sigh...

Winning, losing ... doesn't matter.

Just drop that silly "subordinate-everything-to-having-fun-attitude". You're not a kid, are you ?

Hip...hip...hooray!

P.S.: I was joking about your living in your parents' basement. You know that. Of course, I could be wrong (lol). BTW...my oldest is one year older than you. My basement is unoccupied...thank god!

Oh dear, there they go again --- " Fun is Silly ", sad sad sad  lol. 

It was either my parents' basement or in a van down by the river.

chess is stratagy math is not but chess im good at and math so maby im wrong

I had never heard of this test,so I went off to google, found an example

3, 0, 1, 5, 1, 5, 7, 2, 49, ?, ?, ?

Yes, I got it.  It took me a minute, or perhaps a little less.

Here's why I don't think being able to do that problem will be indicative of the sort of mental function that makes it easy to learn Chess.  That problem is the sort of problem I think of when I think "pattern recognition", and I score fairly well on tests with sample problems like that.  However, I don't think that "pattern recognition" is a good descriptor for that sort of problem.  I had never seen that pattern before. I wasn't "recognizing" anything.  I was, rather, discovering a pattern. If I saw it again, but with a different starting element, I might rapidly recognize it.

Seeing a Chess position and evaluating is kind of like being presented with that sort of problem.  You can discover the relationships among the pieces,and what makes pieces or squares strong or weak.   However, there is evidence that great Chess players don't do that on every move.  Rather, they seem to perform a task that is truly more like recognition.  They see a position, and instantly recognize the key features, the patterns, as being similar to a position they have seen before.

Meanwhile, visio-spatial ability is often measured by mental rotation problems. A mental rotation problem is similar to looking ahead.  You apply the transformation of making a legal Chess move, and imagine the board position after the move.

The pattern discovery and mental transformations are important to a Chess player, and those abilities are measured on an IQ test.  However, they aren't all that important.   The type of patterns present are easy to analyze, and the tranformations easy to visualize.  Those sort of abilities aren't signs of a high IQ. 

Meanwhile, the key differentiator between bad and good Chess players is having a large stored library of patterns of good positions, and being able to apply the transformation (i.e. imagine a piece being moved) and recognizing that the new position matches an template,or pattern, that is stored in long term memory, and pulling up that pattern and knowing whether the resulting pattern is good or bad.  Based on brain scans, the process is similar to recognizing faces.   This ability, which varies among individuals, is also not measured on IQ tests.  Also, although the ability to create and access the "library" varies, everyone has some of that ability. Anyone can build a "library", but some can build easier than others.  Nevertheless, everyone has to work on it, which is why practice and effective study are more important to the development of Chess skill.

At least, that's what the model says.

I tend to do well on the number sequence pattern stuff.  That one took me about a minute.  I never understood how those kinds of problems are related to IQ though.

I feel like sequences that involve squares, cubes, primes, and such are more a function of education (have I seen a list of squares, cubes, primes, etc) not of some sort of general intelligence.

Pancakes, humble pie, "fun" for all ages, esoteric discussions on combinatorial theory and IQ tests, and emotional validation.

This thread has all of them!  We are so fabulous.  Great job eveyone.     

Yeah, the thread could be closed now. Everything irrelevant has been discussed. 

In any given game that I play, I think trying to win is important, and I do think the "it doesn't matter as long as you had fun" attitude is a bit childish.   Is that what you are referring to?   However, for me, improving my skills between games is not all that important to me.  I enjoy the game and will keep playing it, competitively, whether or not my rating ever breaks 1000.

I think, pattern recognition is the ability which counts in chess. The higher, the better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nhgfjrKi0o

This attitude toward losing is very common, but I have to wonder about something.  Obviously, this attitude must extend beyond Chess, which means there are plenty of activities that you avoid, and the only reason to avoid them is that you aren't good at them.  To me, my life would be less rich if I stopped doing all the things I wasn't good at.

Well, we are all different, and that attitude is indeed very common.  As an organizer, it's one of my biggest problems.  I want people to come to my tournaments, but they won't because of that attitude toward losing, and it comes up in two ways.  The most obvious is that people feel they "aren't good enough" so they stay home.  I wish I could convince them that there is no such thing as "not good enough", but I can't.

The second way it affects attendance is less obvious, but more troubling.  At OTB tournaments, there are people who have that sort of contempt toward weaker players, especially players who aren't sufficiently motivated to become stronger players.  That contempt shows through in their attitude.  There are plenty of players who would be willing to show up, but they can't  stand that attitude of contempt.

So, I would ask that, whatever your true feelings, all of you do your best to hide them, and be encouraging and supportive of weak players, even if those players aren't interested in putting in the work to become better players.   You need the patzers.  Without us, you have no one to beat.  Be nice.  It's in your best interest.

You are vastly mistaken.

I have absolutely no contempt for weaker players. I too am a weak player against many better than me. Isn't that true for all of us?

No. My only contempt is for people who play in a lazy, haphazard manner and have absolutely no desire to study, work hard and improve. And they blame their inadequacy on factors beyond their control.

People like you, for instance. (lol)

1.Trying to win is a wrong concept. You can't win in chess right off the bat since the starting position is (approximately; whether the first move of white is decisive is yet to discuss) balanced. That's what you should do: trying to hold the balance.

In order to win, however, your opponent has to make mistakes first. To be more precise: he/she has to make more mistakes by number and/or severity than you do (nobody plays perfect chess). Even this is not sufficient, because you also have to have the ability to spot them, exploit them and materialize the subsequent advantage (also called technique).
Since you can't force your opponent to make a mistake, there is no point in „trying to win“. You should rather try to „not lose“ or „hold the balance“. This is difficult enough. So from this perspective my personal view is that winning indeed is not as important (although pleasing).

2. Concerning the „fun“ topic:

The whole thing has gotten a little out of context. Earlier in the thread e4nf3 wrote:

„My goal is a solid 1800. I figure one more year. After that, I don't know that I want to put in the work to go higher. Maybe.

But, I have a goal and a plan. Do you?“

Somebody else answered“ I play and have fun !“.

I just wanted to point out the difference between „having a plan“ and „sustaining an emotional state“. The latter is what little kids do while they are, for example, playing in a sandbox. There is no orderly, planned and purposeful action. Rightfully so, because having an orderly, planned and purposeful attitude is not in the nature of children. That is what they learn lateron (hopefully).

The nature of grown-ups, however, is different, or at least should be. That doesn't mean that you can't have fun. It just means, that you have to accept the full bandwidth of emotional states: pain, lust, anger, dissapointment, rage, fun, calmness … etc. Not just cherry-picking one state and sustain it at all costs. This would be childish.

Furthermore you must have the ability to channel your emotions into planned and purposeful actions . In my personal view this is the very thing that chess tries to teach us. It is a mental exercise. The term „exercise“ implies that it is not fun, at least not always.
Chess is not designed just to „provide fun“. Why ? Because it is too complex for that. For having fun there are much simpler games which do that job better.

There is the old saying: „Good form follows necessity.“ It would be unnecessary for games like chess, shogi or Go to have such a high degree of complexity if their only purpose was to provide fun and nothing else. There must be more to them (I hope so, otherwise there would be a wasted effort  ).

To end my pseudo-philosophical blah blah, I just want to add that winning (conclusion ad 1.) and losing doesn't matter, as long as you manage to channel your emotions/aggressions into something purposeful. Then you are prepared for the REAL chess, called Life.

Hello, yes it is the average guy again  lol. Indeed I felt so out of place here in this High IQ area that I had to start a thread for average people. Getting back to the " Fun " stuff I guess a better question would have been: are you ENJOYING the games of Chess that you are playing ? And now before the High IQ Police chases me away I'm off to my " Average " thread  lol. 

PatzerLars,

    Good explanation.  Well said.

You read that whole thing? (lol)

Yes.  And it was worth the effort.