talent, talent, talent

practise is needed, but talent determines the time you have to practice. wise words by prozac.

much smarter than fatality and his "prac prac prac!"

fuckin americano nerd :|

open up cpma
create a practice on whatever map with x many bots
type into console "/map q3dm17"
use LG only for an hour.
???
Profit

I believe it's a combination of both - some people are inherently more in tune with performing some tasks than others, thus being able to attain a higher performance level peak, however they still need practice to reach that peak.

So no, only an extremely small percentage of people have the innate capacity to be as good as Toxjq or Cypher, and a smaller percentage still will ever have the drive and dedication to shape their talent into practical prowess.

In fact, i personally think that people with mental stamina needed to commit themselves fully to a task are even rarer than people with true talent, that's why you'll see more gifted people wasting their talent away than hard working craftsmen dedicated to improving themselves (in football terminology, for example Giggs vs Balotelli).

practice practice practice (c) Fatal1ty

Basically ua summed it up with that prozac quote IMO.

talent = the sum of practice you had in the past (in a variety of areas that all contribute to the task)

basically we dont know shit

its not even clear what talent is .. is it in your genes? is it something that you get during childhood? is it something that you can aquire with dedication? why can you be talented in something and totally fail in another? can you loose it?

its a major discussion in psychology wether you are born with a set of tools or you learn them by crucial experiences. and to make that even more complicated - it has been found possible, that we controll if we are affected by our genes or not by exerminating people with a predisposition for fatness. some of em managed to never activate that genes by a strict lifestyle and are freed from it, even tho they should have the urge to eat like 30% more than they actually do.

so the answer is:
training helps and is important either way. the earlier you begin to train the faster youll become better - because of your brain becoming older. a good lifestyle (regulary sleep, good food etc) increase the potential of your brain.

and thats it. everything else is pure madeup opinions because of "sounds logical" but aint proofed and therefor maybe bull* we cant answer something thats a major question between professionals still :P

good post. Everyone who wants a deeper look on this should read about neuroplasticity.

and thats it. everything else is pure madeup opinions because of "sounds logical" but aint proofed and therefor maybe bull* we cant answer something thats a major question between professionals still :P

no matter the subject, that usually never stops the 99% who dont not have a clue to tell everyone their opinion and think that they got it figured out ;)

no matter the subject, that usually never stops the 99% who dont not have a clue to tell everyone their opinion and think that they got it figured out ;)

see http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2070303#pid2070303

Not saying you're wrong, though. ;)

;) i was aware of the irony
its not like i am always part of the 1%, but hey, at least i realize that what i think/write is not the ultimate truth

Yep, but still you didn't express in your post that you are aware that this is rather preliminary knowledge.

I think talent is just a case of someone having an initial perspective on an activity that is accurate and successful.

Persons with higher intelligence have a tendency to hit on successful initial perspectives more often.

Others will have to put in more time to clear up misconceptions.

Even so, it is extremely unlikely that a person will achieve anything without hard work and dedication.

Perfect practice makes perfect, not just practice.

Nature vs. nurture arguments are mostly filled with horseshit. I despise every one of them, as they all propagate absolutism. Some of it is nature, some is nurture. If you don't have the nature, no amount of nurture will lead to greatness. If you don't have the nurture, no amount of nature will be anything.

Many things are instinctual (nature), but the dumb humans among us subscribe to Locke, thinking we all begin with a blank-slate. Such a moronic viewpoint perpetuates their treatment of creatures, even when those creatures grow into adulthood. It is embarrassing to witness, and could make one think we were still living in the middle-ages.

anyone who plays 8 hours a day for a couple years is going to be very good, as long as they use that 8 hours to train solely on getting better and improving their game, not just bullshitting on pubs. that being said, i think there is some innate 'talent' needed to be on toxjq or cypher level, but personally i think anyone who trains hard every day for an extended period of time would be able to compete with them after a while

Do you even know how much Cypher was practicing back in times to become average on belarusian duel scene?

Not really)) was he training a lot?

Yes, basically spent few years in gaming clubs, was traveling in Moscow to play pros, literally was obsessed. It payed off tho as we all can see.

no, who is sypher?

Talent vs Practice. Age old debate

Someone who hasn't got the 'God given talent' can get to the level of someone who has been 'born with' the ability to do something, if they put in a fuck ton of hours.

I always look at it in terms of musical ability. Do you think Shawn Lane practiced hours and hours a day or was simply born with incredible musical skill? The guy is a virtuoso on guitar, piano and an incredible song writter. He may practice a lot, but there's no denying he got a 'head start' with his starting ability

Did Mozart practice hours and hours? Watch the film Amedeus. Okay so it's not factual, but it's rather close to his personality (scat jokes, pissing around etc). Salieri worked hard practicing and praying to God he would be blessed with such gifts, and Mozart saunters in, plays incredible pieces of music effortlessly and messes around.

Pick your favorite footballer. Is it natural build or pure practice that has made them as good as they are? Maybe the best were just 'built' best according to the skills involved in football and practiced to enhance it.


Personally, I believe in structured practice to get better, but to me, talent means how much practice is needed to get better. How fast you can grasp a concept. Perhaps someone like Shawn Lane only needed 5 minutes on the guitar to understand the concept of alternate picking, whereas other guitarists slave away for years trying to perfect the technique.



TL;DR - practice and you'll get better, whoever you are

Or buy 30 different mice and mousepads to achieve the same goal, innit?

lol you're judging Mozart's personality from the film Amadeus? Mozart was no doubt retardedly talented but I'm also sure he put in lots and lots of work to get to his level.

Okay so it's not factual, but it's rather close to his personality

Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty

Dunno about you, but aged 5, I was content rolling down hills

nah. mozart was brought up by musicians, who also were very strict. so he was surrounded by classical music from day one, also had the pressure to create music as well. look at modern sports wunderkids, they are breed like that. the only thing that can't be recreated is his creative ability. on the other hand it is art, and I FUCKING HATE mozart, alsmost all of his work. what I mean is his talent is totally subjective, whereas sports isn't, and you can create "talent" like that.

Yes, but that's what I'm saying in the post. Talent for me means how fast you grasp a concept. When you're completely surrounded by music and curious about it, of course you're going to end up being 'talented'

I think that until you get to the very top practice is all that matters. Then 'talent' separates the the very elite.

You need both to get to the top.

If you have talent you will have a easier time learning the stuff needed to be good but you only can learn it trough heavy practice (Immense Talent + Practice, Practice, Practice = Jonathan Fatal1ty Wendel).

I don't know hey, I think it comes down to practice, especially good practice.

My aims really great, and it appears that it's just happened over time, my aim used to be shockingly bad, then it just started getting good a few years ago.

I'm using that as an analogy, that some of these guys were average, average, average and then something happened which allowed them to stop worrying about aim, or timing, and concentrate on the good things. I highly doubt that any of them just started the game and were exceptionally good a few months later.

There is also another thing that should get taken into account. This is how the current level of play indicates how fast people improve.

Back in 2001/2002, 30 lg and 40 rail was what you needed to get to be competitive, now it's more like 40 lg and 60 rail. When people started in 2001, they were aiming for that level, and then when they got to that level they stopped concentrating on that area and start concentrating on other things.

The same could be said of timing. Timing 1 item used to be ok, until other people started timing 2, then people started timing 3.

If you take a newer player like rapha or strenx, they could see what the top level now is, and aim for that, rather than improving incrementally. They also build up less bad habits. I took like 6 months to strafe jump properly and be able to do bridge to rail, how long does it take a new player now? A week?

talent is practice.

u will never aim like toxic, not matter how much you practice... hand - eye coordination is something u have, or not...

however its freakin quake we're talking about, a game where aim isnt the most important factor [watch: rapha] ... and funny thing - the most important factors at quake eg timing and decision making are matter of practice and long hours of demo watching :-)


PLUS: do not mistake playing with pracing... many of guys play like 6 hours per day and they dont improve as much as guy whos pracing for one hour every day... playing=/=pracin!

There is another factor - enjoyment.
Some people get more enjoyment from not playing the game quite as properly as they should, they still want to win, but are unwilling to put in the extra effort to keep improving. For them, it would ruin their enjoyment of the game.

If you don't enjoy doing what it takes to become pro, then you will always be worse off than someone who does.

For me, I enjoy the combat in the game far more than the item timing. So I have never really been much good at duel, even though I know what I have to do to improve.

You can see that toxjq and rapha have good personalities for quake. Very calm and collected, think more with their logical side of their brain rather than the emotional side. They're like robots! And of course, it helps a lot if you're bought up or born that way.

A bit of both, obviously, but I think more than either of those things, passion is what is needed.
Take Rapha for example. Obviously one of the best players in the world. Now, I know it's been a few years, but wasn't he utterly demolished by Chance at Quakecon in Q3 awhile back? Practice obviously played a huge role since then, as a good bit of time has passed, but something clicked when he re-evaluated his game and began the whole "5 steps ahead" approach.

I don't really believe in talent much. Some people are smarter or have slightly better hand-eye coordination, but I think that people just happen to plateu at different points in their development.

yeah talent as a "hidden undiscovered skill set" is bs.

I only see talent as some kind of physical or mental edge above the rest.

Talent is bullshit. Perfect practice makes perfect.

But hey if you believe in talent, keep telling yourself that you're not talented enough to excel at something you love doing. It's your life, your loss.

I think I posted this quote from Garry Kasparov in a similar thread some years ago. Hard work is talent and one more important than natural talent. At some point the lazy talented player will stop improving and the less talented hard worker will succeed him. Having both is what separates the good from the best. There are no world-class players in any proper sport that have not worked relentlessly to nurture their talent. I also agree with that guy above, in regards to Quake, playing does not necessarily equal practice. Playing a lot gets you so-far but eventually people hit that plateau and from that point they're just following routine, without the proper mindset, methods or interest for improving.

In your opinion, can a less talented individual still succeed in chess, if he or she has the utmost passion in the game and a detailed plan to get there?


[.. ] working hard is also part of an individual’s talent. Sometimes, I find it hard to understand what it means when someone said, “Oh he or she is talented, but lazy”. To me, this simply showed that there is a big gap in the person’s character. Working hard is a form of talent – it is in fact, an important element of the person’s talent. By not working hard, how can your natural gift become real diamonds? So, that is why I think working hard is sometimes just as important to having a talent. Of course, I must admit that it will be difficult for someone without a huge talent to be a world champion. But, you can still go very high up and achieve a lot, even with limited talent. Of course, when I said limited talent, please do not get confused with the term. People can get really confused as talent can mean anything, you know. Being number one in your school also requires some talent. Being number one in the world also requires talent, but these are very different forms of talent. That said, I am a great proponent of the concept that the ability to work hard is a unique talent and if you can work hard and if you can spend the long hours and if you can concentrate on the goal and if you can make detailed plans, you could still be ahead of your competitor even if you are less talented or less gifted in chess or anything else simply because he or she is not as good in organizing their work.

Given there is such a thing as 'talent'. And at the moment, it (afaik) doesn't seem that way.

See, e.g.: http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonD...cePR93.pdf