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Former chess prodigy here. I earned NM title at age 10, had my 15m of fame and briefly flirted with the idea of training to be one of the greats, then realized

Former chess prodigy here. I earned NM title at age 10, had my 15m of fame and briefly flirted with the idea of training to be one of the greats, then realized by around age 12 or so that the future wasn’t so great for chess pros. Went to college, did a bunch of startups, still love chess but never regretted my decision. I wholeheartedly agree with this article’s emphasis on developing generalist skills. I do think it’s also really valuable to have the experience of mastering one subject. Gaining mastery forces you to learn discipline and push through psychological blocks, both of which translate to any other domain you wish to pursue. But mastery != prodigy. There are very real downsides to the pressure to develop extreme talent at a young age. It can cause a kid to value achievement over everything else, create false sense of self that ignores real feelings, etc. Eventually this leads directly to the “troubled genius” archetype. We have enough of those already. Tl;dr: no on prodigy, yes on focus/mastery if the passion is there.

ProAm 7y ago
Has much of your experiences as a child transferred to your life as an adult? 10 is super young to be a prodigy, how much such awareness and actualization did you have then of your skill/talent? Did you willingly or knowingly apply your chess skills to life from that point forward? Hope these questions make sense?
- mindgam3 7y ago
  It’s been a double-edged sword. Main benefits: 1. confidence knowing that I was really good at something, even if it is one of the most otherwise useless skills in the world. Whenever I’m down because I feel like I suck at something, I have a data point to remind me that at one point I had some competence. 2. Unexpected, but was really valuable when I raised money for my first startup: VCs like people who can beat them at chess. I think it’s because pitch meetings for them are basically like an endless series of dick size contests. I played the chess prodigy card hard, and it worked. YMMV Downsides: 1. Typical geek social isolation, multiplied by 10x because chess is way more useless than coding, robots, etc. 2. All the usual narcissism/invincibility/insecurity that comes from having people tell you that you’re special when you’re young. Same mindfuck happens when you have all these twenty something tech millionaires. Super unhealthy mindset and required a lot of failure + soul searching + therapy to emerge reasonably intact.
  - ProAm 7y ago
    That is interesting. Did any of the 'chess specific' skills transfer? I know very little about how to play chess well so forgive the naivety of this question , but it seems very math-y, formulaic or a lot of pattern recognition (poor choice of words). Im curious because 10 is just so young, I wonder how much of being a 10 year old sticks with anyone, but have a applicable skill where it's apparent it's a special skill/talent might stick more long term.
    - mindgam3 7y ago
      Chess is mainly about visual pattern recognition + concentration. Noticing details. For example, a detail in this conversation. You keep bringing up how 10 is "just so young". It's almost like you're more interested in the youth aspect than the other stuff. From my perspective the detail about age is the least interesting part of the experience. But maybe you are trying to get at or share something of your own that I am not understanding.
      - bick_nyers 7y ago
        Different from the parent but also, how is the required skills for a chess master at 10 different for a chess master at say, 30? I feel like for the more experienced, it shifts more towards memory-based pattern recognition than logic-based pattern recognition as you are recreating historical game states/strategies. I also know nothing of chess at any real level, so I could be dead wrong.
        mindgam3 7y ago
        No offense, but you don't need any chess understanding to realize from my previous comment that I have zero interest in further discussion about the whole "being 10" thing.
        bick_nyers 7y ago
        Fair enough.
fourseventy 7y ago
e4
- mindgam3 7y ago
  c5, clearly

ProAm 7y ago

Has much of your experiences as a child transferred to your life as an adult? 10 is super young to be a prodigy, how much such awareness and actualization did you have then of your skill/talent? Did you willingly or knowingly apply your chess skills to life from that point forward? Hope these questions make sense?

mindgam3 7y ago
It’s been a double-edged sword. Main benefits: 1. confidence knowing that I was really good at something, even if it is one of the most otherwise useless skills in the world. Whenever I’m down because I feel like I suck at something, I have a data point to remind me that at one point I had some competence. 2. Unexpected, but was really valuable when I raised money for my first startup: VCs like people who can beat them at chess. I think it’s because pitch meetings for them are basically like an endless series of dick size contests. I played the chess prodigy card hard, and it worked. YMMV Downsides: 1. Typical geek social isolation, multiplied by 10x because chess is way more useless than coding, robots, etc. 2. All the usual narcissism/invincibility/insecurity that comes from having people tell you that you’re special when you’re young. Same mindfuck happens when you have all these twenty something tech millionaires. Super unhealthy mindset and required a lot of failure + soul searching + therapy to emerge reasonably intact.
- ProAm 7y ago
  That is interesting. Did any of the 'chess specific' skills transfer? I know very little about how to play chess well so forgive the naivety of this question , but it seems very math-y, formulaic or a lot of pattern recognition (poor choice of words). Im curious because 10 is just so young, I wonder how much of being a 10 year old sticks with anyone, but have a applicable skill where it's apparent it's a special skill/talent might stick more long term.
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    Chess is mainly about visual pattern recognition + concentration. Noticing details. For example, a detail in this conversation. You keep bringing up how 10 is "just so young". It's almost like you're more interested in the youth aspect than the other stuff. From my perspective the detail about age is the least interesting part of the experience. But maybe you are trying to get at or share something of your own that I am not understanding.
    - bick_nyers 7y ago
      Different from the parent but also, how is the required skills for a chess master at 10 different for a chess master at say, 30? I feel like for the more experienced, it shifts more towards memory-based pattern recognition than logic-based pattern recognition as you are recreating historical game states/strategies. I also know nothing of chess at any real level, so I could be dead wrong.
      - mindgam3 7y ago
        No offense, but you don't need any chess understanding to realize from my previous comment that I have zero interest in further discussion about the whole "being 10" thing.
        bick_nyers 7y ago
        Fair enough.

fourseventy 7y ago

mindgam3 7y ago
c5, clearly