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Comment by bijant | Hacker News Reader

Even if you’re willing to devote 10 years of your life to chess you will not become a grandmaster unless you’re starting out as a child. You might be some kind of Ramanujan level chess prodigy, but those are rare these days and in any case You would find out quickly if you had that degree of talent. The accessibility of chess databases and engines that even the world champions of yore did not have means that anyone with a smartphone can train at the highest level. The best Ballerinas start dancing quite young, the greatest Chess Players have to start even younger. The case of the Polgar Sisters [1]is quite instructive. So even if your ambitions to become a GM might be doomed, you’re Children might just realize what you never will. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár

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Thank you so much for sharing László Polgár! I have not heard of him before - I love his work now!

I believe his claim: if we tried, we could turn "any healthy newborn" into "a genius".

László Polgár raised his children focusing on chess. His two daughters became the best and second-best female chess players in the world.

He had three daughters, the youngest was "only" an IM, but one of her tournament results was so astonishing people still refer to it as "the sack of Rome". ( https://www.chess.com/blog/damafe/the-sack-of-rome-magistral...).

Sofia is the middle daughter - reportedly the most talented.

Judith being the youngest had that kill instinct at an early age.

The sibling dynamic is something I did not appreciate until I had kids of my own.

I feel like there's a bit of irony in using the word "talent" in light of what László Polgár's work was attempting to demonstrate.

Curious about what sibling dynamics you've observer.

I'm the oldest child, and my youngest sibling definitely doesn't have, "that kill instinct".

> I believe his claim: if we tried, we could turn "any healthy newborn" into "a genius".

I don't. Intelligence is partially heritable, which is also the problem with his experiment. He was himself a leading intellectual, the probability that his daughters will inherit his high intelligence is pretty good. (it's not that much known about the mother, but I assume he married someone with above average intelligence as well).

I agree that intelligence is partially heritable. But there is also "regression to the mean" - where, for example, we should expect children of taller parents to be taller than average, but often not as tall as their parents.

There is likely tremendous potential that we as a society waste by not providing resources and opportunities for and and encouragement of better education at earlier stages of life.

Personally, I learned to read by 3 years old, but not because I was a prodigy -- but because my mom spent numerous hours encouraging me and building in me a love of it. I am confident more than 50% of children can learn to read by age 5 - meanwhile in the US we don't expect that kind of success until after a few years of schooling.

Susan "merely" became women's world champion. Judit didn't bother playing in women's events, was at one time #7 in the world, and is considered by far the strongest female player of all time. No-one else has come anywhere near the top 10.

In comparison, Hou Yifan, the 2nd strongest female ever, women's world champion at the age of 16 (!), was #59 in the world at her peak rating in March 2015, and is now #81. (Although she's been busy with university studies the last few years)

Judit is still very involved in chess, and is an excellent online commentator. e.g.

Norway Chess 2020 with Kramnik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5h-lj6z8x0

2020/21 Candidates, Round 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVsAfGhoeWk

See "Women's Highest Ever" rating table on the right: https://2700chess.com/women

I really admire Laszlo Polgar, and I agree that everybody can be raised a genius, but there is a caveat in it too - it takes a lot of effort on part of parents to groom children that way. Maybe it's easier than to become a chess GM, but in practice, lot more effort than most people are willing to (or even can) afford.

With Olympics going on, this is very relevant. China has a training camp to dominate all aspects of the Olympics and training at young age is absolutely crucial.

https://youtu.be/8-OGKGmxSbw

On "The Man vs. The Machine"

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-man-vs-the-machine-...

> Even if you’re willing to devote 10 years of your life to chess you will not become a grandmaster unless you’re starting out as a child.

Well that's bullshit.

The main reasons adults don't start chess and reach grandmaster levels at the same rate as those starting as children is the lack of free time and the lack of desire to put in the effort. Those two things eliminates the vast vast vast vast majority of adults, but it's not a factor in your hypothetical.

If some adult wants to spend 10 years of their life mastering chess, and didn't have to worry about work, life, dating, children, etc, they'd have about the same chance as a child of becoming a Grandmaster eventually. The chance is still extremely low for each, of course.

Surely neuroplasticity is a factor as well.

Maybe. But it's not a significant enough factor to say "you will not become a grandmaster unless you’re starting out as a child".

I'd wager that free time (and overall lack of responsibilities) is the vast vast vast vast majority of what factors into children excelling at chess.

Am I a bit off when I say "they'd have about the same chance as a child", all else the same? Maybe. But it's certainly closer to reality than the original post I responded to.

> I'd wager that free time (and overall lack of responsibilities) is the vast vast vast vast majority of what factors into children excelling at chess.

I don't agree, but I cannot prove my position. It's an interesting question that also applies to other fields (music etc.). My opinion is that when a child starts a certain activity at a young age, that activity "burns" its patterns into their brain like a language. I see that effect with one of my kids: although we started learning to play an instrument at the same time (and I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that he didn't practice more than I in terms of number of hours), his way how he handles the instrument and the music is completely different from mine: completely natural (like a mother tongue), recognizing patterns without needing to think about them,... I am certainly not the first who made this observation. The question is why chess should be different.

It certainly seems difficult to prove either side here :). I think I just trigger when someone says something so definitive like "you can't become a grandmaster if you start as an adult".

I'm one who has excelled in a handful of hobbies to pretty high levels while holding down a day job. Started golf at 23 and 4 years later I'm a low-single digit handicap. Started skiing around the same time and I'm working up do doing backflips off jumps, while already being able to do several tricks off jumps, slide rails, and drop moderate sized cliffs.

I'm not trying to brag, and I'm not saying that those are even extraordinary or comparable to anything professional. But I've had people legit tell me that the only chance I have of being a scratch golfer or do a backflip on skis was if I started as a kid. Which is obviously ridiculous to me, and I'll prove them wrong in the next few years.

MY POINT: Take a bunch of adults like me and give them the resources to practice golf or skiing all day every day? You'll eventually get someone who can go pro (which I'm saying is the equivalent of being a grandmaster for this conversation). At what rate would they go pro compared to kids? Who can say. I'd wager it's a lot closer than people in this thread are thinking.

> I'll prove them wrong in the next few years.

We will see :)

But, as I mentioned in my other comment, don't underestimate the physical impact of age on your body. A young body can tolerate and recover from a lot of physical self-inflicted abuse and overtraining. Take a child: starts training skiing at the age of 10, wins a gold medal at the age of 20, body starts to degrade at age 25 (joints, testosterone level,...). Try the same as an adult at the age of 30 or 40 with a body that has been already degrading for one decade. It's good that you have learned several tricks as an adult, but will your body tolerate the literal mistreatment that is necessary to go from "several tricks" or even backflips to "professional level"? A pro is not somebody who can do a complicated trick on a good day. A pro has must be able to reliably perform the trick dozens of times in a competition. This last step from 90% good to 100% perfect is the hard one.

Well if it’s bullshit you should have no trouble providing a counter example. There are tens of thousands of adults learning the rules of chess each and every day. Is there any Grandmaster among them ? I have worked with adults and children learning chess and regardless of how much time they invested the learning curves would invariably look very different.

> Well if it’s bullshit you should have no trouble providing a counter example.

That's logically not true. It's not like there's a huge pool to choose from. There are less than 1800 GMs right now in the entire world.

And it also depends on what we mean by all this. Learning the pieces? Most children learn the rules of the game at some point, I'd imagine. That takes a way too many people.

Actually starting to try? There are a few examples I can find of people being around ~1700 rating when aged 18+ and making it to GM (Jonathan Hawkins, Jacob Aagaard, John Shaw)

Ye Jiangchuan didn't learn the moves until they were 17. Still young, but not crazy young.

> There are tens of thousands of adults learning the rules of chess each and every day.

How many find they have a massive passion for chess, without having a job, a significant other (or pursuit of one), any worries about money/bills/etc, or have children or family to take care of? That, and they can't have found their passion for chess during their childhood.

Probably almost zero people fit that bill. You basically need a lottery winner or trust fund person who doesn't care about having an abnormal life of chess with minimal upside in the small chance they actually reach the GM level.

But those are all not related to the fact that they have an adult brain, which is my point.

There is no counter example because of the things they mentioned.

You're going to have real trouble finding an adult that is sufficiently motivated to become a chess GM, has an enormous amount of free time, willing to dedicate the next 10 years of their life purely to chess, etc.

> If some adult wants to spend 10 years of their life mastering chess, and didn't have to worry about work, life, dating, children, etc, they'd have about the same chance as a child of becoming a Grandmaster eventually

A friend of mine stopped playing chess competitively at the age of 50 because, as he said, he didn't have anymore the necessary physical stamina to learn and practice for hours and hours every day. Age /is/ a factor, even if the external conditions are identical.

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