[slphil]

Deliberate practice and natural talent are not mutually exclusive. I make a living as a regionally successful chess teacher. I have had many highly talented students who were not hard workers. I have had many hard working students who were not naturally very talented. Both turned out to be pretty good. Sadly for blank slatists, the talent seems to mean more, but "pretty good" isn't exceptional. I had one student who was a hard working genius who did deliberate practice and took four or five hours of lessons with me a week. He won a national championship for first grade.

Practice matters. Especially at the upper level. There are hordes of talented "strong casuals" out there.

[sireat]

Agreed that you need both talent and deliberate practice for chess but you also need to start early.

For becoming a chess GM you need 3 things: talent, grit(deliberate practice), starting early(10-12 is okay, 18 is too late these days).

One interesting aspect of starting early AND also persistent grit is being the youngest sibling in a chess family.

For example Hikaru had a master level older brother and of course there's Judith. The youngest siblings are ridiculously competitive against older ones.

[haberman]

I agree 100% with all of this. Deliberate practice is necessary, but not sufficient, for high level performance.