Am I a genius?

[gollum]

Originally posted by Mithrandir
Now that you mention it, I have to agree though, I always thought Kasparov was less gifted as well.

This kind of talk (as well as the title of the thread), shows that you are one of these people that think that being good at chess is an ingrained ability.

Although such a thing like talent exists, this is not true. You can build up your skill step by step as surely as a house is built. The only prerequisites are:

1. Lots of work: it seems like a no-brainer, but the basic blocks of chess are learned incrementally through a long process of assimilation. Say for tactics: pins, forks, skewers, xrays, discovered attacks etc. you need to build "muscle memory" on them in the same way one does for walking, driving a car etc ie until they are second nature. A similar process applies for more higher level abstract concepts that one finds later on.

2. Honesty with one self: remember to challenge your self with good measure (not too much not too little) in order to face obstacles and through them improve; too many people stay in their confort zones after they've reached level x, and essentially remain static, regardless if that level is absolute beginner or strong club player. Conversely many people burn out because they constantly try to bite more than they can chew.

3. Play the game the inside out: too many people get bogged down by bad coaching that insists they play a style it doesnt resonate with them in order to learn it. Undoubtedly you need to learn other styles than your own and master elements that are not coming of their own accord to you but you need to do so through your own devices.

4. Genuinely love and be interested in the game: this i'm afraid is where it all rests at. People who get into chess to "prove" something or because it makes them "feel" a certain way but dont really like it, drop out quite quickly, because there is no resilient bond between them and the game that'll take them through the steep curves. This is the most important bit and nothing can substitute for it; when playing the game feels boring or painful beyond redemption one is better off to something else.

And by the way, avoid playing computers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=1DQcArPizkI

[Pannonian]

1. Lots of work: it seems like a no-brainer, but the basic blocks of chess are learned incrementally through a long process of assimilation. Say for tactics: pins, forks, skewers, xrays, discovered attacks etc. you need to build "muscle memory" on them in the same way one does for walking, driving a car etc ie until they are second nature. A similar process applies for more higher level abstract concepts that one finds later on.

Here's an example from one of my games. I set up a brilliancy where I would sacrifice my Queen to mate his King. Except that it wasn't a brilliancy, it was just a variant on a well-known mating pattern. And once I threatened it, my opponent recognised it too, and did whatever he could to avoid it. And the whole point of my plan was that I would win material, even if he recognised my plan, simply because saving material would allow the mate.

4r1k1
p3qpbp
1r4p1
1N1R1bN1
5Pn1
1Q4P1
PP4BP
3R2K1

27. Rd6? Rxb5!
28. Qxf7+ Qxf7
29. Nxf7 Kxf7
30. Bc6 Rxb2
31. Bxe8+ Kxe8
32. Re1+ Kf7

The threatened mate was a variant on the mating pattern known as Philidor's legacy.

27. Rd6? Rxb5!
28. Qxb5?? Qe3+
29. Kh1 Nf2+
30. Kg1 Nh3++
31. Kh1 (if 31. Kf1 Qf2#) Qg1+
32. Rxg1 Nf2#

27. Rd6? left the Knight unguarded except by the Queen, and if the Queen recaptured on b5 it would no longer guard the e3 square, thus allowing the mating pattern. So 27. Rd6 essentially gave me a free Knight, or as in the game where he desperately tried to get some counterplay, left me ahead after the exchanges. But that was only possible because I knew about the mating pattern, and had prepared for it as a contingency plan in case my opponent made it possible. If I hadn't known about it as a common pattern, I doubt I would have seen it in the game.

[Mithrandir]

This kind of talk (as well as the title of the thread), shows that you are one of these people that think that being good at chess is an ingrained ability.

...

Not at all, it was a response to Kadagarava's post, seeing how he was a master at age 2.

I'm actually convinced that to excel at something you need at least 10.000 hours of practice.
There's a study which shows this to be true for many things (playing the violin for example).

Do you play the violin Kadaragva?

[caravel]

You know, I feel right at home in this thread because as a 3 year old I used to like to play with my rattle? Any more under 7s rattle champions here?

[The Stranger]

You know, I feel right at home in this thread because as a 3 year old I used to like to play with my rattle? Any more under 7s rattle champions here?

[Mithrandir]

You know, I feel right at home in this thread because as a 3 year old I used to like to play with my rattle? Any more under 7s rattle champions here?

Maybe someone here wrestled with rattlesnakes at the age of 4...
or had a rattlefactory set up at age 5?

Or maybe, he was a rattle-instructor for toddlers at age 1?

[gollum]

originally posted by Mithrandir
Not at all, it was a response to Kadagarava's post, seeing how he was a master at age 2.

I'm actually convinced that to excel at something you need at least 10.000 hours of practice. There's a study which shows this to be true for many things (playing the violin for example).

What studies won't tell you is that the process has flats and slopes.

During slopes more or less one has not fully taken in elements that will take him to the next level, and those times seem to last forever and are quite frustrating. If one perseveres however, comes a point that suddenly a lot of progress is made because not only each individual block is assimilated, but also they are all combined into one's skill/style and this gives exponential progress at that moment. The reality however is that this explosion was being slowly built while one was having a frustrating/no progress time.

Also hours are one thing; how you invest them is another. Some modes of training are better for some people, others for other people.

Coaching also plays a big part as well as self coaching, which is why intuition needs to be switched on and ego thrown periodically out of the window and all these are tough parts of the process.

Originally posted by Asai Nagamasa
You know, I feel right at home in this thread because as a 3 year old I used to like to play with my rattle? Any more under 7s rattle champions here?