Chess takes lots of time to get very good. Any actual scientist, professor or engineer doesn't have the time.

[odd topic?]

This is from an essay about writers. The author said that you see a lot of architects in movies because it's a fast and easy way to convey that someone is 'artistic' and a bit of a dreamer. It doesn't matter that real life architects are much more about engineering that artistry; it works for a character.

The same thing with chess, it's a fast and easy way to present a 'smart' character.

Aha. That's because they all play go!

Right?

So... disclaimer first! I have played chess but only a year or so; I got into chess during the pandemic and had a peak ELO of ~1600+ on chess.com and 1900+ on Lichess; probably translates to a classical ELO of ~1200 (competition is tough in classical...). Obviously I'm not remotely a good player, but I can hold my ground. I also had to do a neuropsych evaluation recently for mental health reasons, so I spent the last month of my free time looking into research of intelligence (g factor, IQ tests, the disturbing history, etc...) for my own curiosity. So I might have a bit of knowledge on this... but:

For the most part chess is its own unique skills and is unrelated to "smartness". Nevertheless, I think chess might be related to probably just one or two specific narrow fields of intelligence. Being good at chess requires one to be knowledgeable of various chess openings (memorization, working memory), extremely strong pattern recognition (Magnus Carlsen is really good at this; AlphaZero was literally all pattern recognition due to the way it works), and being able to see 5, 10, or even 15 steps ahead and consider all the rational options (again, working memory)

I just took the WAIS-V test two weeks ago for my psych eval, and they do indeed test for working memory and pattern recognition in specific sub-tasks. However the difference is... IQ tests are never meant to be practiced as they measure a type of "potential" if you may, but chess is all about what you actually play on the board. Sure maybe if ppl were literally just given the rules and had no prior exposure then a smarter person might spot a forced checkmate faster, but ppl do pratice for the game... In fact, the advice people used to give to get better at chess is... to do more puzzles

Sooo... methinks an intelligent person might have a slight edge training themselves to do the above, but there is probably otherwise very little association. After a certain point intelligence itself probably has no influence on chess performance whatsoever, and realistically it's more about "grit", or how much time/effort someone puts into the game

Aaand... case in point. Apparently Kasparov went through a 3-day intensive intelligence test, but had a really "spiky" profile that is more commonly seen in neurodivergent individuals; scored really high on some categories and abysmally low on others. I saw this random Reddit post which says that Carlsen scored 115(+1SD) on AGCT (a fairly quick and accurate online test), which is not low but not impressive by any means either. Nakamura allegedly got 102 on Mensa Norway's trial test, which is not as accurate as AGCT but should be fairly good too; 102 is like dead-average

From my experience most smart people learned and played chess at some point but few get the point of memorizing stuff. Especially if they are not good memorizes. Its a great game to teach and play with kids as it does stimulate the mind with the way the pieces move and having to think about the changing board and next move. That being said I was not even aware of en passant until I met a guy in college who actually went to competitions. Heck I rarely could remember how to castle due to how rare it was to get into a position to do so. Really though any type of stimulating activity is helpful. Someone mentioned rubicks cubes and like suduko and crosswords and really any gaming. They all have limitations. I often say crosswords is more about knowing the crossword author than anything else. They all have favorites and biases in their puzzles.

ITT: I don't play chess. I don't like chess. Friend play chess, he dumb, I am smart. I agree. You hear of Rubik's cube?

Your skill at chess is indeed very good at predicting one thing: your chess rating. I have been playing every day for almost 2 years and I take lessons, but I started as an adult after finishing my PhD in actual rocket science and supervising a research lab in that area for 10 years. Consequently, I will never be as good as the 10 year olds playing with coaching since they were 6. I have met exactly one good player through my connections to that lab in 17 years. So here are some perspectives on chess if you played in high school or you "learned how to play in 30 mins and think it's boring":

1. It's a game with layers. The first layer is knowing how the pieces move, the second layer is memorizing openings, and the third layer is some basic knowledge of tactics (I.e., forks, skewers, pins, removing the defense, etc etc) and THEN you learn the game. Most people never learn the game unless you went out of your way to do so.

2. For reason 1, "good at chess" is a hugely subjective statement. You knew a few people who can beat all your friends? Cool. I was that guy and it took me MONTHS to get to what the chess world calls "intermediate": 1200-1400 ELO. Your friend is probably rated 700 to 750. You have probably never met more than a handful of good chess players in your life unless you were in a university club or better.

3. You do not have to be typically smart to be good at chess, but it doesn't hurt. Top GMs are sometimes impressively smart or impressively... Uh... susceptible to misinformation cough Kramnik cough. But what they CAN do is master the shit out of board positions, visualization, and prediction.

Case in point, Hikaru Nakamura, arguably world #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WsEQuoOz-c&t=490

Or you can watch him play blindfolded chess against actual good players, or speedrun 1 minute games winning hundreds in a row while talking about his pineapple shirt. He's alternatingly pretty entertaining and kind of annoying to listen to.

If you are that kind of smart, the visualization and memory kind, yeah you're probably going to also be a good chess player. Otherwise, there's not a lot of traceability that I've seen research on.

All that said, this thread is absolutely annoying to see the whole world show up and talk out of their asses about it.

/end rant

Edit:

More Hikaru craziness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhDYSNbPs_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXDol9GqK64

Same with rubiks cube

Chess is a solved game which is not a fit tool for evaluating intelligence.

Learning a few chess pro tips will make you better than anyone trying to figure that game out.

The top levels of chess are skill but the bottom is people doing pre-learned openers.

I consider myself reasonably intelligent but I also have ADHD so … I completely suck at chess.

The pared-down nature of chess really puts me off. I'm sure there's some elegant simplicity in it but I mostly find it dull. I like an element of randomness in my games.

Chess doesn't feel like a gateway to other, more fun games, and if it's not a fun game for me, why would I pursue it? I'm fairly sure it doesn't build skills that translate to anything else.

I also get that there are layers to it, although I'm adding that as apparently that's not so self-evident as to be taken as read. I can see where the path leads and find it no more appealing than the obnoxiously boring gambling machines in casinos, or Dota2, or athletics. Learn the meta, build an understanding of the underlying concepts in order to be able to build more complex strategies based on a combination of instinctive statistical analysis and assessment of your opponent, etc. etc.. I get it, I'm just not interested.

Edit: oh that's interesting, some of you have gone into my profile and systematically downvoted my older comments. That's what I get for not just blocking a Lemmy.ml user as soon as they chimed in.