If you want to read of someone coming out of no where and dominating chess, read up on Sultan Khan. The guy was a servant and played an indian version of chess. When he started playing wester chess, he dominated from the git go and beat Capablanca in a game. He was sick a lot be cause of the cold weather in england and eventually just went back to India to work for his master and never played chess again. He was extremely good though from having a sound positional understanding of the game. He improved a lot after learning some openings.
