[blueodum]

I was considering a larger number - say the top 70 or 100.

It the same thing as when parents push their kids into sports - tennis being the prime example. Nearly all the top players started when they were young, but of course only the best survive to make real money in the sport.

Also, Waitzkin was nothing special, except that he was American and somebody wrote a book about him. At the same time there were probably 50 kids in Central and Eastern Europe his age that were ranked higher.

When I speak of chess prodigies, I mean the ones who achieve a rating of 2600+ while still under 18. Nearly all of them achieve some level of success and usually stay with chess (because they have usually cut off all other avenues of development in order to become great chess players). Gata Kamsky was the last real prodigy to quit poker at a young age altogether (to pursue a medical degree). He's since returned to chess.