WHO WINS?

4 people learns basic chess rules.  Then, they will specialize:  Person 1 will only learn endgame theory  for 1 year.   Person 2  will do nothing but learn opening theory for 1 year.  Person 3 will do nothing but solve tactical puzzles for 1 year.  The fourth person will learn nothing, instead, he will only play games, and do that for 1 year.

Once the year is up, the 4 players will sit down and play a round robin.  Who do you thing will do best?  Worst?

Its between players 3 and 4. Players 1 and 2 will know practically nothing about chess and lose instantly. I'm tempted to say 3- I suppose it depends on the difficulty of games for person 4, and also whether people stop and help analyse during the games...

I would say that the person who does endgame theory would do worst of all due to his not understanding the opening and middle game. The person who did the opening theory would do fine until the middle and end game so the would be second to last.

As for the other two I would have to give the advantage to the person who studied tactics over the player. While the player may have played games that does not mean that they played well or even had decent competition. Therefore I would say that the tactics player would do best as they should be able to 'see' the ideas and plans of the opponents and catch any tricky openings.

I'll go for

First: game player

second: tactical goose

third: endgamer

last: opening theory student

I'm most confident about the position of the last nerd. I'll be interested to see what better players suggest.

game player...

puzzles are often not realistic...

opening gamers will squander it...

end gamers wont even get there

Polgar's book "5334 Chess Problems" and many others are based off of real games. Also software such as CT Art 3.0 are tactical problems and have been proven to help.

My vote goes to player 4, because at the end of the day experience wins. While I do think that's it's important to study, I believe that it's most important to play as much as you can. This is especially true if player 4 plays for a year with strong opponents. Player 4, in that case, will have lost so many games that eventually he'll run out of ways to be beaten . That's why professional chess players generally don't like playing for free. Can you imagine how strong you would be after playing two or three games per day for a year against, say, Jeremy Silman or even the top player at your local chess club?

As far as the worse goes, I'd say the person who studies just puzzles. It will be difficult for him to arrange his pieces in a game to match the puzzles that he studied.

The player who studies tactics is likely to win because all I learnt during my first year of chess was not to fall into blunders, which the tactics player learns anyway. Extend the period for 5 years and the game player wins it every time.

They all got to study chess, right?  Sounds like everyone is a winner to me!! 

1.Gamer

2.Tactician

3.Endgamer?????????????

4.Opener

Ps:  The endgamer can be tricky.  He will FULLY understand what each piece can/cannot do.  And THAT should help him in the middle game.  He will also draw seemingly lost games, and will win the tough ones if he survives the opening.

PS: Your comments are appreciated, as always, thanks!

my thoughts exactly

i vote for person 4

the fourth person will actually be learning the endgame,opening and tactical theorys all in one year

In descending order: 4, 3/1, 3/1, 2

1: The gamer

2: The tactician

3: The opener

4: The endgamer

Reasons: First, the gamer knows everything, from opening principles to endgame combinations. He actually has more knowledge then the tactic player because he only knows tactics. The gamer knows position and principles wich is a big big plus. Even tho he isn't very good at tactics he will still beat the tactician every time because he will always come out better the opening and the endgame. I say in 10 games he will win atleast 7 against the tactician. 

The tactician: This one is obviously second place. Better then the opener and the endgamer for sure.

The opener: He is better then the endgamer because he will always have an advantage over the endgamer, because the endgame, is obviously in the end. The endgamer will most likely fall into the scholars mate trap. 

The endgamer: While endgames are very important, they won't bring you anywhere if you don't know chess. I think this one belongs on the last rank, mainly because he will not succeed in the opening/middle game. There is where he will fall, so he will never be able to use his endgame knowledge.

My reasons, I think, are the most likely ones. :-)

 "In order to improve, one must study endgames as, while the endgame can be studied by itself, the opening and middlegame must be studied in relation to the endgame"

I tend to agree with you, although I think third and last could go either way. I think the opening theory guy might have the advantage because he must know what position he wishes to obtain for the middle and end game in order to study the opening.

1. The TACTICS player will win hands down. As long as he has a chance to play at least one or two warm-up games, this quad will be a walk in the park. He'll be the one with the gun at a knife fight.

2. This one is close. I'd have to say it's between the endgame player and the gamer. I think the ENDGAME player will win this by a nose. Endgame study can be very broadly defined. You have simple endgames and very complex endgames. You learn a lot of TACTICS while you study endgame. You also learn the basic checkmates: how to use a Queen, then a Rook, then two Bishops, and then a Bishop and Knight. You learn some deep stuff like the Lucena position, opposition, how to draw, how to avoid draws and losses, and a whole bunch of stuff.

If the gamer and the opener don't gain a significant advantage against the endgame player, they will lose those games. And even if the gamer or opener achieves a positional or material advantage, that's not saying they still can't lose. How many games have we all played where we are up 2 pawns or a Knight in the endgame, then somehow manage to lose it or end up with a draw? Sucks right? 

3. All of that being said, the GAMER might be able to rank #2. However, just playing games without any analysis will not help you improve that much. You'll constantly make the same mistakes over and over. You won't understand why you beat other players and you won't understand why other players beat you. Of course, you'll pick up tricks from the players who challenge you, so I think the gamer will avoid last place.

4. The one who learns openings is by far the weakest. You never go beyond like 10-12 moves in all the games you play. I mean, unless your opponents are so bad they are going to fall for Scholar's Mate, it's going to be tough to beat them. Let's say you hit them with an opening trap that wins you a piece. Normally this would be a win, but how does the OPENER learn how to CLOSE games? The gamer certainly won't fall for Fool's Mate or Scholar's Mate, and neither will the tactician. Maybe you can pull one over on the endgame guy, but I think that is unlikely.

Both the opener and endgamer will struggle, but since the game will tend to go long, I think the endgamer has a significant accumulated advantage. He will win all the close games!

Definitely, the game player is being vastly OVERRATED! You aren't going to learn anything from just playing random games against random people. These are the people that stay permanently rated between 800-1000 because all they do is just play random games.

I say the Opening Theorist beats everyone down, since a far superior knowledge of opening leads into a better game.  Then, the tactician beats everyone because he can survive the opening theorist and beat the endgame person before it gets that far.  The game player will always lose to people who know more and study more.