Does Hard Work in Chess Pay Off? |
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| Wednesday, 04 September 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 By GM Daniel Gormally  I recall once being told by this French guy I knew about a series of Big Brother they had in France. Apparently there was a guy in it who used to sit around sleeping all day, basically he did absolutely nothing. Everyone else on the show was trying really hard to be liked by the viewers, the usual reality T.V. desperation for fame, but he couldn't give a toss. He just stayed in bed. Anyway the upshot of all this was that despite this sloth like inactivity, he ended up winning the show. The reason I relate this story was that it illustrates that doing very little is often perceived as being very cool, whereas working your socks off isn't. But can the same formula be applied to chess? You often hear a debate about work vs talent. The "10,000" hours rule is brought up again and again by those who like to champion the merits of hard work. Basically the theory is, if you put in 10,000 hours of preparation, study, training and so on, you are certain to achieve a level of mastery of whatever subject or activity you are involved with. As if it can be boiled down to a mathematical formula. What a load of crap. The truth is however hard you work, if you don't have a lot of talent to begin with, you are never going to reach the top. I know guys who work their tits off and never get any stronger. They are like, how do you do it? How do you reach grandmaster? I'm working every day and I don't improve! It's like they don't understand something fundamental. It's the same reason why I'm not a good pool player or any good at golf, football, or any sports that I'd like to excel at. That would certainly make my life a lot easier, if I was even a mediocre footballer I'd make a lot more money than I could ever do at chess. But I'm not. And I'm not a great writer, or a composer, or a scientist either. Because I don't have any talent for those things. But I do have some for chess. Don't get me wrong I have worked hard. Well in the past I did. When I was younger, I was a pretty poor junior. I never played any junior events, never represented England at junior level, or any of those things. When I reached the age of about 16-17 I had already dropped out of school, and decided the only thing I had any talent for was chess. So I worked on the game. I'd spend 5-6 hours a day going through games of the top players in the world, going over their notes, from publications like New In Chess. I didn't do this over a prolonged period, but I might do this for a couple of weeks or so, which is certainly a lot more than I do now. These days I work very little. To be honest as I've grown older I've started to realise there are far more interesting things in the world than studying chess all day. (Hard to believe I know.) I'd far rather read a good history book than study the finer points of the Queen's Indian. The problem with chess is that it's very abstract, it's not really connected to anything else. It's a very insular game and gives you no sort of perspective on the wider world out there. But to achieve a high level of excellence at chess you really need to be obsessed and single minded about it, at least at some point in your life. Realising that there's a bigger world out there beyond those 64 squares can screw with that tunnel vision. So no I'm not against hard work, in fact I'm a great believer that hard work can turn a decent player into a great one. Just that the reality is that hard work is only going to get you to your goal if you have some talent to begin with. I must admit that chess is populated with workhorses these days. I only have to work my way down the rating list to start to fume, at the zero talents with ratings considerably higher than mine. But are they really zero talents? I think all of them had some talent to begin with. Maybe I overrate my own talent. It certainly wouldn't compare to people like Carlsen and so on. Not even close, that's another level entirely. However there seems to be an army of Russian/Chinese players these days who work themselves into the ground. My bet is these guys are doing at least 10 hours a day, if not more. The thought just boggles the mind. They must literally do so much chess that they actually just morph into chess pieces. Yes they are reasonably gifted, but if anything it does show the merits of hard work. I think Fabiano Caruana amongst the top players is known for being a workhorse. This guy is chess chess chess. Very dedicated. But that's what you need to do to be the best. He's also pretty talented. You couldn't reach close to 2800 unless you are amazingly gifted. Garry Kasparov often makes an argument in favour of hard work. But the reality is that Garry Kasparov is a uniquely gifted chessplayer. A genius, in fact. No my argument is not that hard work doesn't count- the proof is that it does. Especially in a game like chess where knowledge and learning is so important. My argument is that plenty of people without any talent for chess, believe they can achieve the same results and achieve master level, as long as they work hard enough. It's just as deluded as my thinking I can score 40 goals up front for Barcelona every year (ok perhaps not that deluded.) The worse thing is the pushy parents who hire a chess coach for their kid, enter them in every competition possible, even though it's evident to anyone with a modicum of common sense, that their kid has no real affinity for the game. I must admit I used to jump on the gravy train myself- taking money to coach some kids or people I had no confidence in. At least their kid generally has the judgement later to break away from that, and find some other activity they do have a talent for. We all have something we're good at- but don't waste time hitting your head against the wall, becoming frustrated because you don't improve, is my advice. GM Daniel Gormally is open for chess lessons. You can contact him using this This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Other posts by GM Danny Gormally: World Cup Final preview World Chess Cup Semi-Final preview World Chess Cup Quarter-Final preview World Chess Cup 1/8-final preview Why are Russians so good at chess? British Champs-2013 Ghent and now the British I'll never be fat again! Lessons learnt! The sad case of Borislav Ivanov: Part II Does Anyone Have a Cure for Anger Problems? The Depth of Chess Fundraising in chess Nurturing a Chess Prodigy The Sad Case of Borislav Ivanov 4NCL Impressions: no country for old men - Part II 4NCL Impressions: no country for old men One move, one line - Part II One move, one line Candidates Final Review & Preview of Upcoming World Championship Match Would Carlsen have beaten Capablanca?
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