Talent? What's the difference.

Loomis hit the nail on the head.

Let me give you my example.

I am a classical music student at a university, playing my instrument for about 9 years now.

When non musicians hear me play they go wow how can you play so fast and with such control?

It is easy because my brain has been changed over 9 years to do these things through years of exercises and study. I have an brain that automatically links the music I read to the tip of my finger and I play seemingly difficult passages with ease.

It is exactly the same with Susan Polgar. She has a brain that has been developed for chess.

This can be you too. You just need the right training and years of perseverance.

Oh, and talent is nothing without hard work. I learned that the hard way in music.

Very interesting answers. I believe this could be true. 

 Kids are thinking about the past and present and we don't??  I think your thinking is backwards. 

 What I meant was, kids dont have to worry about things like responsibility that tie many of us adults to the present. A kids responsibilities comprise of eating, sleeping, basic chores, doing well in school. Its the adults responsibility to provide these for the children. Of the two who has to stay focused on the here and now. Of the two who is going to be able to spend more time devoted to a pursuit, in this case chess. Unless a circumstance is thrown on a child to take on adult responsibilities early in life, they are generally in a better position to acquire knowledge faster and more efficiently.

If an adult ignores the present, bad things have a tendency to happen. If a child ignores the present, an adult is usually around to keep bad things from happening. I remember as a child, I was more concerned with GI Joe's, reading, and dreams of becoming an astronaut. What I did the day before, rarely enterd my mind, unless the event was an exciting one. I hope I cleared the confusion.

The way you need to approach chess, is by simply learning how to have a clear mind, and learning how to focus on one thing (in this case chess).  Solve all of lifes problems (easy) and just start thinking about chess.  A scientific answer that i can tell you from what I know is that once you take in information into your subconscius, your subcounsius has such imense computation capabilities that it will immediately almost give you a chess instinct once you see a position.  It's like driving a car, you don't realy think about it, but your subcounsius does just spit out information into your brain, and from there into your nervous system and you do it automaticaly.  The same goes for chess.  I hope that helped you, if you wondering how the subcounsius works in detail just ask.

Yes serkov, I would like to read that article or experiment.

People are born with a talent, god made us the way we are, but we have to find our talent.

The only "talent" in chess comes down to how intelligent you are. Beyond that its just hard work and training.

You seem to contradict yourself..Look at the second to last sentence.  Doesn't that say that you were always in the present as a kid. 

When you have responsibilities you need to look to the future and or evaluate the past(that is after all what goal setting is all about-where do you see yourself in 5 years?). 

All talent including sport and science is easy to explain. It`s all about memory. In chess it`s about memory that deals with scenarious or call them patterns. The less talent you have and the older you are the slower you will get use to scenaause if there is just one thing that does not sit properly it will screw your games over and over. Techniques and patterns in chess and in chess there are over 100 things to get used to.

I think as long as you are healthy you can start chess at any age and become an ordinary GM with the right practice approach. It`s "just" a matter of YEARS!!! MANY MANY YEARS THE LATER YOU START!!!!!!!!! Let`s say you started at age 40, then you will become GM at around age 70 with regular practice! I started at age 18 I think I will be a GM at around age 50. But do I give a shit about all this? No. Also there is not enough time when you have a family and work.

To start at age 13 is considered late! I say keep it real, if you started after age of 12 don`t set higher goals than 2250 UNLESS you are talented in some degree, if you are you would get over 2000 fide easily in under 5 years - that`s an indicator of above average talent but then again if you started late that talent stays not completely developed forever but you will cross 2000 fide easily never mind from what age you started to play if you got some talent. Also concentration and will power is important when playing a player of 200 points higher than you. If you show better concentration and will power the higher skilled player will go down

Talent is just a word those without the will to put in long hours and hard work use to allow them to feel blameless for their own deficiencies.

Anyone of average intelligence and visualization capabilities has more than enough "talent" to become a super GM.  You just have to be willing to trade everything else in your life for it, starting at a very early age.  Though why anyone would do this is beyond me.

Not that this isn't a big part of the Chess.com most overdiscussed topics, but the reason kids can learn much faster than adults is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning

LIfe isn't fair.  And some people have more talent in given areas than others.  Some are faster than others.  Some are born to rich families, and some are not. 

There are tons of high school athletes who would love to play in the NFL, or the NBA, but they simply don't have the talent - they'll never make it to the big time.

Those GM's didn't become GM's by just playing a few games by themselves.  At some point, they trained with other people, they studied books, they worked at it.  Nobody - nobody - reaches GM level without working at it.

Adults learns chess twice as slower than children? Did I understood right?

In chess you don't have to be as talented as Kramnik to have the very same position as him after making the moves 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6. In chess you don't need talent - just the moves ;-)

One can't compensate for lack of talent in chess at the top level, but anyone who works hard & smart for years with due motivation should become a decent player.

Chess is a highly competitive field, so one needs to maximize all the factors to excel in it. Unfortunately, talent is the factor we can't influence.

If you learn chess at an early age (like age 4) then you will have greater potential than someone who starts later.  That has nothing to do with talent and every thing to do with the nature of the developing brain.  Talent means special natural ability and no one is naturally born with an ability to play chess or any other non-physical game!  If a kid is a grandmaster at age 12, it's because he was introduced to chess at a young age, enjoyed it, and received great instruction.  I do believe that overall intelligence definitely plays a part in how well someone picks up new ideas and concepts in general, but again, that's due to how they were taught at an early age.  GM Tal was reading perfectly at age 4, and that's because his parents made sure he was well educated.... I don't think that has nothing to do with his enormous chess skill.