Can intelligent person suck at chess, forever?

Well on that note I guess it would depend on your definition of intermediate. I would expect to be intermediate at chess in under a year but getting advanced to take far longer and master to take much much much longer.

But if you consider intermediate something like 1800 or 2000 then yes not in a year.

Even Binet could not define "intelligence."
I am not a good player, but have always maintained, "I can teach you how to PLAY chess, but not how to WIN chess" to almost anyone.  So, IMHO, strategy and tactics are up to the individual. That said, the strategy and tactics lessons on this site are very helpful.  Due to my limited ability, for them to help me has taken lots of iterations, and also lots of time.  I believe they *have* helped improve my game, but only through due diligence on my part.

I re-suggest that to learn chess takes minutes; to master a lifetime (if ever, or even possible!).

You're right, it's relative.  Even intermediate for amateur players though is what?  1500 USCF?  With the right environment I believe that's possible in less than a year.  However practically speaking for most adults this is not reasonable to expect (IMO).

Close to impossible if the adult doesn't have a coach and doesn't play in tournaments.

It has taken me about 3 years to get to 1600 (+/- 100). My goal is 1800. Some people have said it has taken them 6-8 years (including Andy and Reb) to reach that mark.

Well he would have to play otb somewhere to have an official ranking, that only really leaves tournaments or clubs.

I joined here in april. I picked up chess sometime in February I think. I had played as a kid (30 now) but never heard the concept of pins, skewers, forks, openings etc. Mostly just pushed the pieces around.

I don't dedicate a ton of time to chess, certainly no coach or anything like that. Even gone a week or more without a game here and there.

I don't think I'd have that much of a problem hitting 1500 in less than a year and that's with having no official rank and no otb experience outside of a guy I play at work sometimes. I also don't focus on rank or increasing it at all. I focus on simply enjoying it and getting better (which go hand in hand for me).

This isn't a look at me go post by any means. This is a "Seriously if I can do that then pretty much anyone can". If someone was dedicated and really wanted to pick up chess and hit 1500 in under a year I don't think there'd be any stopping them with proper study and dedication.

Now 1800 and even 2000 I think would take exponentially longer on at least some level (whether that is time to a power of 2 or a power of 10 I don't know). The difference of depth of knowledge and true study needed to start approaching those levels and higher has got to be huge. In fact they've done a few studies which say it takes a human being an average of 10 years to master a skill and the skill makes little difference. Wood working, complex games (like chess), writing, etc etc etc. The human brain just takes that long to fill up with all the little intricacies that seperate an amateur from a master.

I personally believe most people could get to intermediate level in any skill within a year. The amount of dedication that takes will obviously vary by people based on their natural inclination that that particular skill. It will also depend on training style. For instance in this case I have argued it is very wrong to be focusing on bullet chess while trying to learn and improve and that will significantly increase the time it takes to reach intermediate level.

It took me about 5 years to get to 1600.  I played about 350 days a year (mostly blitz), very infrequent tournaments, and I've never had a coach.  I think I read 2 books during that time.

Well You can be GM strength and never play in a tournament... you'd likely frequent some very strong clubs / have some GM friends though :)   (Club ratings are totally different.  I'm actually a 2400 in one local club )

Well... you didn't begin a few months ago though... for whatever reason I suspect you weren't the same as a total beginner (learn how the horsey moves) 2 months ago.

Good.  A good M.O. is to worry about learning, and the rating will take care of itself.

Well... I suspect you're not a good representation of a total beginner.  But also go ahead and get an established 1500 rating / a few 1500 performance ratings at OTB tournaments... not to be rude but until then I don't think you can use the: "I did it, so can you!"

I agree, but I don't think it's practical for most adults.  Due to time, money, personality, whatever.  But a dedicated individual could do it, yes.

For gifted (uh-oh, a loaded word around here maybe lol) I think 1800-2000 range is possible in 2 years (based on some famous GMs).  But this time I would say either a dedicated coach-student relationship IS involved, or you're akin to Paul Morphy.

Again I agree, although we might rate the difficulty or probability differently.

As I said I pushed the pieces as a kid. I probably played at most 20 games as a kid against other people who didn't know much either. I think it would only take a day for most adults to learn how the pieces move. As a kid I'd never heard of en passant and didn't know it was possible. I also didn't understand queen side castling (I guess because no one I played with did either since it really is a simply concept). So no I was not a total beginner.

I've considered trying out a tournament (they seem pretty limited up here in Mass for some reason) so I might have a rating one of these days. I wouldn't go out of my way to spend the next 3 months seriously studing chess simply to prove it is possible to hit 1500 quicker than a year. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing and feeling that it does take over a year.

I was more interested in the concept of how long it takes a person to become intermediate as a skill and I think that can typically be reached quickly but mastery of any skill takes dedication and years of practice.

Chess takes about fifteen minutes to learn.

"Chess takes about fifteen minutes to learn...."

and a life time to master.

That first part would come from a 1255 rated player

There are more books written about chess than all other games and sports combined.  So naturally, a lot of what is out there is junk.  You only need a few good books,  5334 by Polgar....all of the world champion games....and you need to be YOUNG enough and SMART enough to remember....otherwise you will suffer....perhaps try dominoes.

    First advice and then an answer . . . .

    What you're doing is guaranteed to keep you a low-level patzer your whole chess existence.  Blitz and Bullet chess and all chess memorization such as "learning chess openings" is meaningless and hurts the beginner dramatically.  Do the opposite.  Study simple endgames and every possible checkmate pattern; pawn endgames;  chess puzzles; chess tactics and get a book of short games such as those Brian Wall writes or Chernev's The 1,000 Best Short Games of Chess.  Only play very slow games such as online 3-day games or online tournaments.  Learn to love the beauty of the game and anything is possible.

    To answer your question, "Yes, an intelligent person can quite EASILY SUCK at chess for a long time, perhaps all his/her life.

    General Intelligence is very helpful at chess.  However, pattern recognition is equally so.  PATIENCE and CURIOSITY are the two main chess virtues.  Within those limiting parameters, like anything else the eventual result of one's attempts at chess mastery ultimately comes down to dedication and character . . . .

    However, remember, it's just a game after all.  So the enjoyment of chess is probably every bit as important as one's accomplishments at the game.  Good luck!

I have rethought my previous idea I posted a bit. I am wondering what the OP's idea of suck is with regard to chess? Either way, an intelligent person can make it seem atleast that they couldn't do any better, which in a sense still would constitute sucking...Otherwise maybe an intelligent person is already beyond sucking to maybe just average or a little above.

I agree that there is much more to this game than intelligence.  Your enjoyment depends also on your goals.  For some, the joy only occurs in winning.  For others, it is the mental challenge and stimulation that makes it worth the effort.  (It's the latter for me!)  There are other types of games I play in which winning is less important to me; although I play to win, I enjoy much more the "thwarting of my opponents' plans"...

Haha you got that right man.

http://www.chess.com/livechess/game.html?id=313974022

On move 6 you didn't take the bishop? Time controls were 15|10.

You are aware the bishop is worth more than the pawn?

Virtually no move by either side in that game made any sense.

I suggest Chess for "Beginners" or the like. My guess is that you have no understanding of the very basics of the game itself. Very hard to win if you don't know how to play.

Instead of playing thousands of games, read a book on chess.

I've been learning/studying/playing chess non-seriously since childhood (I'm 47 now). My first book was, probably not surprisingly, Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess when I was about 7. I read that thing cover to cover relentlessly, loving every bit of it. But I never got very good at applying its ideas in actual OTB play. Let's face it, picking up the basics from books like Yassir's "Winning..." series is easy. Applying the principles not so much, at least not for me. I am very good at logic and pattern recognition, but it turns out those skills alone are not enough to be truly effective at the game. It turns out that I have two severe liabilities: poor mental visualization accuity (i.e., I can't picture the board state in my head with very much accuracy), and high resistance to memorization.

The upshot is that I can not study a position and evaluate candidate moves because I can't keep track of the state of the board, as an image, with any detail after one move. My brain just refuses to cooperate, and I've tried to practice and train this ability numerous times in my life. When I study a diagram and try to figure out the "mate in three", I find myself spending an innordinate amount of time constantly re-rendering the board image in my head to see which squares are covered by which pieces, which pieces are in danger after a move, etc. My brain relinquishes critical parts of the picture every few milliseconds and I just can't get to the mate without excruciating mental effort. This makes the game such a chore that it isn't fun. Which is a shame because I absolutely love the design and aesthetics of the game.

I don't know if there is any "cure" for this problem. After four decades of trying to get a handle on this game, I am forced to conclude that I am incapable of effective calculation because of an intrinsic inability to accurately render the board state in my head, and if you aren't accurate then you are going to fall for easy tactical traps, you'll miss combination opportunities and mating opportunities, etc. In short, you'll just lose a lot.

If I believed in IQ tests, which I don't, I would probably put myself between 130-140. I found computer programming to be so easy (and therefore easy to learn) that I mastered it before even getting to college. But I have yet to find any other endeavor in life that comes as easily to me, including chess, foreign languages, musical instruments, math, etc. So, yes, it is possible to have a high IQ and to be really good at something very intellectual and still not have the biological "hardware" to be good at chess.

You mentioned you've practiced this ability before without good results.. What sorts of methods did you do?

I find it helps to visualize the board from the center outwards.. Thinking in terms of squares surrounding squares.. d4, d5, e4, and e5 being the base.. Then working outwards along the 3rd and 6th ranks, and c and f files.  The center acts a point of reference for me that allows everything to come together..

There's also a fairly maligned book "rapid chess improvement" that deals with a number of spacial drills that aid in board sight.  You might also try going over GM games/annotated games without the use of a board to follow along.. Just using your imagination, though admittedly that can be a bit arduous at first.

I'm not so sure it's a matter of "biological hardware" so much as it is the algorithms one uses to sort the material..  The software you can modify.

My methods consist mostly of just practicing calculation/visualization via chess exercizes/puzzles. When looking for a mating sequence, I focus on the area surrounding the King and his escape squares. But with bishops, rooks, and queens having such "long range" influence, it is frequently difficult for me to account for them when they are outside my "mental window", which is at best about 3x3 squares (the influence of a knight). As soon as I allow my brain to bring anything outside that narrow 3x3 region into "view", I lose the image (and therefore sense) of that region and what is going on there in detail. I have to then refresh that image by reconstructing it, sometimes going back to the first move of the exercize, and then of course, I lose track of the long range pieces outside again. Ad nauseum. If I keep pounding away at the exercize, eventually I manage to determine those pieces that will affect the outcome, removing those that aren't relevant, and focus on a very tiny area. But it is such a time-consuming and arduous process that it sucks all the fun out of the game for me. It seems to me that the folks who really enjoy chess must have a much easier time with board visualization (and therefore calculation) than I do, even if its not terribly deep in terms of number of moves.