10,000 hour rule DEBUNKED

Correct. For most people, 100,000 is not enough.

If, however, a good coach makes certain that 10,000 of those hours are specifically targeted towards transforming your weaknesses into strengths (i.e. deliberate practice), then you will learn to dominate "experts" (those in the 2000-2199 range).

It takes diligent practice to become truly proficient at a craft.  I don't consider chopping wood to be a craft (someone elses example), however, carving it, shaping it, and using it to build something certainly is.  Don't mix mundane labor with crafts.  "Debunking" this theory is a waste of time.  If you want to excel at something, diligent practice will be required.  Period.  Talent and the rest can only take you so far.

What about Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess or Nunn's Understanding Chess Endings? 

Yes, having many sources is quite helpful, but one needs to be focused on at a time to truly automate the skill.  If one can't instantly break down a position into its individual units (bishop against a knight, center type, weak squares and color complexes, pawn structure, space, etc.) and evaluate accordingly then there's still work to be done in that area. 

What exactly are the "debunkers" attempting to prove?  People that put in this kind of time on something love what they're doing.  Have we come to a point where we will now try to fight that?  "Stop doing what you love so much, it's unnecessary!"  Really people, if you hate practicing and studying, then you're doing the wrong craft, or haven't learned the right way to study. 

Not to say practice shouldn't be challenging, and sometimes frustrating, but there should always be passion.  Just beware of burnout.  That's why guidance can be so helpful.  If you have'nt learned how you best study and absorb, a guiding hand can help you to find that skill (the skill of learning) and push you to new places.  All of this will take approximately 10k hours ;-P

I have no problem with the idea that it takes a lot of deliberate practice to acheive mastery. What I have a problem with is using any number as a guidepost. Saying it takes (or averages) 10,000 hours, to any learner, is not only completely useless, but counterproductive -- because it shifts focus away from the task at hand and toward a huge arbitrary number which, if you are focusing on it, is only experienced as a weight on your shoulders and some amount of quantity of experience (rather than quality) to get through. Ironically, a learner who keeps this number or any quantitative goal in mind during the learning process, will probably practice less deeply and deliberately.

Noone got to GM or any other position of greatness by first saying "OK, it takes 10,000 hours. Here we go."

^^^ Exactly.  The whole debunking stuff is pointless.  The original study is interesting just as case study of a portion of the human condition.  As you said though, trying to use it as a guidepost was never it's purpose.

Actually, the research shows that is takes 10,478 hours, 16 minutes, and 21 seconds. For each point over 120 a person's IQ, ten hours and seven minutes can be subtracted.

Naturally, the researchers rounded down to reach an easy to remember number since most people, especially those with advanced degrees in psychology, have IQs below 110. 

Careful, or people might begin repeating this so much that it will become a fact.

Honestly... I wouldn't be too surprised if some scientific "study" actually did claim this, or at least some pop science magazine interpreted a study this way. People would believe it. PhDs at education schools would probably even quote it over and over again. A carefully crafted scientific "study" can "prove" anything to most people.

..."successful in your field." 

Everyone defintion of success differs. Some think success is making money, some think its happiness, some think its contentment.  I know a guy that walked away from a $250,000 a year job because he wasnt happy.  I know others that think happiness is all about how much you make. 

Facts by their nature are independent of human agreement.  The Earth is around 4.2 billion years old and just because ancient Greeks thought it was mere hundreds of thousands didn't change that fact. 

Those with an advanced degree in anything would need (well, not legally or institutionally required, but practically speaking.  There is no law that says a retard can't be a lawyer, but there are no literally retarded lawyers because they don't meet the practical minimum IQ requirement) an IQ above 110 because of their other courses.  You don’t just take classes relevant to your major but also advanced sciences and mathematics too. 

"Everyone defintion of success differs."

When in doubt go with the objective and practical utilitarian definition.  I don't care how unhappy Carlsen is (hypothetically), he is world champion and therefore securely successful.  Likewise GMs and IMs could be said to be successful too given how they achieved a stamp of recognition from the official world body acknowledging their mastery. 

You can put in 10 million hours and still not become GM. The notion that if you spend enough doing somehing you'll improve to the highest level is a joke. So if I practice painting for 10000 hours I'll be as good as Matisse, Monet? Don' t think so. It's called 'talent,' some have more than others, pure and simple.

Classes outside of one's major are taken only at the undergraduate level, and generally only during the first two years. You could conceivably get these satisfied at Podunk Community College or Pensacola Bible Institute.

An IQ of 90 should be more than adequate.

See this

http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-cognitive-psychology-of-chess?page=2s

It's not clear from the article whether it is Gobet or is billwall who fails to understand the concept of deliberate practice. Perhaps both do.

"deliberate practice is a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is to improve performance. Specific tasks are invented to overcome weakness, and performance is carefully monitored to provide cues for ways to improve it further" (page 368).

http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf 

It discredits itself by not defining how good 10,000 hours will make you, and wasn't rigorously tested across even a few disciplines (IIRC).  It even seems to be written in a "take this with a grain of salt" tone.  When the claim boils down to "lots of practice will make you better" there's no need for anyone to debunk anything.

So 10,000 is neither necessary nor sufficient.  It's just that practice is guaranteed to make you better.

lol

Here's the real story:  ridiculous claims are guaranteed to sell your book.

How long after that to reach NM?

"So 10,000 is neither necessary nor sufficient.  It's just that practice is guaranteed to make you better."

He's more likely to be claiming that 10,000 is necessary, but not sufficient. But of course it's hard to imagine such a specific number as 10,000 would apply everywhere. But even a Carlsen, for example... I don't see him being GM in his first 10 hours of playing, in fact he would probably be pretty bad after just 10 hours. He simply was the kind of person who could benefit from all that encoding of patterns, and for that it's hard to get around obnoxiously large amounts of study. We are not engines, of course, but just pure thought without patterns, in a game with so many possibilities, is terribly slow, even if that thought is really clever.

To believe the ideas above does not commit one to accept everyone who puts in the hours. It just means to refuse everyone who does not.