Or perhaps the story that Capablance never read a chess book, never studied et cetera is exaggeration? I'm sure he wanted people to believe that, I don't believe at all that it is true.
Why do we find so few natural talents in chess history?
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Jan 13, 2009
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#3
Scarblac wrote:
Or perhaps the story that Capablance never read a chess book, never studied et cetera is exaggeration? I'm sure he wanted people to believe that, I don't believe at all that it is true.
But even if he have read some books (that i doubt) the fact is he denied to his whole brilliant career to devote absolutely to chess and that's true for sure.And all the other facts doesn't convince you that Capablanca was natural talent??All the other studied for hours and hours every day(Fischer learned Russian to study their books..)
Jan 13, 2009
0
#4
dratsab wrote:
one way to see if someone is a natural talent is to sit 2 young people at a chess board show them how the pieces move and watch them play, they will make mistakes,make some bad moves but one of them just might show some understanding of the game and show some initiative
Not bad idea.Is famous the story that the 4 years old Capablanca told his father that he cheated because he moved a knight from a white square to the same colour square and told him that he could beat him.When his father got angry and thought to punish his rude kid,Capablanca beat him twice..
It seems unlikely you could find any world champion who did not have natural talent at an early age. Hard work develops natural talent, as it did for Capablance.
Bobby Fischer ?
Being a GM requires a lot of natural talent as well as years of study. For someone without it, the training would simply be ineffective. There are plenty of natural talents in chess but that does not suddenly mean they can compete on an equal level with others that have both talent and experience.
Rubinstein, though never in fact WC, was pretty close to world's best at his peak. He took up chess fairly late (at 16 I believe) and was unremarkable. He challenged his town's strongest master and got crushed. He left town and one day reappeared and challenged his master again, and this time won.
He clearly had some talent but not the way Capa had it. Maybe Euwe was shorter on talent than his elite peers.
I wouldn't be surprised if heaps of players with talent fall by the wayside all the time due to poor work ethic, bad habits, etc.. You know, they glide up to master fairly easily and then find the going hard...and eventually find something else to do.
I'd also be surprised if there was a top 100 GM that didn't have lots of talent. It's just that compared to Anand or Kasparov, they seem normally gifted.
tonydal wrote:
You've left out Reshevsky. And Klaus Junge and Pomar and Keres and Spassky and...well, there were a whole bunch of players very talented at an early age. But the simple truth is that chess takes an incredible amount of study and book-learning (openings and endgames). And of course practice. These things all take years and years--even for the most gifted players. As for Capablanca--he probably studied far more than he let on (and he lived in a much less competitive era, when one could be a great deal more nonchalant about the game than now).
If Capa just reviewed the games of his competitors as they showed up in the magazines, that would be enough knowledge-cramming considering how quickly he comprehended chess. What else would he use, too? No advanced books in those days, no trainers.
In my opinion, the natural talents will always exist! look at young players who become GM. at an early age! Take a glance at the biographies of all the champions and you will see that they were phenomena in chess! Reshevsky was a natural talent before Bobby Fischer who crushed everyone! the game has evolved and the players are so well prepared so that natural talents are rare!
don't forget Alekhine, Akiba Rubenstein, Max Euwe, Botwinik, Tigran Petrossian....Karpov, Kasparov etc....
who dare challenge my natural talent?
Hard work with no talent will get you maybe to NM level eventually but to GM - never...
Of course the greatest natural talent by far,in my opinion,was Capablanca.He learned chess at the age of 4 just watching his father,he never studied chess books or having chess coach,he never took chess so serious but his results were incredible:He lost only 35 games in his life(won more than 500 i think) went undefeated in 63 games,from 1916 to 1924,at blitz games was unrivalled (at the age of 18 won Lasker and at 20 gave 571 blitz games,draw 18,lost 13).Seems that chess was his mother tongue...
I can only think also Paul Morphy and Sultan Khan(even he lasted only for 4 years),as natural talents.
But are these three cases enough for the whole history of chess,or do i missing something (or someone!)??
Do the natural talents exist so rare?