What makes a good chess player?

Practice, willingness, and some help from strong players (either a coach or clubmates). Good nerves are an asset for OTB play too.

Beyond humane power of will, and consistency.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I had zero books, zero coaches (except ofcourse my passed grandpa who taught me the rules when I was 5 and not really interested unless I got to set up the position.)

and I learned chess by myself, and in a period of over 5 years playing, I can beat FM's, IM's and at sometimes even GM's.

I would use every spare wasted moment to play chess, even if I wasn't seriously playing I would play blitz games intuitively, I would not waste one moment that could be wasted without playing chess, I beat everyone at the parks, at school, at informal tournaments, and I simply in the worst of moments, of my deepest of depression, chess was there for me, I loved it, I won, I lost, I wanted to die, I made terrible blunders, I hated the game, then I loved the game, then realized I hated my play, not the game, the game is pure, my play is not... so let me not digress because I hate these types of emotional wound ups, my POINT is PRACTICE, PRACTICE MAKES A GOOD PLAYER, CONSTANT AND EVEN AT TIMES UNCONSCIOUS PRACTICE, UNTIL YOU IT HAS SUBLIMINALLY FILTERED INTO YOUR BRAIN CELLS.

Still I consider myself terrible chess player, and nowhere near my full potential.

Tactics, gifted players are real good in tactics.

If I could answer this question, I'd be a GM. Closest I've gotten is driving a GM.

When a ten year boy plays like Tal everyone in the chess club recognize that this boy is going to be a master soon and maybe GM in near future. Tactics abilities require good calculation but the ability to see five moves doesn't mean he can see tactics.

FUNNY!! xD

Possibly of interest:
What It Takes to Become a Chess Master by Andrew Soltis
"... going from good at tactics to great at tactics ... doesn't translate into much greater strength. ... You need a relatively good memory to reach average strength. But a much better memory isn't going to make you a master. ... there's a powerful law of diminishing returns in chess calculation, ... Your rating may have been steadily rising when suddenly it stops. ... One explanation for the wall is that most players got to where they are by learning how to not lose. ... Mastering chess ... requires a new set of skills and traits. ... Many of these attributes are kinds of know-how, such as understanding when to change the pawn structure or what a positionally won game looks like and how to deal with it. Some are habits, like always looking for targets. Others are refined senses, like recognizing a critical middlegame moment or feeling when time is on your side and when it isn't. ..." - GM Andrew Soltis (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093409/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review857.pdf
Reaching the Top?! by Peter Kurzdorfer
"... On the one hand, your play needs to be purposeful much of the time; the ability to navigate through many different types of positions needs to be yours; your ability to calculate variations and find candidate moves needs to be present in at least an embryonic stage. On the other hand, it will be heart-warming and perhaps inspiring to realize that you do not need to give up blunders or misconceptions or a poor memory or sloppy calculating habits; that you do not need to know all the latest opening variations, or even know what they are called. You do not have to memorize hundreds of endgame positions or instantly recognize the proper procedure in a variety of pawn structures.
[To play at a master level consistently] is not an easy task, to be sure ..., but it is a possible one. ..." - NM Peter Kurzdorfer (2015)
http://www.thechessmind.net/blog/2015/11/16/book-notice-kurzdorfers-reaching-the-top.html
http://www.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Reaching-the-Top-77p3905.htm
https://www.chess.com/article/view/can-anyone-be-an-im-or-gm
https://www.chess.com/article/view/am-i-too-old-for-chess
https://www.chess.com/article/view/how-can-older-players-improve
Train Like a Grandmaster by Kotov
Becoming a Grandmaster by Keene
What It Takes to Become a Grandmaster by GM Andrew Soltis
"To become a grandmaster is very difficult and can take quite a long time! ... you need to ... solve many exercises, analyse your games, study classic games, modern games, have an opening repertoire and so on. Basically, it is hard work ... It takes a lot more than just reading books to become a grandmaster I am afraid." - GM Artur Yusupov (2013)
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/ebooks/QandAwithArturYusupovQualityChessAugust2013.pdf

Improving your position would help.

Lol

Hey Wesley,

What are the qualities to make someone a good chess player?

1. Enough discipline to base one's chess upon centuries of established knowledge and sponge it all up.
2. Guts to step out of the box and explore daring, bold moves to strike at the opponent with no mercy.
3. Mental stamina to explore positions to their fullest, not give up, not get distracted, never get bored (the fulfillment comes from the stimulation of one's own mind) and strategically use the time resource.

Is it about intelligence, about practice, about concentration?

Yes, yes, and yes. Add to that the capacity for reasoning in purely logical fashion (e.g. not 'I would like to', but 'what is best'), triggered by rational intuition which is earned through experience.

Are these qualities given to by birth, or do you gain these by expirience or by time?

There sure is a relationship between genes and intelligence. But these and other qualities (creativity, courage, stamina, sharpness) can be cultivated.

Is it true that everybody might become a GM? Or just those who are gifted?

No. Being naturally talented is one thing - before a brain becomes a chess brain it probably already has to be pre-wired a certain way - but talent can be grown.

What many people don't understand is that GM-level thinking is something much different than what the lower levels are doing. It's not just better or more accurate. It's a whole other level. Before you see all of the connections on a chessboard, the entire brain needs to become devoted to the game. This doesn't happen for adults, for example. Because they have already devoted their brain and life to other things as well - family, work, friends, relationship for example.

How else do you think that GMs talk in terms of chess coordinates and are able to rack up 20-move lines from many historical games. And how else do you deem it possible to sharply keep 75 chessboards in mind during a blindfold simul, and win 95% of them?

Never forget, and this is the big secret, that to become a star in the chess world, the place in one's heart where dreams are fulfilled has to be taken up by one word: checkmate. The chess player lives and breathes it, thinks about it non-stop, and nothing else gets his true attention in life.

There are no other dreams. No dreams of money, real estate, mobility (cars, planes), a wife, traveling, spirituality, and all that. Just checkmate, checkmate, checkmate, and the rest is peripheral. That's how it starts for the big GMs.

If you can do that, then and only then you can become a star. Otherwise, forget it. Just play it as a hobby or set a lower bar. The emotional brain needs to be fully invested in the sport as well, not just the thinking brain.

Creativity and the ability to grasp details.