Talent...or devotion? A discussion of whether genius is made, or born.

Is it better to have talent of devotion?

In that talent section I would place  Morphy, recalling the beginnings of Morphy he watched his dad and uncle play then picked up on the manuevers, even telling the loser how they could have won. Played as a kid and young adult but I haven't heard about him endlessly studying.

Fischer; I recall his tale is a sort of obsessed devotion to Chess. He studied, studied, studied. 

Is it better to have the obsession, or the talent? Obsession can create the talent. I also recall both players fell out of a liking of Chess. 

And how would this all come together with the Polgar sisters, taught and trained at a very early age for Chess skill?

Neither talent nor devotion alone is enough to reach the level of Morphy, Fischer or the Polgar sisters. All of them have (had) both in abundance.

You need both devotion and talent. One without the other = fail.

I'd rather have the talent than devotion. Allthough I don't believe specific talent exists

Personally, I think of the situation like this: Developing skill in something is like a ray (mathematically, a line that starts at 1 point and goes on forever in 1 direction). Depending on the amount of talent a person has is where they begin on the ray. From that point on, only practice can move that person further along the line. 

Bascially, raw talent can give you an advantage on where you start and how hard you must work to get better, but diligence can take anyone and make them a master. 

@chesswiz625:

This is why I am more envious of Morphy than Fisher. At one point Morphy never knew how to play - but for him to zoom to the top it didn't take as much drive to improve because for some reason it already clicked. 

I'm sitting here playing Tactics Trainer all shift, with some pick up games with Chess Titans on level 8. To get a lot better I'd have to train and study a lot better + harder. But some just get it.

@CharlesConrad

Indeed. All of our brains seem to be wired for some things to "click" when performing a task better than others. It is just one of those unique facts of life I think. Still though, hard work is without a doubt the most contributing factor. I am ok at chess (sitting at a near 1600 rating) and I play leisurely. If I took up the game for occupational needs, I bet I could hit 1900 or 2000 with enough effort (not just 1 or 2 years of studying, mind you, but more like 5 years of constantly working at it). Morphy probably had the potential all along, but the experience of watching and playing others expanded his knowledge, and I would think he analyzed positions or games every once and a while in his free time.

It's funny aspergers is mentioned: It isn't beyond belief to claim fictional folks like Gregory House and Sherlock Holmes had aspergers, and they've had run-ins with chess. In the House M.D. episode the Jerk House treats a barely into his teens Chess Prodigy and challenges him to a game to stress him and find out what's wrong with him. House nearly beats him and the kid knows it. 

In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Sherlock takes on Moriarty in a 5 minute game. Sherlock not only plans how to defeat Moriarty in his real life game but also defeats him in chess and they finished the rest of the game in their head rattling off positional movement like it was counting numbers. 

That's what I'd like to be.

"The ability to work hard for days on end without losing focus is a talent." -- G. Kasparov

Your question is rethorical, isn't it?

The absence of a (social) life is another very useful trait if you want to master chess.

You need both, I have been told that I have lots of talent. Hope this helps!

Focus is certainly a talent. But this is coming from the GrandMaster of GrandMasters who trained his posterior off.

No one gets good at chess without working at it. I coach a high school team. The order of players on the team is almost exactly a measure of how much time they spend working on chess, with only a very few minor exceptions. 
 

I believe completely that talent and devotion are necessary in equal parts. Talent, though, comprises more than just a phenomenal ability to visualize and memorize. It also includes focus, patience, mental stamina, even ego and drive. The devotion part means that you can (and want to) work at the game for hours every day over the course of years or even decades.

I used to have this argument with my students who insisted that devotion and desire alone were enough to take you to the top of any chosen field. I demurred, pointing out that, regardless of my devotion to being a professional basketball player or jockey, my physical dimensions of 5'10" and 220 lbs. pretty much eliminated either as a career choice.

It's born. While it's true that people would do better than they normally would under ideal conditions. True genius is born.

Makes sense.

See: Polgar sisters.

Father trained them very early for Chess. The experiement was to create genius. 

Given that the Polgar father was a fairly decent chess player and trainer himself, his experiment proves nothing since genetics can not be discounted. 

The pushy parent thing can go either way, Rustam Kamsky couldn't tell you how a knight moves but he somehow coerced his son into being one of the worlds best players. Jeff Sarwers father tried the same thing but as even more of a control freak than Mr Kamsky he actually prevented Jeff from reaching his potential. Both of them believe that 'talent' is nothing more than a willingness to work harder at chess than 99 percent of players.

This is also the view strangely of Nigel Short who was by any estimation a child prodigy but who always says that if you do nothing else but study and play chess for ten hours a day from the age of six you can't help but become a good player. He doesn't consider himself (or any other professional chess players) as being anything exceptional, given the intensive specialised training thay have all undergone.   

Its interesting that u mention aspergers. Are u a doctor? People are always diagnosing others without a medical degree and without so much as meeting the people they are diagnosing. Even worse they diagnose fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes! Maybe u should send Arthur Conan Doyle's descendants a doctor's bill!