Improving is a long struggle, even for Bobby Fischer

Just started reading Endgame by Frank Brady, the last biography of Fischer and its thrown a whole new light on Bobby as a 'prodigy' for me. I've got to the part where he joins the Manhattan Chess Club as a 12 year old and his career is about to take off but at this point he is still losing to relatively weak players in Washington Square Park and not exactly dominating at the Brooklyn Chess Club either.

This is despite having done almost nothing else except study chess since he was 7 years old! I assume that his meteoric rise from this point is down to getting some kind of structured coaching at the Manhattan Club but I don't know how he goes from finishing fifteenth in a no name Washington Square Tourney in 1955 (won by the legendary Harry Farjans ?!?) to winning the US Junior Championship less than a year later and finishing 4th in the US Open.

It looks like its just a myth that he was a natural genius who became one of the greatest players ever 'on his own'. I am quite shocked to discover this actually, I knew he worked incredibly hard at his game but it seems like until the endless hours of studying was structured properly by various mentors he was only making the same progress as any other normal human being. Brady writes very well, I would  heartily recommend reading Endgame if you get the chance (even though I'm not looking forward to reading about the post 1972 stuff).

Continuity check...

I wouldnt trust too much written about Fischer in the last few decades . Some of the people he "offended" are a vindictive bunch and really arent very likely to be honest nor objective .  

As for him not improving very fast ... you are joking right ?!  I mean at age 12 he wasnt even playing 2200 level yet but at 13 he was the US junior champ and at 14 the US Champ and at age 15 the youngest GM in the history of the game at the time .  What more do you want ?! 

I see no issues with continuity, when his argument was that if given the same youth, time, discipline, enjoyment/motivation, and dedication, it (might) be within normal human limits to reach a high skill level, although it's tough to argue how anyone could reach Fischer's prowess without a special talent or predisposition for it.

An alternative reason for his success (other than genius) was that studying the game, and playing the game with others, compensated for Fischer's interpersonal deficits.  What is hard work to others, could be pleasant for Fischer in that regard.  Maybe he was a social recluse since his youth, and maybe his "wilderness years" started since pre-adolescence, but differing only in its manifestations, since adult Fischer needed to be exposed to certain publications and religious scams, before succumbing to his anti-Semetic, and other more controversial delusions with adult themes.  The potential dispositions for these delusions were perhaps always present.  Whatever Fischer was, it certainly wasn't "normal", and so it'll be tough to replicate his conditions to success if you will, and forming any conclusions as to whether or not it was "genius" or "hard work" that led to his success as a chess player will be nothing but confounding.  He is by definition a member of an elite few, situated at the tail end of any curve.

Consider people who were "self taught" with musical instruments.  I've met quite a few, and read of many others.  If you really ask them deeply how they learned, many times, they were socially integrated into learning the instrument (books, friends in bands, software; all forms of external information).  Also, self taught people tend to have spent a lot of their free-time practicing, driven to master the instrument where hobbyists will often lose interest.  "Talent" is useless if it isn't realized through practice. 

Unmotivated talent: "Practicing with a metronome sux!  Don't care about technique, I just wanna play that awesome solo... gimme the tabs!"  His talents alone would probably get him to nail that solo eventually.

Motivated Talented: "I need to master my technique so that I can fully realize on the amp what I want to convey my understanding of music theory as a whole.  Not mastering my timing and picking will just prevent me from playing, and so I'll spend some time with this metronome".

Fischer had to have studied books by others, observed master games, etc, but what differentiates Fischer is perhaps he developed the themes he learned beyond the publications of his time.  I guess that's where you can pinpoint his genius.  His out-of-box style that grew out hard work is undeniable.  I guess what I'm saying is, being a "genius" is not enough.  He had to work hard at realizing his genius.

That wasn't his argument at all.   Your reading comprehension is laughable.  Let me help you with quotes from his post.

1:  "I assume that his meteoric rise from this point is down to getting some kind of structured coaching at the Manhattan Club."

2:  "but I don't know how he goes from finishing fifteenth in a no name Washington Square Tourney. . . to winning the US Junior Championship less than a year later."

3: Therefore it looks like it's a myth that he was a natural genius.

When in actuality conclusion 3 is directly opposed by statements 1 and 2.  What's more is that these statements are made in succession so the error is hard for the reader to miss.

I'm not convinced that one needs to be a special genius to keep getting better at something. Things like pawn structure, piece coordination, certain kinds of tactics, all of these things are learn-able to just about anyone. I have given before the model that two people who work equally well could still do differently, but I think people see that there are differences in people, and conclude that therefore talent is important. I would agree with the first part, but wouldn't agree that this creates a barrier such as -- you will not appreciate isolated pawns ever because your mind can't process it. A lot of things that seem impossible for a human, a human can achieve. It's just that a lot of things seem really hard, but then become easy. Having a lot of patterns in your head is so much more important than intelligence when it comes to activities like chess and music. Indeed, even in music, your intuition, and what you've been inspired by, is probably what helps guide you to melodies that seem to sound good,  and that'll trump a 160 IQ man with no musical experience. His intuition will be too "guessy" when he has no experience to draw back on.

Anyway, just my research-less, intuitive take on it.

You're right lol, in conveying my own thoughts I failed at reading the one line that supposes opinion on his genius being myth.  Call it a brain blunder.

So what if he was helped by structured coaching? If structured coaching was all it took to get to the top, there would be many, many, many, many more playing at his level.

You can't just sleep through it. You have to put your own passion into it; chess understanding doesn't just telepathically enter the head. So you're right, structured coaching isn't all it takes.

The issue is that some think talent and hard work are mutually exclusive, when historically it hasn't been the case.  One can't discount one's talent on the basis of hard work, when such talents may never materialize without practice.  To put it more eloquently, let's just agree with Conflagration's post... "So what if he was helped by structured coaching?"

And some people think talent accounts for some pure value like 400 rating points. I think that amount of points is much lower, and the other things talent accounts for is probably the ease and quickness with which the person learns. But in my opinion, really anyone who puts a lot into chess, and has a good learning attitude and passion, has immense potential, exception being for those starting in adulthood.

Like I said, it's hard for me to imagine that there is actually some major limit to how much a certain human being can calculate relative to other humans. For instance, calculating seven moves in a complicated position is probably something none of us are ever going to do; but to say it's impossible for an "average" person to do it; to say it's physically beyond their brain's capacity, is quite another issue I think. Only in extreme cases, for example mental illness, may that be likely to be the case.

Sure, the ceiling must be somewhere -- maybe it's twelve moves, who knows, but I think that ceiling is much higher than most people think. Because people do a variety of things in their life, indeed, you're not going to see your average joe climbing up to that ceiling -- he will be much too distracted with everything else.

As I have said in many talent threads, the issue is more complex than people think it is. Quite frankly, I think it's rather naive to think we can determine with a lot of confidence what are the precise ingredients of a great chess player -- whether you're on the nature or nurture side. We can speculate, we can try to get some idea or some theory, but understanding our world in general is an extremely hard thing to do. Sometimes correlation appears to be there, and then suddenly it gets refuted.

How many moves you can calculate is almost irrelevant. It's about evaluating the position at the end of the calculation that matters.

A guy who accurately calculates 3 moves, and knows the resulting position would be good for him, will do better than a guy who can calculate 6, and have no idea what the resulting position means.

I agree -- calculation should be backed by evaluation and vice versa. The simplification is only for the sake of argument. I could have substituted evaluation ability, understanding, etc, with the same basic idea.

Of course as it stands, I am most appealed by the logic of the nurture side.

Wafflemaster: Take one more snippet from Vease's comment and add it to your list:
"he joins the Manhattan Chess Club as a 12 year old and his career is about to take off but at this point he is still losing to relatively weak players in Washington Square Park and not exactly dominating at the Brooklyn Chess Club either. This is despite having done almost nothing else except study chess since he was 7 years old!"

Now, without that (in other words, if only 1 and 2 were present in his post), you're right, he doesn't have much of an argument. But how does a genius kid do pretty crappy for such a long time, and then suddenly starts getting good once he gets his coach? He is a genius, remember. Maybe this is more normal for some average kid, but a genius? No way. Geniuses just need chess books and they should be able to become master strength; otherwise, we have a strange definition of genius. I would say he was studying pretty badly for those 5 years.

And of course, I can't say for sure. But just as inconsistencies can be pointed out for nurture, so can for nature, as in here.

I don't care how hard you work-nobody here is going to become as good a chess player as Bobby Fischer. You HAVE to be something special to be as good at it as he is.

That's not to say Bobby didn't work tremendously hard, of course. Fischer, the chess player (not the man), is awesome.

Oh but I do care.

"You HAVE to be something special to be as good at it as he is."

Here is just as valid an argument:

"You DON'T HAVE to be something special to be as good at it as he is."

If we are just assuming things, anything goes.

It's unusual in this debate, but Vease I think was actually using "2" as a case for saying that Fischer needed to be pushed in the right direction (via coaching). Of course, usually statements like "2" are used to say "he must be a genius if he got good that quick."

The nature-nurture issue is sort of a chicken-or-egg debate that should've been restructured a long time ago.  Potential given by nature can only be realized if the environment supports its development.  It's the reason why kids with extraordinary IQ are put into different schools.  It's also the reason why cancer risks can be mimimized (not eliminated) through appropriate dietary and physical measures.  The important part is there is still the process of development, even for geniuses, otherwise why even put them through school?

Consider a smart kid (biology), whom you swore would've done great things in his field of expertise, but never realized his/her potential because this person got into say, a drug habit, or had to pay child support as a teen (environment) for example?  Geniuses are people too, and aren't exempt from the need to develop.

I almost hate to use the word "potential", because it implies a ceiling that's impossible to predict.  That word needs to change as well.  Perhaps it can be better understood as the rate in which one goes beyond the scope of environmental factors, so that we can only deduce that something innate is at play, but that's way more verbose than "potential", so we accept the weakness of this term for practicality.

I suppose losing early on was part of Fischer's development, which makes sense being that this period was in his childhood, so whether or not it can be normal... sure why not?  Perhaps this losing triggered his innate competitiveness, who knows?

Isn't this common sense? I mean, I have a book by Patrick Wolff. He worked tremendously hard at his chess. Waitzkin did. Alekhine did. Heck, Spassky did too. Yet somehow, none of them were ever as good as Bobby Fischer-perhaps nobody was but Kasparov (debateably). So are we assuming that Fischer just worked that much harder than all of them?

I don't buy it.