Can intelligent person suck at chess, forever?

Yes, they can (look at me )...

No, in all seriousness though -- I deal with these types of questions a lot. Traveling for tournaments as a Professional Player you often get Taxi Drivers who say "wow, you're here for a chess tournament, and you're a pro -- you must be a genius"... and I'm like, "well no, not really..."

The thing is that "general intelligence", and even high forms of intelligence and IQ don't always apply in fields that require a specific skill set and knowledge of specific patterns.

My theory is that chess is a game of pattern recognition! And I think that idea is backed up by a lot of great players and teachers . So, you can be smart, but if you don't play enough chess and don't apply serious effort to learn from your mistakes and the patterns therein... then it is possible for chess to forever remain just outside of your grasp of fully understanding/mastering.

So, learn patterns and study YOUR OWN mistakes or you may indeed be eternally "shooting in the dark" ...

My thoughts...

Danny

Personally I happen to know I will reach GM once I cure human stupidity.  My experiments so far have had limited success, creating only more stupidity but I am confident I am on the right lines.  I am definitely tapping into the stupid centre of the brain at least.

It helps to work on your grammar. 

How is grammar going to help chess results master Yereslov ?

This explanation I cannot wait to hear ! 

Games with limited time control may not be the best way to learn. Also 5 months is not that much.

1) Practice tactics.

2) Actually check if you're blundering away a piece or not in live chess. It can take a while before this is automatic.

3) learn positional play. Get a book or ask experienced players why they move so and so. It's all reasonable strategy.

No way you would be unable to improve. 

Lol, I would love to know where you think my grammar is wrong.  Besides that, someone posts something purely for humour and offensive to no one and you decide, trollishly, that you need to abuse them also.  Like you haven't made enough people contemptuous of you already.  Do not pick fights you cannot win.

Ahh, but I can go to work, come back and poke him with a stick and let him rant indefinitely.  With that efficient use of my resources, I am a winner for sure.

I don't know how much intelligence has to do with it. I know some brilliant people that are, in many ways, morons. I also know some dunces that have more 'common sense' than any two people.

I learned chess as a child but never played seriously until earlier this year when I began to play more 'seriously', I am 40 now. My worst rating was 743 and my best was 1060 (yesterday). I am currently 1036. I have maybe 300 games (and I thought I was playing a lot). I am pleased with my improvement and Tactics Trainer has helped me immensely.

I guess I would be wondering what you're seeking to get out of chess. Playing 50+ hours a week seems a bit obsessive to me. For people our age I think trying to become a competitive Grandmaster might be a bit of an unrealistic goal. Personally, I just want to have fun, get better and overall enjoy the game.

This is probably brought up earlier, but I wonder how "suck at chess" is defined?

Is there a (chess.com) rating above which one can safely say the "suck at chess" level is passed?

Think some misunderstandings ocurring here of what it takes to achieve results at higher level.

Am sure someone will be quick to correct me if I am wrong but for most GM's, WGM's & FM's chess is frequently either a career or very-serious hobby indeed. They will think nothing of spending 50+ hrs per wk or more on the game.

To CaptJack

Well, what you just said is one perspective. Some actually want to put in the effort to learn and improve. Odd idea.

The average rating of active-playing-members (standard-chess) on this site appears to be around 1300 or so ? Above that you may not ''suck-at-chess''. 

No.  The highest rated troll on chess.com told me to take up marbles instead, chess was not for me.  Clearly we all suck at chess.  Even a world champ must feel as if they suck sometimes, there is just such a large capacity for error in the game.  Better is to decide whether you enjoy it, like CaptJack said.  Having said that, does Houdini wake up some mornings and go..."God, I am awful, I missed a mate in 19 yesterday..."

re Houdini hahahahahaha

I think if my memory wasn't so bad, I could actually get pretty well at this game. Just remembering I saw a position before and a few moves from it, isn't good enough to sort through 8 potential moves (16 ply) that will take place in a game between 2 GM's, once a critical middle game position is reached. I still haven't even remembered the first 8 to 12 moves yet for the opening either. Sometimes I wonder how I do as well as I do.

The rough thing about chess is one oversight can end the game, no matter how carefully you played over the preceding three or four hours

You forgot two commas after and before the words "personally" and "but."

By the way, the use of a comma for the word "trollish" is very pointless.

Did you skip school as a child?

Did you get taught no social skills as one?

Looks like in every thread the only thing you are able to do is insulting.

He got 'stalemated' at the social skill school.