2014 World chess championship

i dont know much about chess but the fact there are 1444 grandmasters in the world as of jan 2014 suggests that statement is ridiculously false given how long the game has been around, how widespread it is and the total resources that go into teaching it in schools, running clubs and tournaments etc.

1444 living grandmasters or awarded total?
how many ppl are willing to devote half of their lifetime to game which makes no money?

almost everybody i know plays tennis everyweekend but none of my friends is in atp top10, i find it ridiculous given how long the game has been around, how widespread it is and the total resources that go into teaching it in schools, running clubs and tournaments etc.

dont understand your tennis point. do you think anyone with average athletic ability could have become top tennis pros had they had the right background and training? or are you suggesting tennis somehow makes money whereas chess doesn't? (both have plenty of money relative to human needs at the toptop and hardly anything below that, same as just about any other competitive pursuit that isn't poker).

also if you think money is what drives people to dedicate half their lives into some game then you must be under the impression the net volume of human time, effort and talent going into poker is greater than that going into chess?

0 for 3

how can you judge someones athletic ability if they didnt devote fully to such an activity? 300lbs fat guys you meet in the street might have been amazing athletes.. anyway i was just suggesting that two persons doing the same doesnt mean the same. you cant compare someone who goes to local chess club once a week with nitewin whos planning on devoting next 20 years becoming a grandmaster. even i play chess occasionally coz i like the game but i m not interested in learning openings or strategies, i just play for fun.

true, i have no idea how much top chess players make, but even tho player bases might be comparable (counting everyone who plays now and then), chess isnt the most popular games these days. how many kids dream on becoming a chess grandmaster? not many, tennis pro on the other hand... ones lifetime is relatively short and ppl tend to focus on things that motivate them not only internally but also externally and you cant argue sports bring more fame and money than chess. i m not interested in tennis at all and still could name 7players of atp top10.

2nd paragraph is nonsense

sry for my broken english -_-

reread my second paragraph. seems ok to me. im saying that if the potential to get money/fame is what drives people to dedicate themselves to game x over game y then poker should be tougher or as tough as chess because poker has more money. from what i can see the reality is the overwhelming opposite - chess is much tougher. clearly there are other factors.

1444 looks like the total GM titles awarded since FIDE has been around from what I can see (so since 1924). even if it was the number of GM currently active (which it isn't close to), that would still be such an insanely small number compared to any reasonable estimate of the number of people in the last 40 years that threw most of their lives into competitive chess from a young age trying to make it.

like i said i only have passing knowledge of the chess scene so hopefully someone who knows more can shed some light, but from what I can see just putting your life into the game and learning book openings to a decent level is only going to bring you up to the level of top club player. only the best of the set of top club players can become national masters. of the set national masters only the very few best can become international masters. of the international masters only the few best can reach GM. seems pretty obv that someone with average ability but dedication has no shot and you need some pretty significant genetic gifts to go along with that dedication to have any shot.

i was the best chess player in my primary school as well and won some trophies, but the difference is i realise how utterly worthless that is. it's a big world.

well poker is perceived as gambling by majority of ppl so its not a very fair comparison, stock markets would be better, also i didnt state money were the only motivation

my understanding is that nitewin isnt implicating learning some opening and basic strategies is the only thing it would take, more like 1st step. anyway i recall seing some study suggesting some masters has below-average iq, no idea if its true or if every grandmaster is a genius

extrapolating from winning trophies in elementary that you would become grandmaster.. that is silly. It's very possible that nitewin has some other reason to believe he could have been one of the world's top dogs, like an actual grandmaster told him he was blown away by his talent, but yeah.. if you remove the injury aspect, it's much like me stating that I could have been a professional football player if I had tried

My wife used to tour europe winning chess tourneys when she was a kid. Then she stopped after losing once. Me, I have some talent for the game much like most other games, but I've probably played only ~100 full chess games throughout my life - there are probably like 15 layers of dominance between me and grandmaster players. When me and my wife played some during summer - her first games in more than 15 years - I won something like 8-3. She didn't just win local competitions, but ones with players from all over europe (granted women so yeah), but yeah.. there's a lot more to becoming chess grandmaster than just dominating local competitions as a child and then dedicating yourself to it later.

it's kinda like how I'd assume 10% of people might consider themselves in the top 1-2% intellectually. ;(

I was once and adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee

If you put in thousands of hours of studying into chess I believe anyone could reach at least strong expert or low master at the minimum. You will never reach GM unless you have undeniable talent/iq on top of the hard work.

There is a reason the greatest player who ever played the game happens to be one of the all time smartest people in the world.

http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/the-biggest/the-10-highest-iqs-in-histoy/6/

# 8 is female grandmaster Judit Polgar

im not sure if theres a strong correlation between intelligence and chess aptitude. garry kasparov is undeniably one of the most brilliant men of all time, but i dont think all GM players are like that. the top GMs are probably all geniuses, but when you start getting into the 2650 and below level it seems chess aptitude correlates more with how early someone was exposed to chess and how hard they studied as a youngster. my good friend was very interested in mastering chess for a while and he got lessons from a mid 2500 russian GM who was a reasonably smart guy, but his chess vision was unbelievable. he would notice certain things that took us a long time of staring at a board to see. i dont think thats necessarily intellect.

that said, kasparov, fischer, capablanca, and morphy are/were all likely off the charts in terms of intelligence. magnus is very very very smart, but he seems like more of a savant than an off the charts genius like the other 4 i listed (although still a genius)

so i was right, /thread

lol why do i argue on the internet... ok if you literally mean the intelligence quotient test there is unlikely to be more than weak correlation between that and chess achievement, but there is clearly something more than just working hard needed (some innate chess-specific ability) to reach GM as suggested by the numbers alone. 1444 GMs since 1924, and if you think the total number of people dedicating their lives to chess in the last 80 years is within the same order of magnitude as 1444 then you must be smoking crack. when X people (X>>>>1444) are trying equally hard from a young age to reach the top and only 1444 achieved it, do you think the top 1444 just ran well? there isn't much variance in chess.

to predict a guy who won some school trophies has anything other than a tiny probability of reaching GM with just dedication is just wrong. it's too bad there's no convenient way i can bet against your beliefs since it takes too long to realise a winner, otherwise i'm up for betting your bankroll at odds that are consistent with your beliefs.

doubt ur betting Daut's bankroll lol

Pretty sure you have to be smart to become GM, but most of all, as for any elite sport, it is a combination of being exposed to the sport early as well as being wealthy enough to play a game for your whole life with only slight hopes of making money out of it.

You seem to infer that millions of people dedicated their lives to playing chess which I think is a wrong assumption. Comparing the number of silver+ LoL players that you know to the number 1500+ ELO chess players that you know, it is probable you will count more LoL players. Chess is popular as in everybody plays it, but it is kinda rare to find an opponent who does not totally suck at it. I think the number of serious chess players is very low.

On November 25 2014 15:09 traxamillion wrote: doubt ur betting Daut's bankroll lol

i would be betting with romm3l against nitewin. if his peak rating has been <=1800, then its 0% he ever becomes a GM no matter how hard he studies. if he managed to get 2000+ while in his early teens...then he has a shot. but pretty sure you can be a 1500 and beat 10 year olds in your school.

you mean <1%
+ Show Spoiler +

On November 25 2014 04:51 Romm3l wrote: lol why do i argue on the internet... ok if you literally mean the intelligence quotient test there is unlikely to be more than weak correlation between that and chess achievement, but there is clearly something more than just working hard needed (some innate chess-specific ability) to reach GM as suggested by the numbers alone. 1444 GMs since 1924, and if you think the total number of people dedicating their lives to chess in the last 80 years is within the same order of magnitude as 1444 then you must be smoking crack. when X people (X>>>>1444) are trying equally hard from a young age to reach the top and only 1444 achieved it, do you think the top 1444 just ran well? there isn't much variance in chess. to predict a guy who won some school trophies has anything other than a tiny probability of reaching GM with just dedication is just wrong. it's too bad there's no convenient way i can bet against your beliefs since it takes too long to realise a winner, otherwise i'm up for betting your bankroll at odds that are consistent with your beliefs.

i just dont agree with 'trying equally hard' part, thats all

Mikhail Tal was the man. Typical baller when it comes to lifestyle, and super aggro over the board player x) If someone didn't see his games, check them out, there's plenty lol

mikhail tal should be one of everybody's fucking heroes oh my god what a monster