I see people talking past each other here and I suspect it has to do with the level of achievement one is picturing. Many smart (and talented) people work real

I see people talking past each other here and I suspect it has to do with the level of achievement one is picturing. Many smart (and talented) people work really hard at chess with good methods for many years and don’t become grandmasters. Talent must play a role. On the other hand, probably anyone can become much, much better than the average person on the street. So people saying talent matters, and people saying deliberate practice alone can ensure success, can both be correct for slightly different measures of success. As the article says, the very top levels of any prestigious competitive field have people with both talent and good training methods. Talent can separate people at the very top. That doesn’t mean that becoming very good is out of reach for less talented people.