i'm too stupid to learn chess?

This is basically just a rant but the title pretty much sums it up. I'm 15 and just decided out of the blues that I wanted to learn chess and be as good of a player as is possible for me. I consider myself to be pretty dumb, a lot of my peers would agree. I just play against the computer on the easiest level due to me being too bad to play with a real human being. Even if I did I'm pretty sure I'll just receive hurtful comments about my stupidity. The advice I've been getting makes sense but I don't know how to start or what exactly I'm doing. I really want to learn how to calculate the best moves but I feel it's useless trying because I'll never learn. Please help.

Look, no one, EVER, is too dumb to play chess. If it's okay, I'll send you a friend request, and maybe we can play some games, since I'm not really that high rated either. Despite all the hurtful comments and that sort of stuff, don't listen to that. It's all in your head, and it won't do anything but distract you. As a learning student myself, I can tell you, it is a very difficult journey, no matter what the rating is. Anyway, maybe we can message each other, and maybe play a few games.

Quite frankly, there is only one way to find out. Play and study for a couple years. 

I've seen professorial, glasses, truly intellectual type people sit down at a board, looking like GMs in suits and everything, and could barely move the pieces and played like morons, losing in 12 moves. I've seen drug addled dirty pants, dirtbag looking people who you'd just think "Oh, he's not that bright" who could wreck everyone in chess they came across.

All the valedictorians I've ever played at chess sucked at it. I killed them easily. Grades and SAT scores can't do damn thing for you on the chess board. It's almost a pure meritocracy. The amount of work you put into it is usually the level of skill you can attain. Sure, Von Neumann or Hawking would have probably had an advantage over most people if they pursued chess, and someone who can't put their shoes on probably can't become great, but outside of outliers, if you play, study, enjoy, and work at it, you can wreck most people. 

15 is older than ideal to learn chess, and right at the margin, I think, of when you can learn and still get good, but I think it's right before it becomes too late.  No, you wont' become a Grandmaster, but you can probably hit 2000, and that's good enough to beat any regular person you'll ever play and most people who say "yeah I play in tournaments." 

Hard work, patience and skill(intelligence) are required to do well in chess.

I have worked hard and I have patience. I lack the intelligence.

No matter how many games I tried, I have not managed to do well. I make the same mistake again and again. With great difficulty I put lichess and chess in my hosts file to prevent myself from wasting a minute more than I need to. I enjoy the game, but being a pathological loser is not fun.

I live better. With my slight intellectual disability, I do fine in other activities in life. Just that chess is not for me.

In 200 hours you can reach 2000 strength with no special talent.
"Having spent 200 hours on the above, the young player, even if he possesses no special talent for chess, is likely to be among those two or three thousand chessplayers [who play on a par with a master]. There are, however, a quarter of a million chessplayers who annually spend no fewer than 200 hours on chess without making any progress. " - Lasker
The essence is to play, lose, analyse
Play 15|10 time control, start at 40 seconds per move and finish at 10 seconds per move.
Always check your intended move is no blunder before you play it.
A good book is "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" - Fischer

Oh just stop. This is just not true and makes anyone who doesn't reach 2000 strength feel like an idiot. I've been playing chess since I was 7, somewhat seriously for many of those years, had a coach, study it, and have never come close to 2000. My brain just isn't built for calculation and visualization. Whoever first said that 2000 should be simple for anyone who puts their mind to it clearly is just yanking numbers out of an orifice and not basing it on any science. What crap.

#6
"who doesn't reach 2000 strength feel like an idiot" No, it is about doing the right thing. Most do it wrong.
"My brain just isn't built for calculation and visualization." That is a lame excuse.

I’ve seen this quoted many times and simply scoffed it away. But think about it, only 200 hours? 3k out of 250k is about 1.2%, so i suppose there may be some grain of truth hidden here as the 1.2% may possess uncommon skills that separate the wheat from the chaff so-to-speak. However, play eight hours a day, five days a week and in only five weeks you too can be be on par with the masters? I have to disagree with the quote. 

You do realize that your statement is unfalsifiable, right? Anyone can get to 2000, you didn't get to 2000, therefore you are doing it wrong. You may be good at chess, but you're not much for the scientific method.

I have scored off the charts on tests that measure verbal and communication skills, but below average on tests that measure perceptual reasoning (complex math and puzzle solving), and that's with the best schooling. I've been trying to visualize a board since I was 12 and done every exercise in order to do it but have never gotten anything more than a blank screen. When I try to calculate beyond just a few moves, my brain shuts down. How dare you snottily say that I'm doing it wrong when you know nothing about me and what I've gone through in order to get decent at chess. You can just take that motivational poster "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" crap and put it somewhere dark and dirty.

Lasker was world champion for 27 years and also a PhD in mathematics and a chess trainer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker 
Why do you chose to disagree with him and scoff away?

I'm fairly stupid, but I've become a decent player who enjoys the game

Riiiiighhtttt... a PhD in mathematics says anyone can do it. Very nice. I'm sure he struggled with his calculation and visualization skills. I'd much rather trust a PhD in development psychology who has a modern understanding of brain physiology instead of some dude who was born in Tsar Alexander II's Russian Empire.

#12
Also educational psychologist Lazlo Polgar said he could make any kid excel at either chess, mathematics or classical music.
Any kid, no special talent required.
He demonstrated this with his 3 daughters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r 

cue the rocky training music:

PUZZLES, LESSONS & DAILY GAMES!!!      🥊

remember this motto:  "it's just a question of MIND over matter;  if YOU don't mind, IT doesn't matter!!!"

trust me in 20 years nobody will care about any of that stuff.  also, "nobody can MAKE you feel inferior without your CONSENT!!!"               🙂

 chess will improve your thought process if you stick with it... you have 80 million friends to choose from on here & it looks like you could use some new ones.

kids can be mean because school is STRESSFUL... they're blowing off steam--don't take it personally!!!

 

Let me see, Lazlo had three daughters, he was a chess teacher, he started them before they could talk, and he passed along his genius genes. That's not how science works. Science works by taking a random sample of indviduals and giving them the same treatment. I'd be much more impressed if he took a child with attention deficit disorder and turned them into a chess genius.

I started at 7, had a couple of different chess teachers, tried to do everything they said I should, studied all the time, and peaked at just under 1500 USCF. I studied more like thousands of hours instead of 300, tried really hard, and sucked. And that was back when I was still taking my Ritalin.

I play chess now because it challenges me and it never gets boring not because I'll ever be good. I'm not even going to pretend to try to get to 2000 because I never will, regardless of what you or Lasker or Polgar says.

#16
Polgar wanted to adopt a black infant from the Third World and train it to a chess prodigy.
The adoption did not go through.
"a couple of different chess teachers" maybe none of them good
"tried to do everything they said I should" Tried to do or did? If you did, then what they said was wrong.
"studied all the time" You must balance play and study. Like you cannot learn to swim or drive a car from a book, you cannot learn chess by study alone. You probably studied the wrong subjects.
"All games between players rated <1800 are decided on pieces being blundered on almost every move." - Carlsen
Just checking your intended move is no blunder before you play it is enough to get 1500.

Play as a guest account for awhile until you get the hang of things. You can also disable chat

I think there are 3 factors to becoming a strong (whatever that means) chess player:

1. Starting young

2. Studying hard and smart

3. Talent

By the way, this 200h theory sounds absurd to me... Maybe if you are a genius this will do. But I think 10.000 h is the number that is usually quoted...

... more motivational poster stuff I've heard a zillion times before. Dyslexia affects about 20% of the population. ADHD affects about 5%. People who have grown to adulthood with poor schooling represents a huge proportion of the population.

I have ADHD and dyslexia. In slow chess I have a checklist of things that I triple check and can do reasonably well. I know all about the Polgars and it's because of Judit that I started playing the King's Gambit. I figured if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. My best win ever was in a Kieseritzky line of the King's Gambit against a 1700 kid. The only way I managed this is by knowing that he played the g5 main line and memorizing every possible response I could think of and setting a couple of traps. He walked into one of them and resigned in 23 moves. The only way I *ever* won games was by out-preparing my opponents because they would always thrash me if I got out of prep and got into some closed positional struggle with too many pieces on the board to keep track of.

In fast chess I lose track of the pieces and blunder things. No amount of ANYTHING that I can ever do will make me be able to play at 1500 in blitz. Nothing. I just can't keep everything straight in my mind and I *will* blunder. You can count on it.

Again, stop giving me your motivational poster advice. I just roll my eyes and say "duh." I've heard it all before.