Practice – lots of it – makes the pro
Saturday, January 1, 2011 02:49 AM
The Columbus Dispatch
The “10,000-hour rule” has become part of contemporary discourse since its treatment in the best-selling book The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
The rule, based on a study by Anders Ericsson, says that violinists, composers, artists and even criminals achieved success after an average of 10,000 hours of acquiring and practicing their professional skills.
In 1926, chess legend Emanuel Lasker made a similar claim:
“Take any boy, any boy fairly intelligent and fairly healthy, and you can make a chess prodigy of him – or any other sort of prodigy.
“Such accomplishment is a function of mental growth, which is … greatest in years of youth.”
Did this anti-elitist notion apply as well to Lasker – a gifted mathematician and philosopher who reigned as world champion for 26 years?
It’s inspiring to remember that, like his friend Albert Einstein, Lasker’s efforts at understanding and mastery focused on discovering essential truths.
As Lasker said:
“On the chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.”
Source: http://www.dispatch.com
I practice but I’m still a dummy.
10,000 hours spent on a medical education to cure cancer is worth more than 10,000 wasted on a board game.
u’re gonna be a “dummy” for a long time… but when it starts clicking for u, its gonna feel like a drug… just like math, chess, and so many other things are… once u master it, all the feelings of ineptitude wouldve been worth it my friend…
its not just 10000 hours of ‘practice’. You have to practice on problems that are just out of reach. I could practice 1 move checkmates for a couple thousand hours and I doubt it would do much.