It takes 10,000 hours of directed practice. Directed practice here is a technical term that means practice or study with a clearly defined goal, objective criteria to know if and when the goal is achieved, controlled repetitions to re-inforce the learning and so on.

Time spent playing or reading generally, but an an un-focussed way, may be enjoyable, and does lead to improvement, but nowhere near so efficiently as “directed practice” It cannot count towards the 10,000 hours.

There is another flaw. The studies on which this is based show that those people that attained a high level of performance (e.g. above grade 8 on a musical instrument, a 2300 Elo rating etc.) took, on average 10,000 hours of directed practice to get there.

What the studies ignore are those people that put in the same 10,000 hours but did not reach that level of performance.

So the 10,000 hours may be a NECESSARY condition (no-one- however talented, reaches those levels without doing the work) but it is not SUFFICIENT (you could do the work and still not reach the standard). We still do not know exactly what else you have to bring with you in the form of genetically endowed talent, motivation, and love of the subject.

However, I do enjoy chess the more I understand what I am doing, so that must be my goal : understanding, rather than just rating points !