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Why do people become strong chess players?

Some people become great writers, tennis players, painters, philosophers or high-class prostitutes… some nerds become chess grandmasters.
Some people just like chess. That's a nice workout for the brain. It's like sudoku, crosswords, or other puzzles.

@Neverness, becoming the best on anything takes lots of effort.
Those are nice answers. I can draw a conclusion to make avarage of all answers - they do it because they like it and they want to be really good at what they like and keep doing it for rest of the life, because when one does what he likes - his life is a lot of fun. Yeah and its healthy for the brain and sometimes body as well.
Scottish GM John Shaw is about the only person to achieve what was described in the first post, no? You could perhaps write to him.
Hello,

as in most things in life human beings have a pre-existed urge to explore as much as possible all things that gain their attention.

This de-facto urge to eplore a specific domain gurantees a better understanding of its secrets which results in good feelings.

But I would say also that apart from this natural human behavior in most societes if you want to be professional in a domain you have to spend a lot of time in order to gain knowledge and experience.

The domain of chess is full of secrets and so it requires considerable time to spend by a human mind in order to undertstand it.

j.

They just love playing.

It's an artistic endeavour, like other people love playing music, drawing or painting.

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