Started in Chess at 40, and Became a Chess Master

Roaring Pawn.  I read Laker's manual.  In it , he contradicts what you said.  In  fact, he lays out a program for budding masters to follow.  And even claims he could make a master out of anyone. 

John, you're right, Dr. Lasker claims (#113) that he could make a master out of anyone with the RIGHT program and method. #112 above from Lasker's Manual clearly states there is an elephant in the room -- broken basic education is failing us across domains. We see people hate math, in chess 99% of all entrants never get beyond the moves, etc.

The teaching methods are the key. Not all of us should become a master. 40- or 6-year old, we just want to enjoy the best game ever invented. And knowledge and etter understanding enhance enjoyment.

The chess education is like the education system in the US, there is a broken basic education and, on the other hand, the best schools in the world, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc.

The beginning, or as I like to call it Square One on Day One is critical and most important period if you think about it. You either get excited for something and go far, or you simply quit as your initial enthusiasm wanes.

I've been doing Square One and writing on my blog about it for ten years. Ninety years after Nimzovich spoke about it, no one in the chess community seem not to see it yet.

Houston, there is a BIG elephant!

Our basic education is still in the Medieval ages: here Fall Festival in Houston

I read this in a book:

"A pin is a restrictive contact.

Pins, forks, and skewers can be executed by rooks and queens along ranks and files. Bishops and queens can execute these tactical patterns along diagonals. When two pieces occupy the same rank, file, or diagonal, they become vulnerable to these attacks—rook or bishop forks, pins, and skewers.

The several types of contacts described in this book are elucidated in much more detail in Yuri Averbakh, Chess Tactics for Advanced Players (1992). There are few other books, however, that employ Averbakh’s terminology. Essential Tactics is distinctive in this respect. While teaching young players, I have found this notion of contacts useful for promoting understanding."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XKG1VZD/

Roaring Pawn.  You are right that education is broken, a claim made by Henry Adams a long time ago.Chess education is about motivation and fun. If you consistently have both your education is effortless.  As far as your first thought goes, it is absolutely possible.  The mind of Man is a fantastic instrument, and no one can say (should one be born with genius) what that mind might achieve.  But when Leonardo Davinchi came along he was laughed at..  Marilyn Vos Savant showed a job interviewer that a computer made an error.  Did she get the job?  No.  The problem is that we do not encourage genius and do not promote all types of education.  But that  is another topic.  

By the way , Zirab, ignore Averbakh's terminology.  Memorize his examples.  Still an excellent book, especially the section on combinations.

Henry Adams was being ironic. Son of a diplomat, grandson and great grandson of Presidents. Product of the best schools in Europe and the United States, he lamented his own failure to receive an education because there was no way that he fill the shoes of his ancestors. Yet, he built the US history profession and laid the foundations for professional scholars to understand both the achievements and failings of his progenitors.

Read RoaringPawn's blog, especially hos posts about Square One. Averbakh's terminology is the best part of the book. Averbakh is almost the only one who has struggled to develop a theory that builds on Nimzovitch's insight into the failures of chess teaching for beginners. 

When the foundation is poorly built, the structure is weak.

Behind irony is truth.  The problem with terminology is that people get bogged down in it..  Kmoch tried the same thing.  Memorise his examples and give your own titlle to it..  A good example in chess is that no good definition exists for the concept combination.  Every description of it lacks something.  Yet when we see a combination, we all recognize it..  Learn to see in chess; do not get stuck in nomenclature.

I shall google your blog.  Sounds interesting.

Chess folks, I've been doing contacts between chessmen for ten years now after I observed this game in an after-school program here in Atlanta, 1.e4 d5 2.Bd3 Bg4 3.exd5 and so on. It wasn't first time I'd seen "chess blindness in action", but on that particular occasion something told me there's something rotten in the Kingdom of Chess, Department of early education.

I started intensively to research about possible reasons for such utmost blindness, and over time came across Nimzovich article in Shakhmatny listok from 1929, Averbakh's Middlegame and later Tactics for Advanced Players, the theory behind complex systems, etc.

Now I have to reveal something to you. James Stripes from Spokane, WA, aka @Ziryab was the first to understand the far-reaching positive impact the mindshift from the moves to the contacts together with the moves may have on early chess education.

Next came FM Carl Strugnell aka hardman Karl "The Hustler" Ouch from Wales who also recognized the contacts benefits.

So there are now perhaps 5-6 people in the entire world who use the contacts Before the moves approach (here is, for example what the British coach Jim Stevenson has to say about the contacts first method in The Belgrade method for complete beginners trial ).

You can see very few Contacts "scholars" which is not unusual when there is a paradigm shift in a domain. Think Copernicus. Sixty years after his Revolutions there were only about 15 astronomers in all of Europe supporting the new idea that Earth revolves around Sun, and not the other way round (you may want to read more in my PRINCIPIA SCACCHORUM, Part 12: Was Nimzovich a Big Damned Fool?)

James, thanks for the link. As far as I know, your Essential Tactics: Building a Foundation for Chess Skill is the first attempt to explain chess structure and function via the contacts in the early period of learning.

Averbakh elaborated the idea in Tactics for Advanced Players. Now if you think about it, advanced players wouldn't become advanced if they hadn't mastered piece relationships on their own, the hard way, over a long period of time thru experience, so it has become their second nature.

Compare a Nobel-prize winner in literature who goes over the rules of Grammar. Wouldn't make sense, don't you think? (by the way, grammar is about structure (syntax) and meaning (semantics) of language in the same way the piece contacts are about structure and meaning in chess! -- read more about how the structure and meaning logic is shared across domains in math, language, coding, football).

So the contacts are useful concept, I would say beginner's indispensable mental tool for bringing up meaning and  better understanding in the first critical period of learning.

@Savage47 found the pic who knows where online, it could be

How do you know that your time and effort has been spent on the best training resources possible? Seems to me that all you'd have to do is invest your time and effort in correcting your sleazy and ineffective mindset. Which is easier said than done, especially since accomplishing something so abstract usually (if not always) requires some level of guesswork somewhere along the way IMO.

It all depends on your destiny......which many times your circumstance will reflect. Also, sometimes you exhaust an experience......and then, sometimes God wants you to lose! He closes a door and opens another one.

Chess is, for me, a hobby, a game which I love. My FIDE rating right now is around 2140, which is not bad for a 68 year-old who plays maybe two OTB games a year, if at all, and who prefers to enjoy chess ideas.

I enjoy following tournaments in Chessbase India YouTube channel, and perusing chess books about the players I love.

There is a beauty in chess which is Art, it is poetry.

The strength (or lack thereof) of your desire for something will determine your willingness to work for it. Passion for something is very important. Also, having fun; it should be something you love!

Peace.

@kamalakanta whatever it is, the most important is to be enjoying the game as art, or poetry, as you put it

GM Evgeny Vasiukov learned the rules at 19.

WIM Rani Hamid (Bangladesh) began at 34 and won the Bangladeshi national championship 20 times

Nice pist

You can do anything you set your mind to player.