I think that's pretty accurate, comparing chess to learning a language. I read somewhere that one grandmaster didn't start playing until he was 30. But who am I kidding - I can't even beat my shareware chess program at 0 depth and 1 sec per move.
Bobby Fischer says that if he had access to all the tools that players have today, he would have been a grandmaster at 10 years of age. He was probably talking about the computer, not just as a sparring partner, but as a research tool. The amount of great chess literature has exploded, but for the beginner nothing beats the books written by Capablanca, which are getting close to being 100 years old. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_g...field-keywords=Capablanca&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go After that, there are many paths to mastery, but when you eventually reach the stage when you understand why the Zurich 1953 tournament book by Bronstein http://www.amazon.com/Zurich-Intern..._bbs_sr_2/102-3001042-8679320?ie=UTF8&s=books is considered perhaps the greatest chess book of all time, you may have attained some level of deep chess knowledge. A [carefully] must read article for any chess player imo: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3455 nitro
Right now I'm reading Tal's autobiography - it would be interesting to see how he would have fared versus Capablanca. The first book I ever bought on chess (I think I was like 10) was Capa's My Chess Career -- not that I could then (and now even) appreciate his skill. I am re-reading it now with a better understanding though. I can say that I've improved alot in the last few months, somehow it's just gotten easier to "grasp" the positions in front of me, almost intuitively. Gideon pm'd an interesting article on how the masters think: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945 I've always thought that all the GM's think through all scenarios 20 moves deep, or have photographic memories etc, but that seems not to be the "typical" case.
I can remember games played by the greats when I was a young child...Chess is and will always be the best board game of all time... www.chessgames.com/ This site has been in my favorites since I first learned of it....There have been many sites similar to this one that will let you observe the grandmasters in play...Best advice I can give anyone about the game is "Study the Grandmasters and how they counter each others opening setups"....Watch hundreds of the matches and you will notice many similar openings that are all very common among the greats.... Only problem with this is You will never play a friend and have them open up properly....But that being said you may just learn how to force him to move in a sequence to MATE!!! $COSTAverageMAN