[Hercules]

lol@meccaNES....

Its like we have the same "problem"...

(Ok OP, maybe you can explain in the light of relativism what "good" and "great" in your headline means...)

I am also a chess player and i can kill nigel short and other gm`s on a good day on the chess server. But i am not good enough to be a pro.
I play piano, won international prices, but i know i will never be a pianist, because i can`t play (from nature) a certain combination of notes (only piano insiders can understand)...
Ok, so i began to play poker a few months ago. I earn a decent living, but I`ll prolly never be world class like aba etc...

So i understand your "problem"...but its all relative.
Lets look at chess: You know prolly GM loek van Wely from the Netherlands. In his country he`s admired, but he looks like a total idiot, every time he plays against kramnik or topalov etc...He also feels like beeing mediocre. Or what about Bent Larsen and Taimanov? Brilliant players, looking like stupid morons and retards, when playing against Bobby.
So IMO its just the perspective you`re looking at it.


I never had a real chess trainer and maybe i could have would have become a good GM (or still will become *lol*)if i would have studied more. But it would be pretty arrogant to say that i would have easily made it. I just did many other things.
And in order to become word class, you have to concentrate on fewer things. But again, even world class is relative (see van Wely)...

But referring to bobby Fischer: I think its not new, but common sense says, that you can reach like 90% with work and enthusiasm, but there`s the 10% called genius.

Stuey Ungar might have been a complete idiot in many things, but he had a [censored] damn talent to play poker. He just had it. He was a genius. And i think you can`t work to become a genius...
Its like you can learn art, but not becoming an artist.


So maybe you and I and many others will find a thing, where they are "world class" at. Some talents stay undiscovered.


ok, but actually i really don`t care about beeing word class at this or that. I have other values and i don`t do things just to become "the best" at it etc. But thats actually a different topic. But nevertheless its an interesting thread.