Chess myths

Are there any chess myths that many players believe? I googled it but articles about chess myths mainly focus on non-players.

"Bullet isn't real chess" is one you hear a lot.

That it's easy to get good, or that it doesn't take a lot of skill to become a GM. Members of the public probably don't realise how advanced GMs are at the game and how difficult it is to do what they do. The gap between top GMs and regular players would be just as big as Federer and vs. average club player in tennis. It's hugee!!!!!!!

@PeteyPeteRepeatPete1 I hear a lot of people saying the exact opposite, that top-level chess players must be child prodigies and/or rival Stephen Hawking/Albert Einstein or similar in brain power, basically that it's impossible to become good at chess if you haven't started from a really young age.

Read the forum and you'll find them all.

"Don't analyze blitz games" is one of my favourites. They contain more elements of truth as people usually want to know.

"Exhume an old master and he'll crush them all" is another one. Don't think that the old masters even would win some money in a large open nowadays...

"Grandmasters know the opening 20 moves deep"

@Sarg0n the interesting thing is that you can prove or disprove the one about older players being better than newer ones, and I think computer analysis of games show that generally, top players now are better than top players "then".

#6, actually it's the amateurs who do so. :D

PS: it won't take very long before the mythbuster-busters emerge...

@mCoombes314 Botvinniks Elo is the highest ever registered by 2892

@Spirit_Of_Light yes, but Elo measures players against others in the same time frame. I don't see how Elo can be used to compare f.e. Alekhine and Carlsen. Computer analysis is a good "unbiased" way of looking at playing strength IMO.