It's more about eliminating your weaknesses than anything else.
FACT: You can't improve at chess
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This all might rest on the simple fact one is waxing like a eagar youth or waining like the guy who started this forum.
Jun 23, 2017
0
#44
Lionofgd wrote
That's true. The point is that it's possible.
I believe that grandmaster status is comfortably within everyone's natural ability. Also, that's exactly how people become grandmasters - through decades of practice.
Your dreaming if you believe that. Having personally watched a top Gm grow up, at close quarters I can tell you that natural ability has a huge part to play. This particular Gm to be was very lazy and did very little study, but he was a genius at chess. By the age of Ten he was beating me. I was about 18 at the time and studied chess far more than he did. He wouod spend much of our games staring out the window looking bored.
Do you think if you spent all your time running you would become as fast as Usain Bolt? Or as good as Mozart if you played the piano all day? Chess is no different, if your brain not wired to it you will never, ever make Gm
So Nolan Ryan should have just sat around eating doughnuts in-between games?
triggerlips wrote:
Do you think if you spent all your time running you would become as fast as Usain Bolt? Or as good as Mozart if you played the piano all day? Chess is no different, if your brain not wired to it you will never, ever make Gm
If one were to play piano and compose all day long, every day—they might not become the next Mozart, but they'll certainly reach a professional level.
With chess, I don't believe everyone has the potential to reach Grandmaster (mostly, due to a lack of time and resources, and partly due to factors you mention, such as aptitude and memory)—but I do believe that most players have the ability to reach master class (2200+), with enough time and training.
Bruce Lee chinese doughnuts?
triggerlips wrote:
But Mozart was the absoulute best at his craft, and so is Usain Bolt. On the other hand, being a GM means your great at chess, but not nesscarily the best (there's only one GM whos the best- Magnus Carlsen) at chess. There is only one Usain Bolt, one Mozart, but hundreds of grandmasters. If you practice enough, you can blow almost anyone out of the water in sprinting. You can make them look like their merely jogging compared to you. You may not be Usain Bolt, or Mozart, or Magnus, but you can still be great.
Lionofgd wrote
That's true. The point is that it's possible.
I believe that grandmaster status is comfortably within everyone's natural ability. Also, that's exactly how people become grandmasters - through decades of practice.
Your dreaming if you believe that. Having personally watched a top Gm grow up, at close quarters I can tell you that natural ability has a huge part to play. This particular Gm to be was very lazy and did very little study, but he was a genius at chess. By the age of Ten he was beating me. I was about 18 at the time and studied chess far more than he did. He wouod spend much of our games staring out the window looking bored.
Do you think if you spent all your time running you would become as fast as Usain Bolt? Or as good as Mozart if you played the piano all day? Chess is no different, if your brain not wired to it you will never, ever make Gm
Every player improves at chess one way or another
I once learned not to chew on the pieces.
My game has improved ever since.
MuensterChess wrote:
But Mozart was the absoulute best at his craft, and so is Usain Bolt. On the other hand, being a GM means your great at chess, but not nesscarily the best (there's only one GM whos the best- Magnus Carlsen) at chess. There is only one Usain Bolt, one Mozart, but hundreds of grandmasters. If you practice enough, you can blow almost anyone out of the water in sprinting. You can make them look like their merely jogging compared to you. You may not be Usain Bolt, or Mozart, or Magnus, but you can still be great.
Agreed.
Jun 23, 2017
0
#53
triggerlips wrote:
Lionofgd wrote
That's true. The point is that it's possible.
I believe that grandmaster status is comfortably within everyone's natural ability. Also, that's exactly how people become grandmasters - through decades of practice.
Your dreaming if you believe that. Having personally watched a top Gm grow up, at close quarters I can tell you that natural ability has a huge part to play. This particular Gm to be was very lazy and did very little study, but he was a genius at chess. By the age of Ten he was beating me. I was about 18 at the time and studied chess far more than he did. He wouod spend much of our games staring out the window looking bored.
Do you think if you spent all your time running you would become as fast as Usain Bolt? Or as good as Mozart if you played the piano all day? Chess is no different, if your brain not wired to it you will never, ever make Gm
Just because the GM you grew up with was lazy, doesn't speak for the majority who work their asses off. Carlsen, Kasparov, Fisher and the rest of the world champions worked hard. Admittedly Carlsen has a gift, where he doesn't have to work AS hard as Kasparov or even Fischer (also a prodigy, but in my book there is no such thing as a "lazy" GM. I have a doctor friend who never opened a book during Medical School (his dad was an MD), yet now he owns 2 clinics and half of Brownsville TX. I could call him "lazy", for never opening a book and relying on the lectures, but I wouldn't dare, because I know better.
triggerlips wrote:
Lionofgd wrote
That's true. The point is that it's possible.
I believe that grandmaster status is comfortably within everyone's natural ability. Also, that's exactly how people become grandmasters - through decades of practice.
Your dreaming if you believe that. Having personally watched a top Gm grow up, at close quarters I can tell you that natural ability has a huge part to play. This particular Gm to be was very lazy and did very little study, but he was a genius at chess. By the age of Ten he was beating me. I was about 18 at the time and studied chess far more than he did. He wouod spend much of our games staring out the window looking bored.
Do you think if you spent all your time running you would become as fast as Usain Bolt? Or as good as Mozart if you played the piano all day? Chess is no different, if your brain not wired to it you will never, ever make Gm
This particular GM of course had extreme natural ability. You can't draw vast conclusions from a single data point.
Most GMs are not lazy at all. They absorb a mountain of material over decades of labor. The Polgar sisters experiment is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Notice that none of the Polgar sisters has ever been close to World Champion, but they were all capable of becoming grandmasters through years of hard work and dedication.
No, I couldn't be as fast as Usain Bolt, but with enough practice I could be much faster than the average guy. And I'm quite confident that I could be as good as Mozart at playing the piano with enough practice. Just as I am confident in these two statements, I am confident that I could be a GM with sufficient motivation and practice. I just don't have the motivation to be a GM. For me, chess is a hobby, nothing more.
If you take a gifted or genius child, at about age 3-7, and hire a Master teacher to give him chess lessons for 10-12 years straight, he will most likely become a GM. It takes higher than average intelligence, spatial/logic skills, very good short-term memory and training at an early age.
Anyone can improve but you need to know how to study and you can't just play hoping to get better, it won't work.
8-12 years corresponds to primary schooling, then life gets busier for most people who do not plan to dedicate their life to chess. In addition, 8-12 years is very difficult to maintain that all-out intensity for something that is not primary to one's survival. Very few people are at a "GM" level in any field, even in their field of expertise, but "improvement" is always possible with proper training and consistency.
Jun 23, 2017
0
#58
Aptitude is the reason some experts despite effort and study do not reach the 2200 level. Same is true why some 2200's do not become 2400's. Same is true as why some 1400's do not become 1700 despite books software and lessons
Regardless of whether there is a natural skill cap or not, you can't make an informed statement like this based just on the fact that some people never improve significantly. It merely says that what those people do to try to improve doesn't work - it doesn't say that there is nothing that can make them improve, and a lot of people, for example, stuck on the same level for many years, sometimes start rapidly improving upon hiring a good coach, that instantly catches their mistakes and develops a proper improvement plan.
I don't think there is such thing as raw "talent", but there are ideal circumstances in which some people get as children, and that makes them appear as "geniuses" in the eyes of everyone else, although what happened in reality was just the right approach they randomly took for something early on, and that approach stuck with them forever.
Every 400 rating points is a qualitative LEAP in rating strength. In the USCF, three leaps to 1000, 1400, and 1800 exhausts 90 percent of the tournament players.
Above 1800, this 10 percent of tournament players account for fully 50 percent of tournament games played. Very busy guys. It's a jungle out there. No surprise that most stall out before reaching USCF 2000.
Above NM, is a whole nother kettle of fish. Ditto for 2600+ players. Then there's the Super GMs. Whew, makes your head spin.
Lumping everyone together is downright silly. Every 400 rating points is a very large LEAP is playing strength. Why flog such a fascination with the pecking order??
This nature / nurture debate is not worth the candle.
They obsessed over chess and worked harder than their peers.
Spassky mentioned how, when he went to Moscow, Fischer never left the chess club to see the sights. Instead, he stayed in front of a chessboard the whole trip, studying positions and lines, day in and day out. Morning, noon, and night.
That's just how life seemed to be for Fischer: chess and nothing else. Probably why he was so dominant—it's what he focused on more than anything else.