# The Guy Who Raised Three Daughters to Chess

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guy-who-raised-three-daughters-to-chess/517954>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 17, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guy-who-raised-three-daughters-to-chess/517954 "2009-11-17T21:44:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guy-who-raised-three-daughters-to-chess/517954/21 "2009-11-30T18:42:33Z")

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> [@Howlleo](#):
>
> I do believe there’s more to it than practice. A personal motivation is obviously necessary, but that can be provided by nurture as well. And yes, there’s a genetic something or another… but is it talent? Or is it IQ? Surely someone with a high IQ and good critical thinking skills can catch on faster and learn better than someone with a lower IQ. Is there any way to isolate “talent” so you can point to it and say “That’s the reason!”
> 
> Tiger Woods was also trained from toddlerhood, and I don’t think either he or his father consider him “talented.”

Given the tens of thousands of individuals who have received as good or better training for golf or sports or music or any one of a number of other pursuits, and who did not become Tiger Woods equivalents in those pursuits, it becomes kind of obvious that “talent” (i.e. innate, genetically-determined, maximum potential) is not a product of environment layered upon an equally blank slate. It’s environment layered upon genes. There is a reason some individuals, and some groups, rise to the top of their particular fields, and it’s way more than nurture. It’s nature.

In that sense, Tiger Woods is, in fact, “talented.”

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**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-guy-who-raised-three-daughters-to-chess/517954/22 "2009-11-30T18:45:41Z")

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> [@The\_Bith\_Shuffle](#):
>
> Chess talent undeniably overlaps with intelligence. Go to some high school chess tournaments and you’ll meet tons of obviously bright kids.

That is almost certainly to a large extent a culturally induced overlap (in our culture, the kinds of influences which may lead one to be interested in chess overlap with the kinds of influences which may lead one to be interested in academic subjects, to be pushed to excel in such endeavors, etc.)

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