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A comment on Becoming a Chess Grandmaster. Parent comment

Re:Becoming a Chess Grandmaster by CydeWeys on Monday July 26, 2021 @03:43PM (#27964396)
It depends why you're doing it. I have no illusions that I'll ever be anything close to an Olympic level skier, but I still find skiing fun, thus I do it. Similarly, I find Chess fun enough to the point that I will occasionally play a quick recreational game in situations where a Chess board is present.

But if improving oneself involves doing lots of practice that itself isn't fun, then that's exceeded the limit of what I'm willing to do recreationally. I'm only putting that level of effort in something I don't find fun into one thing in my life: work.

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Re:Becoming a Chess Grandmaster by yupper32 on Monday July 26, 2021 @04:11PM (#27964768)
Sure, if you find the required work unfun, then so be it. I get it.

I was more talking about the attitude of the person I responded to. They saw someone world class perform and then "stopped trying for any of the harder tricks." I don't understand that attitude. It's basically "I don't think I'll ever be world class, so why try anything at all?"

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Re:Becoming a Chess Grandmaster by at_a_remove on Monday July 26, 2021 @04:35PM (#27965099)
Ah, you have not understood. It wasn't even "world class" I was trying for. I never set my sights that high, on anything, as I believe that statistically one is likely not to be rewarded. I just realized how vast the gap is between where I was and even "middling decent" and, based on my current status and effort expended, realized that I had not been spending my time wisely.

Sometimes, you can try hard and just be not very good at something, and it was witnessing his performance which made me understand that "middling decent" might need to be a lifetime pre-occupation to attain, for me.

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