i wanna be a professional player . please help me

His son hadn't learned a whole lot about math yet before his first nut bout. Some schizos go over the edge in very early childhood before they have been educated in anything.

well-said! Ignorance is blissssssssss

True raw intelligence and how it makes you feel can help you realize the boatload of crap people are about to try to feed you and make you put up with. Dark forebodings are often apparent to scared children who can barely tell you what troubles them. Some trouble is worse than others.

I would rather play in NYC. You can probably have access to better players and you certainly could make a lot more money. You could probably sell yourself as a chess coach that way also.

The thing about NYC is that you could live in Jersey or Philadelphia, where it is cheaper but not too far to commute. If you don't play good players, your game would suffer. If your a hustler, you'd better be good. Another thing about NYC is, I can't think of too many things that you wouldn't have access to otherwise if you wanted, including people who make really good money, who would like chess lessons.

The only way I could make money chess hustling is to whack em over the head with the board, and steal their money.

Yup I definitely have more respect for pro athletes than singers in general. Kids with mediocre singing skills like Justin Bieber became famous purely based on luck (Usher's agent randomly found JB's Youtube video and they signed the kid on because they figured he's be marketable to 12 year old girls). You don't become a pro soccer, baketball, or baseball player by being lucky.

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Hi "Sungolian", I understand your point...but I think you do not fully understand the concept of "luck". There are many players currently with equal skills to pro players who never get the opportunity to try out, or are not connected enough to get the right buttons pushed for them. What about the gifted guy who plays on the wrong team...and thus not "discovered" because no media attention goes to that small town? Or what about the great talent who just happened to be injured at the "wrong time"...isn't that luck?

The fact is, in everything- sport, education, politics, economics, business etc. you have that "luck factor" which can take you over the top...or leave you forever undiscovered. In your own personal world, I am sure that you can think of more than one occation when you were "lucky" enough to be at the right place, at the right time - and benefitted from this...that is what luck is.

On the topic of "singers" and skill level, which you mentioned. The focus now is not on "skill level"...in fact there are a great many highly skilled singers (technically) out there, who are unemployed and will never be signed by a label...why? Because the bottom line is not "skill level"...but "drawing power"...or what we refer to as "the it factor". Singers like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber etc. are not the cream of the crop when it comes to "technical skill"...but they all have one thing in common, and that is that they "have the it factor"...they draw a crowd...they attract attention...they have people wanting more...they sell stuff etc. And this is what it is about...gross sales...nothing else...

On the topic of insanity and the connection to chess. I agree that there must be a pre-existing defect or weakness which causes you to break. I don't see the connection to anything that "makes you insane"...but rather, because of your present condition/mental weaknesses certain actions you may take will have a greater chance of pushing you over the edge. So to me...it does not matter whether it is chess or mathematics...but because you become so singular in your ideas/actions/thoughts etc...this may be just enough to send you over the edge.

As a celebrity chess player like Magnus Carlsen, who is perhaps the most famous, you could make thousands a week giving lessons.

People would pay big bucks just to play with a GM.

"He who lives to see two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer’s booth at a fair, and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be seen only once; and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone."

Studies in Pessimism-- Arthur Schopenhauer

Yes I understand, some good athlete's never get recognized. But my point is you can't be a BAD athlete and turn pro. However, plenty of BAD singers are famous because companies like Disney and Nickelodeon promote them and little kids (the main audience of these networks) can't tell the difference between a good and bad singer. Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Demi Levato, Jonas Brothers, Rebecca Black, etc. are all examples of talentless singers that became famous because they had tons of fans in the 8-14 year old range.

If you're a bad athlete, you will simply get cut from any pro team.

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I agree with you that no bad athlete will be kept by his team...or even be able to turn pro. And I take your point about "bad entertainers" making lots of money because of some creative marketing.

At one point in time, I think one could only become rich and famous in the entertainment business, if one had exceptional talent/skills. But somewhere down the road it was realised that talent alone was not everything...or was not the only thing that made one popular/loved/a star. And I think marketing houses have now realised that they can now literally make anyone a star...even if they were not extremely talented. This is what we are experiencing today. The focus now is not how much talent you have, but do you have the mass media appeal?

Demi levato is good. 

^sour grapes is a patronizing jack A**. kids at home if you dream to be a chess professional i wish you luck disregard sour grapes and others like him.  these broken reeds are crabs in a bucket and if you try to rise up they will claw you down. if you dream or aspire to greatness seize that make it yours!  and some day in the future i hope that i will be witness to your genius. 

Buena Suerte TAshahin!

@hushpukena no worries fella i was not referring to you sour grapes is a clown and he knows who he is.  if you feel guilty about a prior post i can"t help that; regardless i am not referring to you. 

I think one thing that you aren't weighing into the mix is that you can go nuts of your own accord or you can lose self control. I think just not caring anymore is the final straw and then the behavior that we call the symptoms become manifest when you just don't care, but when you lose self control( I have my "guesses" for why and how, debatable ain't going there) the cause and the exact triggers aren't scientifically known.

A third possibility that is understood, is from a chemical imbalance. My father's drug induced cause, from PCP, was obviously self induced, but not every case is self induced.

I agree with you "nameno1had" (what a name son...must explain this to us sometime). But I think that there must be a pre-defect in your brain for you to go over the edge...for you to have those mal-processes. But the question begs...can you have a normal brain (dare we say healthy?)...which can go defective? This topic has piqued my interest, and I shall do some research here for sure.

...in any event, I don't see it as "chess" (or anything else for that matter) causing one to go insane, but rather the defective state of one's brain gradually becoming worst...and probably worstened by certain mental actions.

Even those singers/entertainers who aren't especially talented, the justin beiber, lady gaga, taylor swift types - they aren't generally *bad* singers.  They are OK, at the very least.  Maybe not my type of music, maybe not someone I want to pay attention to, but they aren't horrible.  Trust me, no amount of marketing would make me a popular singer - I have a very sub-par voice, a very limited range, I just couldn't do it.

And there is another factor involved.  I don't know how to describe it, but some people are, by nature, entertainers.  I suspect you can probably develop that to an extent, and that some of it is just built in, it's just a part of you that's always there.  WIllie Nelson is one of the biggest names in country music.  He's in the top echelon of entertainers.  I don't think anyone is going to listen to his voice and tell you "That is the best voice I've ever heard.  He has perfect pitch, it's exactly how a well trained professional singer should sound".  His voice is distinctive, in part because it *isn't* a classical voice.  But he is an entertainer through and through.

On chess players who reached the higher levels and went crazy, I think it's possible (likely, even) that the two are tied together.  I think that their minds were already a bit off and caused them to focus very heavily on chess, and that it eventually left them going crazy.  But if they hadn't had the minds that would focus them that way, I think it's likely that they would never have gotten so exceptionally good at chess. Don't forget, Fischer dropped out of school at age 16, saying "You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time."

I don't worry about discouraging anyone in this thread.  If a thread like this is enough discouragement that they give up on chess, or quit aiming for "one of the best players in the world" and set their goals lower, well, they weren't going to get there anyway.  To reach those levels, you're going to have to deal with a lot bigger obstacles than what this thread is going to give you.  Do you really think that everyone who talked to Fischer told him "You're going to be world champion some day, you should drop out of high school."?

Anyone setting that kind of goal should be discouraged, because it isn't realistic.  The math is totally against it.  And anyone with the drive necessary to reach the top level is going to ignore that discouragement.  They are going to read the books, do thousands of tactical problems, study the openings, and ignore pretty much everything else in their life. To reach that level, that's pretty much what it takes.  A solid dedication, a willingness to work at it, and the ability to ignore all of us nay-sayers.

I think this is your best bet, if you want to be a GM.