Uri wrote:I think I'm leaving chess.
The chances that I will become a Grandmaster (2500 FIDE) or even a Master (2300 FIDE) is very very low.
I'm not a good player and chess requires certain talents that I just don't have.
I won't be surprised to find out if the best chess players (like Kasparov, Karpov, Tigran Petrosian, Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky for example) have very very high IQ.
Chess is such a difficult game that it's impossible to become a Master if you don't have a very very good memory.
Chess requires very good memory because you need to be able to memorize many tactical variations and you also need to remember many strategical and static positional principles.
Chess is not just tactics it's also strategy and you need to be good in both if you are to become a Master.
The secret to becoming a top player is starting as early as possible.
Once I was chatting with trainer IM Tibor Karolyi (trainer of the Polgars and Leko) and he told me that if somebody isn't 2500 in their teens, their chance of becoming "world class" is almost zero.
He also told me that to become a GM you MUST start younger than 8 years old - so that chess is your "mother tongue" and deep tactics/calculation comes naturally in adulthood.
Of course there are outliers, but these were his "rules" - it's a shame.
He told me once "You have a natural feel for the harmony of the pieces. If you started at 8 years old (instead of 15) you could have been world class"
It sucks, but it is what it is. A beautiful board game.