Natural Ability

Imagine a school teacher with so much natural ability as a chess player that he could have aimed at becoming a world class player, even a world championship challenger. Yet on the whole he appears to have preferred teaching. 

Henry Ernest Atkins (20 August 1872 – 31 January 1955) was a British chess master who is best known for his unparalleled record of winning the British Chess Championship nine times in eleven attempts. He won every year from 1905 to 1911, and again in 1924 and 1925. A schoolmaster, Atkins treated chess as a hobby, devoting relatively little time to it and playing in only a handful of international tournaments. He was an extremely gifted player who would likely have become one of the world’s leading players had he pursued the game more single-mindedly.

Atkins even dropped competitive chess completely for over a decade.

After the 1911 Championship, Atkins retired completely from tournament chess for the next 11 years. He later remarked, “I really can’t say why I didn’t play after 1911 for so many years.”

By way of contrast, today we are plagued with celebrities who appear to have no natural ability at all. And MPs. And…