Intellgience vs. Experience

It is so obvious that only someone who has been taught otherwise and brainwashed would think the way some do on this subject.  I'm in my 60's and have no idea what is being taught in the schools today.  The only thing I can think of is that some people may have hurt feelings if they are told that some people will always outshine them in different fields of endeavor.

The fact that not everyone can be a Magnus Carlsen or Bobby Fischer or even a Class A player is too much of a shock for some people. 

I think you are correct and this is why is some places , in some sports , they dont even keep score ... so noone has hurt feelings for being the " losers" .  Fischer himself answered this question on one of the shows he did after winning the WC , he was asked : " Do you think someone can be a great chess player through hard work alone ? "  He answered : " No . Someone may be good through hard work alone but to be great also required talent . "  I certainly agree . 

A 3 year old learning foreign languages and excelling in advanced math is not a result of "hard work."  It is a gift some are born with.  Nuff said.

A chessplayer with talent for chess won't go far without also working hard , but a chessplayer without talent for chess also wont go far , no matter how hard they work . 

We are NOT all equal , inspite of what some like to believe .  The evidence to the contrary is simply overwhelming !  Personally , I don't believe I have a " talent " for chess so I made NM through hard work imo and it took me 11 years .  I didnt play my first rated game until aged 20 , if I had started younger it may have been sooner/easier .  I will never know ... 

I think you confuse talent and skill ,  your skill at anything can be improved through work/practice  but how high you can go is limited by your talent for that particular thing .  No matter how hard/long I work at snooker I would never be as good as Ronnie O'Sullivan because he has talent for the game and I do not . He also works hard at his craft because if he didnt he would lose to those other talented players that do work hard ... 

TALENT

Thanks Panda . Every time I see a Portuguese flag it makes me miss Lisbon .... 

You think you are "highly intelligent" my good man.  Here is highly intelligent.

Mozart learned to play the piano at the age of four, composed his first pieces at five and at eight, an age when most us probably couldn't even name half a dozen musical instruments if asked, Mozart wrote his first symphony.

William James Sidis could read at 18 months, had written four books and was fluent in eight languages at age seven, gave a lecture at Harvard at nine and entered Harvard at 11.

Kim Ung-yong 

At the age of 4 years only he had the ability to read Korean, Japanese, English and German language, also solved complicated differential and integral calculus problems. He was a guest student of physics at Hanyang University from the age of 3 to 6. At the age of 7 he was invited to America by NASA.

Michael Kevin Kearney spoke his first words when he was just four months old. When he reached six months, he said to his pediatrician “I have a left ear infection” and learned to read at the age of ten months. In 2008, he became a reality show Millionaire, and earned $1,000,000 on the television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Gregory R Smith
was memorizing and reciting books at the age of 14 months and had enrolled in university at 10 years.

Saul Aaron Kripke
was born in New York on November 13, 1940, and spent his childhood in Omaha, Nebraska. He was labelled a prodigy, having taught himself Ancient Hebrew by the age of six. He read the complete works of Shakespeare by the age of nine. He mastered the works of Descartes and complex mathematical problems before finishing elementary school. He wrote his first completeness theorem in modal logic at the age of 17, and had it published a year later. In 1958, Kripke attended Harvard University and graduated summa cum laude obtaining a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. During his 2nd year at Harvard, Kripke taught a graduate-level logic course at nearby MIT.

Why don't you get off your high horse and have the grace to admit that some people are gifted in ways no others are or ever could be with "hard work" not withstanding?

Gifted or hard work. I believe that everybody with the money to rehearse full time, and Iq of 120+ can become a GM, even starting as late as 20 years old,

but superGM, and World Champion needs that little extra , called talent.

If you compare Magnus  with a Fide 2660 GM, they probably have put in similar amount of smart work, but those 200 extra ratingpoints is pure talent. Magnus has it all. He has supermemory, supercalculation, super patternrekognition, supercleverness, super winning instinct, super intuition, ...... you name it. Not everybody has that much "supertools".

That anyone can become a grandmaster with an IQ of 120 is pure speculation.  Nobody had to give Carlsen, Fischer, Cappablanca or any of the other great players an IQ test to know they were talented in ways very few people in the world are in the area of chess.

It is what I believe, and no exact science. In my club with ca 100 members we have one GM, and ca 5 titled players (IM,FM), All the titled kids have enough talent to make GM, and we have also 3 more kids with a clear GM -talent. I am surprised of how reachable that title is.

But it takes a lot work. Really a lot. Some of our kids will not choose to put in enough work.

Looking at what i wrote,  my believe maybe was unrealistic, maybe IM is the roof for most 120 Iq players? But I believed in GM when I wrote it. I dont know this. I only have some feeling and believing based on looking at the players in the club.

Middleaged players that has played all their life with good talent and limited rehearsing, limited because they are in full time job, often is Fiderated between 1700 and 2100.

Any proof these things were exaggerated?  You actually believe everyone is born with the same abilities?

Many people may have the drive for "hard work" but that doesn't mean they have the intelligence to accomplish things true geniuses can without all the "hard work."

The capacity for hard work is a talent in itself.

No one denies that.  However, not everyone has the same brain capacity. 

I am surprised of how enormous effect training can have on the braincapacity, but I have to agree with you anyway. IM is the roof for many players, and World Champion the roof for very few.

Not everyone is born with the same potential ability in every thing. This is true. In chess, to become a WCC, or top 10 player, or even a top 50 player, you need a "perfect storm" of abilities and circumstances.

Below the very top, talent can still help you along.

But without hard work and a LOT of experience at chess, a kid who has the perfect inclincations for chess will never become great at chess.

Fischer, Carlsen, and Kasparov wouldn't have become who they are without a massive amount of chess experience. Even Capablanca, who is regarded as being the laziest genius, played chess constantly. So while he may not have studied a lot formally, he was always studying games by viewing and playing them.

Noone is born an Einstein of chess. Fact.

I imagine part of the problem with these arguments is the generalization of the word "intelligence." You can be extremely intelligent in general, or in a certain area, and never become great at chess, even if you try really hard. Chess requires certain DOMAINS of intelligence. So at the heart of these debates is a flawed theory of intelligence. People have gotten this strange idea that intelligence is one thing and it goes up or down. If it's higher, you're better at everything, if it's lower, you're worse at everything. In the 21st century, people will stop believing this old idea.

It's a very interesting debate between talent and hard work.

However, nobody mentioned the other ingredient that is: money.

I tried a few online lessons with a GM and wow, I feel few hours have improved my game slightly. I won't deny that perhaps it's because I was concentrating more than usual to not look bad, but I think having a coach does make a difference. Especially if it's in person. The way to learn chess it to understand it, and you understand it so much better if a GM explains it to you personally.

Now, all the GM who ever lived have this thing in common, apart from hard work and talent: they have been coached by very strong players. I remember reading about the Polgar sisters: their father was a very strong player and as soon as they were able to beat him he got them a professional coach.

So you can do a million exercises in the TT and or playing a million blitz games, but you won't improve substantially on your own. You'll do the same mistakes over and over again.

So what's stopping most people from becoming very strong players (not necessarily GMs) is that they don't have either the time or the money to afford a proper training program with a coach.

I feel if I got a good coach, let's say, 2 hours a day 5 days a week I should be able to become CM or FM in a couple of years (I'm around 1700 FIDE).

I agree with you. Just to make sure, I don't really know why you quoted me