10000 hour rule
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GM Noël Studer: [00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to Next Level Chess podcast. If you're new here, I am Grandma Sno Stu, and on this podcast I am giving simple, manageable, holistic chess improvement advice, mostly targeting adult improvers. So if you're struggling with your chest improvement, if you don't really know what to train.

If you need a simple system that helps you consistently improve your game, having more fun, feeling less anxiety during games, then this is the right podcast for you. And today I have an episode on something you might have heard of, it's called The 10,000 Hour Rule. Something uh, made Public by Malcolm Gladwell, that's an author [00:01:00] who published this kind of theory in his book, outliers.

The general idea is when you study a difficult topic for 10,000 hours, then you can become a master or, uh, phrased differently if you want to become a master in a difficult, uh, topic or a difficult sport like. Chess, then you need 10,000 hours of practice to get there. And I wanna talk about this rule, but not so much about the specific rule, why 10,000 hours or if I think it's correct or not, but mostly about a word that often gets forgotten combined with that rule.

Why we can see so many people, especially now adult improvers that get into the game, maybe don't spend 10,000 hours, but spend a considerate amount of time, hundreds, maybe thousands of hours, but they don't really see improvement. So if that's you, that's definitely an episode for you. Why is that? So, why can you spend a lot of time.

In chess and you think, well, I'm spending that much time, [00:02:00] but I don't see any results. Let's talk about this right now. So, okay, let's start with the rule itself. As I mentioned, the basic concept is. 10,000 hours of study and then you get mastery in a difficult subject. And actually, I believe that in his book, um, this book from Malcolm Gladwell, um, in the book Outliers, he even mentions chess as the main, maybe subject or one of the possible things.

And I just share a quote. I like a lot. That definitely applies. I can stand behind, which is quote, practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's a thing you do that makes you good. End of quote. So this is very important. The basic statement is you need to put in time, you need to practice in order to get better at something.

And there there's nobody that just, you know, gets on this world and is a genius at [00:03:00] whatever. But there are people that learn quicker. But everybody needs practice to get better at chess. Right? Even the grandmas at 11 years old, those that have the record, it sounds like, oh my God, that's incredible. Right?

But if we are thinking about it. Thinking about this rule, most of these grand masters learned a game somewhere between three and five years of age, right? So let's take it conservative, let's say five years, and then they have six years left until they are 11, and you're thinking about the time they spend.

Uh, playing chess and thinking about chess and practicing chess. Actually, it might be that they get close to these 10,000 hours. Even the kids that have the records, right? 'cause six years, let's say they spend five hours every day on chess on an average. And that's very feasible for these kids because most of them, they take them out of school immediately.

They, they weren't even in school yet. Uh, they travel around the world, uh, with those kids. [00:04:00] They play. Like 150 to 200 over the board games a year, which is a crazy amount. And um, so yeah, if we take these five hours of an estimate for six years, that is somewhere around, if my math is correct, 9,000 hours, right?

So we are getting there. We are really getting there even for the younger grandmothers. So I think the rule has, um, some merit. It's as with all of these kind of round numbers of $10,000, obviously this is not scientifically proven or for everybody, it's exactly the same, but I think it's a nice rule of thumb if you want to get very good at something, we could say that true mastery and chess is really the grand master title, right?

Uh, like the black belt in, um, some martial arts. Um. So when you, you talk about this, this 10,000 hour rule is not that bad, but it's very important to note that there is an important word that often gets forgotten and [00:05:00] often is not quoted. And in my opinion, this is the main reason. Why we can see people spend a lot of time.

So if you are listening to, to this and you're saying, well, I spent a lot of time, I don't wanna become a grandmaster, right? You might not have this illusion, but like, I just wanna get a little bit better. I wanna see my rating right, raise a little bit, but I spend so much time, but I don't see meaningful results.

What's going on? I think that there is one word that messes in your. Study in your practice. So the whole idea of these 10,000 hours is based on deliberate practice. Okay? So many people just hear 10,000 hours of something. You get very good at it, you get mastery, boom. They start going, they start doing it.

Um, but they do it the wrong way. They forget about the deliberate practice. And this is really the key word, because if you're spending 10,000 hours. Mindlessly on stuff or [00:06:00] on the wrong things or on material that is absolutely not meant for you. Then you might not see any progress even in these 10,000 hours.

Okay, so in my own words, if I were to tell that in my my own words, it would be, that's what I mentioned also in simplified chess improvement system. My, my course, my holistic chess course. I break it down with the three do's. It's do what matters, do it well and do it consistently. The consistently would then help you get actually to.

These $10,000 or anywhere close to it, right? Even a thousand dollars spent on chess is a lot of time, right? That's a full year, three hours a day, so much time. Um, but when you do what matters, you do it well and you do it. Consistently my three dues of chest improvement. Then you make sure that you have deliberate practice and through that you will see improvement.

And really I believe that the main problem is in our fast [00:07:00] paced world of constant distractions. It's very difficult to see someone that is spending a lot of time on chess, so they have the consistency. They also do it well, and they do what matters. And I see that so much. When, um, I get new students into the course, one of the very first things, uh, students do is to assess with my help is to assess their current study, right?

How well, how good is their current study? And the most common replay is like. Oh my God. I didn't realize how much time I wasted because I spend so much time, but I'm not doing what matters and I'm not doing it well, and that's exactly what I try to help you do. Okay. So you might find people that have like a a thousand plus days off chess ball streaks.

Right? Wow. Sounds so cool. You're so consistent. But if you are just doing it at five to midnight, randomly, [00:08:00] mindlessly on your phone, or even some people set back the time so they don't miss their streaks or whatever. So if you're not doing it with the right focus or you're not doing the the right thing, you're just repeating some openings over and over and over again.

You're not really getting better. Right. You can have a 10,000 day chess ball streak. You're not going to see big results. So the biggest thing, if you're asking yourself now, well, what should I do? What is do what matters to it? Well, for nearly everybody, what matters the most and what is key that you're doing it the right way, is to solve puzzles.

So that will be tactics work, and then to play games with the right focus. And then analyze these games and learn from your own mistakes. These two habits are super, super important, and if you wanna break it down to the simplicity. Deliberate practice if you are not including solving puzzles and you solve them the right way, which means writing down the [00:09:00] solution before you execute the puzzle.

And then if you're not playing with good focus, right? No distraction, no people coming in and talking to you, no YouTube video open during your game. Just your game. You focus on your moves, you play them. Then after the game, you analyze this game. You learn from your biggest mistakes. If you're not doing either of these two or you're not doing them well, you can forget about the deliberate.

There is no deliberate in your training. So that's super, super important and that is what is so rare. It sounds super simple, but actually it is rather rare to see somebody that does these two things. And why are people not doing these two things? Well, there is a harsh truth if when training becomes deliberate.

Training is a little bit less cozy. It's more repetitive, it's harder. You need to be fully focused. So you can't do it just randomly. Um, you know, on your commute while listening to music and [00:10:00] maybe talking to a coworker just on your phone doing a little bit something, it's, that's not going to do it. So it means really taking.

Where you can focus, it means you need to have healthy habits. It means you need to have, uh, enough sleep. It really means you need to take care of your chest training and treat it as something that you do. You plan it in your calendar, you take time for it, and you do it really well, and that makes it so rare.

So this is super, super important that chest training is not something that you should just. Do and then take it off your to-do list, but you need to do it well. So let's say, let's compare chess training with a few things. Many of you listening to this will do. For example, answering mails, sitting through boring meetings, doing some household chores, right?

With all of these three things, once you [00:11:00] have them done. You can be pretty happy that you did it. It doesn't really matter as much how aware you were during that process, what your focus was if you did something else right? Some easy emails, you can just do them while maybe watching some Netflix series or whatever you might do while doing these boring chores.

When I do my household, I often have an audio book. I, I do some chores there, so. You can do it on the side and take it off and then it's done and let's move on with is, that doesn't work if you just did it, but your mind wasn't there, it's, it's like you didn't do anything right. You just. Didn't take up any new information.

You need to hold it in your brain, and then you need to be able to play a game later on and then use that information that you learned, transform it to a different position, and then use it well in that new position. That's very complex, so your brain needs to be active, needs to be [00:12:00] fully on when you're studying chess.

And you're not just, uh, treating chest training as something to take off from your to-do list. So that's super, super. Im important. So do you feel that I talked to you? Well, then it's time to take an honest look in the mirror and to change something. Right. You don't wanna spend a lot of time not see any results and make the same mistake over and over again until you get frustrated and you quit chess and you claim, well, chess is just not for me.

No, you're probably just not doing the right thing the right way. That's super important. So if that is you ask yourself, how often do I do what matters? So I talked about tactics. I talked about playing games and analyzing them. Okay, these are the two most important thing in your chest training. Then ask yourself, do it.

Well now the first thing is, do you even know what doing it well would look like? Have you ever heard of doing things the right way, like tactics, the [00:13:00] right way? Um, playing games the right way, analyzing them the right way. That's super important. Not many people teach this, so this is important. Ask yourself this if you know it already.

Ask yourself, am I really doing it the way that I learned to do it? Right? Um, and then the third thing that will be spending the time, right? Do I do it consistently? So for anyone thinking, well, I'm doing things the right way, but I do them half an hour a week, then if you compare with the 10,000 hour rule, right?

You're probably not getting anywhere. If you study half an hour a week, there's nothing wrong with it, but nearly already, this podcast is 15 minutes, right? If that's all you just. Just kind of input this, this week, then you're not going to make much of improvements. So go through this list. Do what matters, do it well, do it consistently, and then start putting in the time by doing.

The right things the right way, and you will see improvements, especially if you spend a lot [00:14:00] of time on chess, if you're doing it the right way. I truly believe that. You know, everybody listening to this, if you're doing what matters, you're doing it well, you're doing it consistently. You will see improvements.

At some point, there will be no one that is like doing everything correctly, spending 500 hours on chess and not see any single improvement. Probably something is going wrong. There. And if you wanna go deeper into the idea of the 10,000 hour rule, I actually recommend another book. I highly recommend the book Peak by Anders Erickson.

It's very, very interesting and, uh, I believe that the book is the Foundation. So his research, uh, Anders Erickson is a researcher and his research is, is the foundation behind the 10,000 hour rule from this other book. Okay. But then under Erickson wrote his own book basically, um, which is more direct knowledge from the researcher himself and shows you actually exactly what deliberate practice [00:15:00] looks like in different sports, uh, in music and so on.

I really enjoyed that book. It helped me, even though I already worked on deliberate practice. Always good to know some more. So if that's something interesting, then check out that book for sure. And for everybody, uh, not having checked out my simplified chest improvement system. If you want to train the right way, if you want to do what matters, do it well, do it consistently, but you feel you need some guidance, you need some help.

Somebody should tell you what you should do, when you should do it, and how you should do it. Well then check out my simplifi chest improvement system. It's a step-by-step course really helping you to study chess the right way, and no matter how you do it, I hope hears to more deliberate chess training.

See you next week.

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