Talent vs Training

Yes, the point is to enjoy playing. Once Garry Kasparov was also asked about improvement in chess and investing time for training, and he gave the counter-question "If you don't have time to devote your life for chess, why do you want to improve the game? So, it's just to beat your neighbor, to impress someone or to catch up with your kids." There are professional chess players who make a living on chess, and for them training is very important, and so is whether they have talent or not, because both will influence their accomplishments and their life in turn. Yet about non-professional players it's all about having fun.

But some non-professionalists take chess as a challenge too, and like to study the game, to look for their talents (in the forums there are constantly topics about the "playing style" quest and other personal perceptions of chess), and that's why chess is in a way a means of getting to know yourself better. For non-professionalists studying chess is often studying your own personality, reasoning and behavior, and it can often help you develop some good qualities and increase your effectiveness at other activities. That's why everyone can benefit from chess if he/she likes the game - be it by becoming a good competitive player, by improving some of your abilities, by having fun playing with friends without having special preparation, and in many other ways.

Thanks for raising the only interesting question in this whole dreary discourse.

My guess is it's these:

It sure looks like it!

It's both.. Michael Jordan is naturally talented at basketball PLUS he put in many many hours of long work - that results in the world's greatest player. A large number of NBA hopefuls in college each year also put in long hours of work - but they're not anywhere near as naturally talented, thus they are merely good college players.

I think any normal person could become 2600 at least if they trained enough. I will prove this to you myself. I will come back to this thread and say hello when I am 2700.

An update on the waffllemaster avatar debate:  he says it's what he got when he googled "yellow stuff."  I'd say we all kinda lucked out (considering how that experiment might've turned out)...

It did indeed look like that cereal.

Hard to say, I think they're a little too yellow, and they're not "popped out" like the cereal puffs are.  It was my impression it was something used in a dish like dough (of some kind) or pasta.

Maybe it's some kind of cheesy pasta.

The fact that there 100 times more great players now than in the past..is the proof,The Training is more important element . 

There is also 100 times more players in general. Which means 100 times more patzers. So it's not proof at all.

There are trainings for every aspect of chess......even improving talents...

Just read books from " Dovortsky "....

Training is everything.

...both