Hard Work Alone Can Never Make You a Master

Negyesy was a master, and then he lived a long life, but he didn´t become a master as an old person.

I think chess_gg has all the good intentions trying to warn us against devoting much time to chess. And he has a valid point since most of people who did put a lot of time and effort ended up improving very little and missing out a lot in the real life. These people did end up in poverty and misery. For every success story there are hundreds of failures for one reason or another. This is true and must be remembered. So, chess_gg, I appreciate your attitude and advice. I believe you have good intentions as do others. It's just every person has his/her unique path in life. Peace.

My personal experience my first rating was 1162 USCF, I was nineteen; I made a decision to work hard and I reach expert (2019 USCF) in three years. My highest rating was 2110 USCF and now I am at 2011 USCF. I believe it is decision a person make to become a master; if you want it really bad you reach it. I also believe is how study,I don't believe in using a engine assistance, a player depend on it and become lazy instead doing your all the analysis. For me it will take two years of hard work to reach master strength; I have my own system and materials I use to reach my goal: one them is not to rely on a computer program but do all my calculation. If player cannot calculate he or she cannot be a master.

a)You have to test main-lines against strong players regularly.

b)You should also working out diagrams with complex strategic or/and tactical patterns, so that you develop your thought process considerably.

My 2 cents!

My 1 Cent

Stop blaming others (Person/surrounding/upbringing/friend circle/poverty/family responsibilities .....). If it ( REALLY ) matters to you then you will have it by hard working.

If you are surprised by this thread, probably you haven´t looked in the "Anyone can be a GM" threads.

There are people defending that everybody can be a GM (and cite the "10,000 hours rule"), and when you ask them: "Why don´t you do it and show us that it´s possible?", they would say things like: "I have other priorities/I play for fun/I´m not a professional".

About Capablanca, I would guess that some things about his laziness could be propaganda, to make his achievements even greater.

Capa was notoriously lazy, especially when it came to preparing his openings. But he also claimed to have studied thousands of Rook endings (to which Fischer once remarked that he studied the wrong ones!)

I just remembered that GM Granda (2685) says that he doesn´t study openings or read chess books.

no. 70% genetic doesn't mean anything. What you mean is 70% heritable (in some studies). there's a huge difference. 

take number of toes. we all have 10. unless we lost some. so, number of toes is genetic, because our genes entirely determine how many toes we have at birth, but 0% heritable because if we have fewer than 10 it's because we had an accident.

"intelligence" (whatever that is) has on occasion been cited to be 70% heritable. I think  from the toe example it's clear that this tells us nothing whatsoever about which if any aspects of variability of intelligence in apopulation arise from genes. I know this is counter to what they tell you in the cheaper newspapers and hysterical TV news. and it may even be counter-intuitive. but it's true. Those 70% widely quoted figures simply do not mean what people often take them to mean. 

Seems some people dont understand English. I repeat If it REALLY matters then you will work hard and achieve. Else you will always have an excuse.

Hard work alone can never make you a master but you could become a master of hard work

You can repeat it three times, it will not make it any truer.

KingsRaider 

It's still quite remarkable. I am 17 right now and started playing at 15. I play at around 1600-1700 level (I have a 1470 fide rating but I'm quite underrated since I played only a couple of tournaments) but I am stuck at this level for some time. I made rapid progress in the first year but now it's getting hard to make progress. Well, as someone said on this site (I don't remember who it was??) chess is a demanding bitch, so I shouldn't rush to reach master level in a year. It takes time. The thing is I have a great passion for chess. I play quite a lot, but I can't say I work really hard, maybe since I'm a lazy person in life also. Each time I start a chess book, I don't finish it, for example. I watch a lot of chess videos on youtube, but I think reading with a real board in front on my eyes is healthier.

hello

That thing where Euwe said he could train anyone to be a master in 100 hours; he never actually did it did he?  Just because he was a great chess player doesn't mean he can't talk rubbish as well as anyone else.

What Lasker said was that he could train anyone to be a master. He didn't say he could do it 100 hours. The quote comes from Lasker's How to Play Chess. It was great advertising, but no, he never backed up his claim.

And remember, when Lasker was writing, there was no clear definition of what a master was. He almost certainly did not believe that he could train anyone to become a professional chess player. Heck, the notion of chess professionals wasn't even in vogue at the time he was writing!

Most of the losers have tendency to blame it on something else except their own fault. Seen few sarcastic remarks. Quite amusing.

If I read correctly, at least 2 masters have shared their inputs on this thread and one of them clearly admitted he don't have so called talent ( Hope he was also not sarcastic lol ).

Anand did not hesitate to admit that Carlsen dominated him in WCC. That's why he is back to claim championship. So stop blaming others and mind your own business.

So it's settled then. We have the answer. Thanks everyone.