Secret of Studying Style of B.Fischer

My point Elubas, seems to mimic yours in that I'm not discounting either talent or hard work.

Talent by itself is useless.   You have to couple it with hard work to get anywhere.

But I don't think that a master necessarily has any more innate talent than say a club player.  What they clearly have is a work ethic.  Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to become a master.

I think that some people want to say that anyone who is a NM/FM/IM/GM must have some innate talent that makes that possible because otherwise the person might have to deal with the fact that they're not a titled player themself is because they haven't worked hard enough to become one.

I'm not saying that at all.  I believe strongly in Pandolfini's theory that any adult of average intelligence can become a master if they are willing to work hard enough at it.

But a Fischer?  A Kasparov?  A Carlsen?  That's not just hard work...it's talent combined with working hard to reach the full potential of that talent.

I believe it was Lev Aronian who said that of course talent matters in chess, but that anyone could reach 2500 with enough hard work regardless of talent.

Some can study/focus well, and some can't.

Therefore this is a skill or ability.

Some study for a long time and succeed, while others study for a short time and succeed.

Therefore there is talent beyond the ability to work.

"But a Fischer?  A Kasparov?  A Carlsen?  That's not just hard work...it's talent combined with working hard to reach the full potential of that talent."

But you can't know this. If we are not using evidence to back up our statements, then I'll just make the exact opposite claim and we have gotten nowhere.

Personally I think it's more about passion for the game than anything else. Even without ridiculous intelligence, a passion for the game and its logical nature could take you all the way. The point is that you don't need to be intelligent to find good moves quickly; you need patterns.

Hmm, I can't edit my post.  I usually write it, post it, read it, then edit it a few times :p

Oh well, that's the gist of what I wanted to say anyway.

"Some study for a long time and succeed, while others study for a short time and succeed."

This is always the argument that is used, and I always respond that this assumes that both people have the same background, and it assumes both players studied in the same way -- two critical points. Someone who was more exposed to problem solving things might have a head-start in chess even if they've never played it before.

I'm just saying, you can't use that as proof. You can use it as a possible piece of evidence, but not as proof.

I think those who do well very quickly think about positions differently too though.  I think there's somehow an innate sense of how to conceptualize a position.

For your average person, when they first learn how the pieces move, there are only two primary ways to distinguish between all legal moves.  Moves that threaten something, and moves that don't.  This resultsin the ubiquitous beginner 1 or 2 piece attacks, not castling, etc.

I think prodigies or whatever you want to call them quickly see that these moves are meaningless and find (even if unconsciously with patterns) that good moves improve the position in some way regardless of attack or defense.

Also an ability to clearly see positions in calculation with very little effort.  I heard one IM say that as a kid long calculations were no problem for him.

I think these are the sorts of things wrapped up in "talent."  And so from day 1, that talented person will be looking for what will turn out to be good patterns and when they play, they calculate clearly and without much effort.  So their efforts turn more profit in terms of skill.

Meanwhile your standard person may gravitate toward the pharam or some other nameless rubbish they see online because it wins them a few quick games.  Their journey to 1600 USCF is simply to unlearn and rethink while the prodigy simply had to play a bit as their mindset and skillset was already correct.

This is how I tend to think of it anyway.

I agree, otherwise this would be an open and shut argument :)

It's just the difference is so great between some individuals that this simple explanation becomes very attractive.  Some can work very hard with the same material and not obtain a certain skill level at all while others don't put in half the work and have obtained it.  These can be two kids from the same neighborhod in the same classroom with the same teacher and material.  Both form good homes etc.

These are the exceptional cases of course.  Why can't Charlie do calculus at 10 while Sammy can?  Is Sammy lazy?  Did  Charlie sleep only 3 hours a night from since age 5 to study?  These aren't reasonable IMO.  It seems something just clicks for Sammy and his hard work pays bigger dividends.

When you mention that common 1600 player that struggles, it's probably because he or she has bad habits. But are habits talent? Perhaps in some way, but not in that "he memorized 5000 digits of pi" sort of way, the kind of way that, as I mentioned earlier, wouldn't be visible from the beginning.

Seriously, not that I am strong enough to be a coach, but if I were to interview a 2000 player, get into his head, and a 1500 player as well, asking them their approach to the game, how they intend to improve, and ultimately predict who would become the better player by the end of both of their lifetimes I would honestly base my decision more on this "habit" sort of stuff. There are even IMs and above with bad habits -- thinking certain positions are boring, and thus not willing to learn them -- and it keeps them from progressing. If that 1500 player sounded like he had a clear plan for the future, I would give him the better chances than the 2000 player in most cases.

Habits aren't talent.  To paraphrase my argument in terms of habit I'd say the tendency toward good habits and away from bad ones ends up being what people call talent.

Things as basic and automatic as how they approach or conceptualize a problem, even on a subconscious level.

Of course hardware may be part of it too, which we haven't brought up recently.  People are taller and shorter, stronger and weaker.  Why can't we be smarter and dumber too?  An endomorph who diets won't have the same success as an ectomorph who diets for example.  Surely we don't all have identical brains.

I've read that even savants do in fact practice with their numbers a lot. To them, getting good at making fast calculations is like how us chess players try to get good at chess. So for example a savant making an incorrect or slow calculation would be like an inaccuracy or blunder in chess, and they would learn accordingly.

You're right, we don't all have identical brains. But we don't need to to be extremely similar people.

I agree that an ectomorph has an innate talent for keeping a low weight. Unfortunately, chess skill has a few more variables going for it.

Well on my long drives I like to do basic arithmetic in my head when I get board.  I can multiply 3 digit numbers or do longer problems involving memorizing different numbers along the way (e.g. something like if I go 5 MPH faster for the rest of the trip, how much sooner will I arrive).

But savants like Daniel Tammet, who can do, for example powers of numbers in his head (say taking 1362 to the 8th) says he does it very visually, and he just looks at these shapes and the answer comes to him in another shape and he's solved it (to him these shapes are numbers).

He also memorized pi to 20,000 places in 5 hours.  Did he work hard on memorizing?  Maybe.  But to say his ability comes only from hard work means you and I must never exercise our memory as the scale of difference in incredible.

I doubt if I practiced his method I would have any success.  I doubt it's a method at all.  That's just how his brain is wired.

It would be nice if we could get inside the brains of stronger players; analyze their neurons. Honestly I wonder, how different could our brains really be? Does DNA just force them to be different? And how could these small differences in the brain make such a big impact on the people with these brains? I remember that Albert Einstein's brain was actually smaller than the average person's, although I think that was supposed to be a good thing for some reason.

But, I guess this probably is the case, otherwise it would be hard to explain why two kids raised under the same parents can be complete opposites of each other.

Umm, there are tons of different things that distinguish people physically.  Have you ever gone out in public lol?    I guess you think structures beneath the skin are all identical person to person?  Genetics my friend :)

Brain size isn't supposed to matter.  The density of neural connections is supposed to matter.

Yes, I know there are genetics; but I'm not sure why that is supposed to have such a huge effect on the brain; physical differences are quite a different matter and that's not what I'm talking about.

You see, this is what I do: I don't just swallow down what I am told; I question why they make sense. Some students might just hear "genetics" and be like "ok, that settles it." I inquire more than that.

Same with this question. Some people might look at a simplistic piece of evidence, that is very intuitive, such as, I try hard and I didn't make it, and they will just leave it at that. While their conclusion that talent is a major factor might be correct, I don't assume that it is. There's like a 90% chance that talent is a major factor, but I don't go further and make that 100% assumption, but instead consider other possibilities.

My desire to inquire is probably a talent in itself; it'll probably keep me from making prejudiced decisions in a chess game.

Well your desire to inquire (lol that ryhmes :) can also lead to slower if more thorough results.  We all have to make assumptions every day just to communicate and survive.

I'm not trying to wave a genetics flag.  I'm saying the brain is a physical piece of hardware.  It's weird to hear you say "physical differences are quite a different matter."

Kid born with pinched place a base of skull made it impossible for him to sleep for first 3 years of his life or something.  Kim Peek is missing part of his brain in the middle, two sides fused, and you get the literally retarded rainman who can recall area codes faster than a computer database can pull up the info.

There are people with synesthesia or autobiographic memory that makes memory tasks easier.  These are manifestations of how their brain is connected not practice.

You get head trauma and your personality can change, your memory can be affected, your motor skills, etc.  The brain is a physical thing, its function is not a mystical spiritual thing.

I feel like the game comes naturally to me now; I'm enthusiastic about all kinds of chess positions, and I really feel that I can become an extremely strong player. Still, I didn't think that back when I was 1200 -- I thought certain sorts of grandmaster moves wouldn't be possible for me to think of -- in other words, I indeed thought the lack of talent was staring at me in the face. And what's interesting is that I went through the motions as a weak player: I bought the books, "did what you were supposed to do," and I didn't improve. I was like nine or something, but still, we know how many 9 year old NMs there are (although they all have coaches).

I, to, made that same, "I worked hard and I didn't improve," idea, believed it, and didn't play the game much till years later.

Once I re-evaluated my approach to the game, improvement came easily, as if I had talent, and yet, I didn't get similar results the last time I had tried.

This is why I think the issue is not crystal clear: in my, obviously biased, experience, I contradicted the idea of talent with myself. Perhaps I always had talent, but didn't discover it until later, but I don't know. Certainly, there are a lot of things about chess that go well with how I think, although at the same time there were things like tactics that I wasn't too good at. And yet now tactics come so naturally to me; as if I was born with the ability.

Although I think my natural tendencies have changed since I was a little kid. I liked math, but... I didn't really like finding mates in chess -- the only thing I enjoyed about chess was taking my weaker opponent's pieces that they would always give to me. Honestly, I didn't like creative problem solving. But now I like creative problem solving so much, that it almost seems like I was born with it.

It's like I suddenly just acquired talent.

Of course they are connected in some ways. I mean things like skin color, natural height, eye color, these sorts of things. I don't believe those have anything to do with the brain.