Just to have the updated number:
Right now there are 3285 IMs considering Inactive players.
Can Anyone Become Grandmaster?
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Though to be fair just because someone is an IM doesn't mean theyre putting in the work needed to get to the next level. They could be content and merely teach/coach or do just enough to stay at their current level so they have more free time to themselves. Of those IM's I wonder if you polled them how many hours they are spending per day trying to reach GM, or if they feel theyre training enough to make the leap to GM.
tubebender wrote:
It seems that I am getting more support for my view that as hard as people try in any endeavour, not everyone can achieve GM status or be a Roger Federer, Nadal or Serena Williams in tennis for example. Even if someone beats another person in a USCF rated Correspondence match, this does not mean that they are going to be destined to be a GM. Only time will tell. And being a "GM' on this site is not quite the same as having a GM OTB USCF or FIDE rating or by just playing bullet or some other type of speed Chess. I have known many guys who are very good players and have put in the work, etc. and have even gotten up to or surpassed USCF 2200. Bottom line is that the odds are heavily stacked against one in such a quest to be a GM; they have given up but still play competitive OTB Chess and truly still enjoy the game. This point of view created a bit of nastiness with a person that I wish to not be named who seemed to be personally offended and wanted to publicly humiliate me in front of thousands of observers on this site. But what would this prove concerning his quest to be a GM? Being that this person is a USCF member I did suggest that we would play a rated 2 game match under their rules and that I would, post the results and the game scores if he were agreeable to this. This was not meant to be a "calling him out". I just wanted to play a very enthusiatic positively driven you man who is the type of guy who is the future of Chess. Also, having a 2000+ USCF Correspondence rating, I felt that he might welcome such a match as a good workout for both of us. And since I am awaiting my assignments in the semifinals in the postal event that I am in (I did go 6-0 in the preliminaries), I thought it would "sharpen me up". I guess that this is a formal apology because may have said bad things with bad words. I have to keep reminding myself and perhaps others is that no matter how much you disagree with someone, be respectful, lay out the facts as you know them, recognize the difference between facts and opinions and try to keep an open mind. If I don`t post again for a while, I want to wish all a very healthy and happy new year.
I accept your challenge... time, place and date. thats all i need. Message me and we can set it up.
I don't think Magnus was really pressured to be in chess... if i recall his dad showed him at age 5, but he showed little interest until he was around 8 years old when he won his first tournament, but alot of his early skills he learned himself... moving peices around on a board at home......
It just takes only a very little bit of critical thinking to know that not anyone can become a grandmaster.
I do not see the point of this thread unless there are so many who are not critical thinkers?
Phelon wrote:
I guess Wafflemaster doesn't subscribe to the notion it takes 10000 hours of serious practice on average to acheive master level at something.
Sure, I can believe that. In fact as long as "master level" is arbitrary it can't possibly be wrong.
Will someone have good chances to be a FIDE master after 10,000 hours of deliberate practice? Maybe so. But beginner to master is much easier than master to GM.
ponz111 wrote:
It just takes only a very little bit of critical thinking to know that not anyone can become a grandmaster.
I do not see the point of this thread unless there are so many who are not critical thinkers?
Scarey, isn't it.
getting a Kung Fu grandmaster is easier than chess...wataaaahhhhh!
ponz111 wrote:
It just takes only a very little bit of critical thinking to know that not anyone can become a grandmaster.
I do not see the point of this thread unless there are so many who are not critical thinkers?
I chalk it up to inexperience. I don't know how old these people are... but in any case kids are beginners at everything so of course after a little work they experience improvement i.e. they've never practiced something and not made improvement. When people get older, and/or try to get very good at something they have an experience of trying very hard and not seeing much improvement. Or they know someone personally who has had this kind of difficulty. Meanwhile they see others who make huge improvement in weeks without much effort what they (or someone they know well) couldn't do in years with lots of effort.
Until a person's had such an experience it makes sense to me that they'd believe that any skill level in any discipline is achievable.
Will lots of work over lots of time make a person better than the majority of people? Sure. Will you be at an elite level, top 1%, e.g. a chess GM just because you worked for it? For most, definitely not.
Nov 29, 2013
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#891
waffllemaster wrote:
ponz111 wrote:
It just takes only a very little bit of critical thinking to know that not anyone can become a grandmaster.
I do not see the point of this thread unless there are so many who are not critical thinkers?
I chalk it up to inexperience. I don't know how old these people are... but in any case kids are beginners at everything so of course after a little work they experience improvement i.e. they've never practiced something and not made improvement. When people get older, and/or try to get very good at something they have an experience of trying very hard and not seeing much improvement. Or they know someone personally who has had this kind of difficulty. Meanwhile they see others who make huge improvement in weeks without much effort what they (or someone they know well) couldn't do in years with lots of effort.
Until a person's had such an experience it makes sense to me that they'd believe that any skill level in any discipline is achievable.
Will lots of work over lots of time make a person better than the majority of people? Sure. Will you be at an elite level, top 1%, e.g. a chess GM just because you worked for it? For most, definitely not.
Some days ago a friend that saw me sending moves here told me:
"I know that I could be very good at chess, but I have never studied that"
(she only knows how to move the pieces)
I agree with that, why not? we never said how much is "very good", and she is very intelligent, so she could think that is like taking the GMAT or SAT, when you just learn the material and pass, but you are not being "examined" on your own, you are competing against another player.
And some weeks ago another person told me:
"If I wanted and put the effort, I could dominate the game" (I´m making a literal translation, so it could sound bad in english)
-She doesn´t know how to play-
I don´t agree with that, you are not going to "dominate chess" and how can you make an statement like that if you don´t even know the rules? Is not like playing tic tac toe.
Well maybe after 6-7 months of practice she could dominate people whod never played before 
waffllemaster wrote:
ponz111 wrote:
It just takes only a very little bit of critical thinking to know that not anyone can become a grandmaster.
I do not see the point of this thread unless there are so many who are not critical thinkers?
I chalk it up to inexperience. I don't know how old these people are... but in any case kids are beginners at everything so of course after a little work they experience improvement i.e. they've never practiced something and not made improvement. When people get older, and/or try to get very good at something they have an experience of trying very hard and not seeing much improvement. Or they know someone personally who has had this kind of difficulty. Meanwhile they see others who make huge improvement in weeks without much effort what they (or someone they know well) couldn't do in years with lots of effort.
Until a person's had such an experience it makes sense to me that they'd believe that any skill level in any discipline is achievable.
Will lots of work over lots of time make a person better than the majority of people? Sure. Will you be at an elite level, top 1%, e.g. a chess GM just because you worked for it? For most, definitely not.
My experience is the opposite. Ive seen hordes of people not put in the work to be the best at a skill, give up before they reached the point where they'd overcome their plateau, and an overall large amount of general laziness. Even those who were considered "the best" at what they did I saw a lot of room for improvement. The fact is, I've met very few people who were utilizing their full potential at any activity and about 90-99% of them blamed a lack of some inherent "talent" as the cause for their failures. Maybe I'm just cynical but this is what I've learned from my experience. Not many see and appreciate the value of hard work, and many who do can't be consistent enough with it to get to where they want to be.
I agree that most don't work hard at it, and I'll agree with hard work people will usually surpass their expectations of what they thought they were capable of. But I don't think hard work alone gets you to 1% of 1% (or whatever grandmaster is).
I mean... maybe if you started them early in a perfect environment like the Polgar sisters. Home schooling with private coaching and tournaments all the time. But if you decide to learn chess at 20... you may win local tournaments and be club champion but not GM.
One of ten people starting at chess BEFORE aged 15 will become GMs, in case they are serioudly aimed to that goal
One in ten stats on the internet are made up on the spot.
I am a beginner but believe that anyone with a reasonable IQ and hardwork can become a grandmaster. You can give all sorts of statistics in favour or against it but in the end there is no final answer. I mean there is no law which states that thy shall start young to be a GM. And unless one tries one would never know. If one starts late and really wants to be a GM then that person should just go for it.
GM is top top level. Becoming a respectable club player would not be a dismissive dream for me, and maybe most of chess lovers (exactly 81,23 per cent)
deepblue1988 wrote:
I mean there is no law which states that thy shall start young to be a GM. And unless one tries one would never know.
You can also look at all the people who have tried. Some made it, some didn't, and draw some reasonable conclusions based on similarities. For example, name one person who started chess as an adult and later earned the GM title? It just doesn't happen.
As for IQ, when we have teenage GMs I think that proves it doesn't take IQ. If these teens have huge IQs then they're as smart as an adult with an IQ of 100... but these kids probably don't have huge IQs. To be a GM as an adult you probably need an IQ of at least... 70. Maybe even lower. Obviously IQ isn't a good measure of chess ability or potential.
But anyway, about the age, if you can find one person who started chess late in their life and made GM let me know because this has been asked many times on the forum and I've haven't seen one response yet.
Yes we all know people like Larry Kauffman and Ben Finegold made GM late in life, but they also had early success. I'm asking for someone who started chess as an adult not made GM as an adult.
Ratings are based on your position within a pool of players. If enough players in the pool dedicate themselves atleast as much as you do to acheive a GM title i will agree that not everyone could acheive it. Im talking about if people threw the rest of their professional choices away and really focused and practiced intensely for a decade or so they could become gms, and if you look at the top players in the world thats what they've all done.
This is a point to consider. Becoming a GM is a relative achievement, so if many people try it hard it becomes effectively impossible for anyone who has no natural talent.
Now, just to have an estimate, there are about 3000 IMs around (source wiki) for around 1300 GMs. As the vast majority of IMs are making their living out of chess, you can safely assume that 2600 of those are activeley trying to become GMs, and yet there is only half as much GMs, which makes a "pass rate" of 33% (I know the math isn't complete because GM die and IM become GM but well).
And remember this is for people who already became IMs. Some do not even manage that.