't carry Jerry Rice's jockstrap! Rice was the greatest wide receiver ever and Moss isn't even close.
Did you know that Fischer had no chess talent?
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1pawndown wrote:
I'm glad there are no more Randy Mosses. Gifted, but a prima dona head case. Give me an old school workhorse like Andre Reed any day of the week. Incidentally, Randy Moss couldn't carry Jerry Rice's jockstrap! Rice was the greatest wide receiver ever and Moss isn't even close.
I see you caught my Freudian slip
Arctor wrote:
rvkoivu wrote:
By the way, he was known as an extremely fast player, who claimed to find the best move naturally, and not even always knowing why they were the best ones. If that is not natural chess talent, I sure don't know what is.
It's called intuition. There's nothing mysterious about it, it's nothing more than familiarity with a large number of positions. Carlsen is by his own admission largely an intuitive player...I reckon it's the result of the thousands of games he has memorized and the many hours of blitz played daily on ICC as a kid. But some people like to think it's fairy dust
I know it is often not necessary for a really strong player to calculate in every position, and I didn't claim that they wouldn't have to work for achieving that kind of intuition. Like I mentioned in my previous post, even a genious like Paul Morphy had to play for years to become the unofficial world champion. However I'm saying that even if a normal person would do the same amount of chess study/work/playing/ whatever than some chess prodigy, it is very doubtful that he/she would became as strong a player. The explanation? Some peoples minds just have to be more suitable to chess than the others'. It can go the other way around (I mean, if a person is as dumb as a boot, he/she would probably be a mediocre chess player even after 10 years of training), so why wouldn't the opposite be true?
Frankdawg wrote:
Hitler was not the nicest guy in the world either, but he sure was a great public speaker.
He also had a cool dog (which unfortunately he killed)...
Elubas wrote:
There are lots of positions I don't understand, but you know what, there is nothing that tells me that I am incapable of comprehending the logic of them, I simply need to commit the time to learn. That's why subtle plans that seemed impossible for me to ever understand gradually became more and more natural. And that will continue to happen as long as I open my mind to learn more about this game.
"Comprehending the logic" though really doesn't have a lot to do with chess greatness. Just because something can be explained to you (more or less anyway) after the fact doesn't mean that you're going to be able to find those moves by yourself.
It's the same thing with art. A series of CliffNotes does not a masterpiece make.
Arctor wrote:
It's called intuition. There's nothing mysterious about it, it's nothing more than familiarity with a large number of positions.
lol...Sure it's mysterious! That's like saying there's nothing mysterious about genius, it's just the ability to come up with great solutions in anything you try.
Ok, I want everyone reading this to do something...
Take a well annotated game collection, pick a game, play through it and memorize it (variations included). Make a real effort to understand not only the moves played but the ideas behind them (picking a game in an opening you are somewhat familiar with will help with this). You want to be able to play through the game in your head in a matter of seconds.
It shouldn't take long, an hour at most, probably less. Now imagine what it would be like to memorize thousands of games in the same manner
Okay...now what?
Now congratulate Arctor on proving nothing again.
I still say he's that guy in A Scanner Darkly.
Alright dueds, if you're happy thinking that you can never succeed at something unless God sprinkled you with magic dust then let it be.
Enjoy being mediocre for the rest of your lives (oh wait...Andrew Clifton (or should that be Tony Kaufmann?) has a USCF rating of 2177 apparently *snigger*).
Rubbishing our position by means of an absurd logical leap ("magic dust") only undermines yours further.
Laugh all you want, Bob (just go easy on the Death tabs).
Arctor wrote:
Alright dueds, if you're happy thinking that you can never succeed at something unless God sprinkled you with magic dust then let it be.
Who said this exactly?
I don't think I've seen anyone claim that talent was the only road to success, but there are innumerable examples of people who've excelled in their respective areas with little to no effort. Kind of tough to explain those cases in a world devoid of talent, wouldn't you say?
Arctor wrote:
rvkoivu wrote:
By the way, he was known as an extremely fast player, who claimed to find the best move naturally, and not even always knowing why they were the best ones. If that is not natural chess talent, I sure don't know what is.
It's called intuition. There's nothing mysterious about it, it's nothing more than familiarity with a large number of positions. Carlsen is by his own admission largely an intuitive player...I reckon it's the result of the thousands of games he has memorized and the many hours of blitz played daily on ICC as a kid. But some people like to think it's fairy dust
Wait...what? Am I right about this one? Talent, an unmeasurable intangible surely doesn't exist.
Intuition, an unmeasurable intangible, does exist?
There must be differential equations at play here, 'cause I don't get it.
I never could hit the curveball, either.
What about singing? Can practicing singing make you able to sing like Enrico Caruso? Or did he have a natural talent which he developed?
I'm pretty sure that if I keep working at it I'll eventually be able to consistently beat Usain Bolt in a footrace.
By the way, he was known as an extremely fast player, who claimed to find the best move naturally, and not even always knowing why they were the best ones. If that is not natural chess talent, I sure don't know what is.
It's called intuition. There's nothing mysterious about it, it's nothing more than familiarity with a large number of positions. Carlsen is by his own admission largely an intuitive player...I reckon it's the result of the thousands of games he has memorized and the many hours of blitz played daily on ICC as a kid. But some people like to think it's fairy dust