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In my experience, there seem to be three factors which are more important than intelligence in determining how far a student will likely go in the chess world:
Is doing the work fun? – The students who thinks that reading chess books, doing chess puzzles, or watching chess instructional videos is great fun and wants to do them as much as possible will not only improve more than those who do not, but also will continue to improve a lot longer.
Learns from Their Losses – The student who comes to me with a game score of his/her losses and asks me what they did wrong will do much better than one who either 1) hates losing, takes it personally and doesn’t want to discuss their losses or 2) one who doesn’t care about losing and doesn’t mind losing the same way over and over again.
Chess is a High Priority Hobby – For all my students, chess is just a hobby. It takes a back place to schoolwork, work, religion, etc. However, where chess stands among the student’s other hobbies is a crucial factor. I would never tell a student or parent where to prioritize chess; however, I would be remiss to not reveal that all of my students who advanced quickly placed chess as a high priority hobby, if not #1.
For most of
my students and their parents, chess is not the #1 hobby. It takes
a back place to music lessons, soccer, Little League, or some other preferred
activity. But the higher the student places chess, the more time they
make for it and the better they do. From my point of view, chess
is at least as good for the brain as music, and most students will not become
either professional musicians or chessplayers, so music and chess should be
somewhat equal. However, in the American culture, music is regarded
higher so most parents will disagree with me!
Recently, one
of my younger students won $1,000 at the World Open. While he was
playing, his parents spent some time out in the lobby talking with many of the
other parents of young World Open participants. I would like to
paraphrase for you what the mother told me:
“Talking with the other parents of other young chessplayers here has really opened my eyes about chess. I now realize that it would be impossible for my son to compete at a serious level unless he does what the other kids here do and make chess his #1 hobby. I can see now that chess is like anything else – karate, baseball, basketball: if you don’t play tournaments regularly, take lessons, and work at it, you will be at a big disadvantage to those who do.”
Well, this parent had a son who really loves chess and wanted to make it his #1 hobby. That love is important; no hobby can be #1 without a lot of love for the work involved.
The main criteria for taking chess lessons is that you like chess, not that it is your #1 hobby. Let me repeat that I don’t recommend making chess your #1 hobby if it doesn’t make sense – and I would lose a lot of business if I only took students who had chess as #1. I have many strong hobbies, such as science fiction, baseball statistics, comic collection, numismatics, backgammon, and writing. How does chess fit into your hobby hierarchy?
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