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.

This resonates with me quite a lot. I played World of Warcraft very obsessively in high school and got extremely good at the game. I remember a quote from a Nat Geo documentary on professional StarCraft players from South Korea: "I'm number 1 in one field because I'm trying my best, and I know if I put all of my effort into another field, I will also excel. So I'm not depressed or frustrated, I would rather be confident". For me, my prior experience has given me a deep-seated confidence that I can become great at anything I put my mind to (barring any genetic prerequisites)!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fair enough.

Sorry to cut you off if you were being sincere. I specifically pushed back on the being 10 thing from the other comment after it rubbed me the wrong way, and then you pursued basically the same line of questioning without acknowledging anything I wrote. I interpreted that as being trolled and reacted accordingly. If I misjudged your intent I apologize.

Don't worry about it! The internet is like the wild west, trust nobody. To be fair, it is a thread on being a child prodigy, so I see why that individual was so adamant about being 10 :3

Yeah, I still think the focus on 10 thing is odd as I explain in the sibling comment. What would be nice to hear from you is some acknowledgement that you understand you pushed a button after I attempted to communicate that this particular button made me uncomfortable. Not ascribing ill intent or asking for an apology, but I'm always looking for allies in my attempt to increase emotional intelligence amongst all these geniuses on HN.

Sorry man, didnt mean to make it weird for you like that. I definitely did not mean for it to be taken that way.

So, part of what set me off was the emphasis on "10 being so young", because it is simply inaccurate. 10 really isn't that young for chess prodigies. Indian GM Praggnanandhaa was an International Master at 10. Google "chess prodigy" and the first line of videos includes one about a 3-year-old prodigy vs Karpov.

In hindsight I could have just called BS on your comment. But when the content of the BS happens to exactly intersect with painful memories from the past (which I specifically alluded to in earlier comment about social isolation, insecurity, etc), and when you don't reply when I ask you to share more about your intentions or background — that's a red flag for my finely tuned troll detector.

Pro tip: if you want to ask deeply personal questions without looking like a troll, all you need to do is give context by sharing a bit with vulnerability from your own experience.

After reading your replies and comments I get it. But I was posting to an HN thread where the subject line was "You don’t want a child prodigy" and your post was also an original post (i.e. not a reply to another comment). So like I mentioned previously I absolutely did not intend for my comment to be taken that way. I also dont see a lot of troll comments on HN but it is the internet and the bar is set at Twitter comments, Youtube comments, Reddit comments and then HN comments so I get it, but I didn't mean it that way, and also don't need a Pro-tip because its just a internet discussion/comment that you started. I apologize for rubbing you the wrong way and we can leave it at a gross miscommunication.