A gentleman who plays chess at a local cafe told me that studying chess helps one to think more clearly, and thus be more effective in "real-world" endeavors. Woe is me! I am a mediocre chess player, with only slow improvement. 

I consoled myself because I read that Napoleon was a poor chess player, yet a brilliant general. What do people think: Is there a correlation between good chess playing and being effective in the world?

A chess expert once told me that mad people should play mad chess !We may assume then that life shows on our chess rather than the opposite...Of course most "technical" trainers out there would disagree,but my point is that different views of life produce different chess styles!

Ηaha

If you were systematic and patient in your thinking and deductively figured/sorted out all or most of your life's day-to-day problems  before you knew what chess was to start with, I'd say there's no real benefit.

On the other hand, if your A.D.D + addled brain could never really learn to think "clearly" on anything, but then picked up chess and learned to develop a clean thought process and grew stronger because of this, I'd say this is likely to produce a positive effect on anything else you deal with in life.

I became a better engineer because getting better at chess instilled good thinking habits that flow to everything else I did. 

Napoleon wasn't such a bad chess player for his time. (Obviously he didn't have any formal training in chess.) Lenin is said to have been a fairly strong chess player. 

However, in general I don't think there is a particular correlation between being good at chess and functioning well in the world. On top levels of chess, one might be tempted to suggest that it's negative, seeing that some top players like Fischer were clearly dysfunctional at everything except chess. On the other hand, Karpov appears to be a successful businessman.

If anything, it might help you to think more logically, and think of better ways to solve problems.  Like you have to keep trying to figure out how to get around a bunch of blocking pawns, what's the quickest way to checkmate, etc.  If you can't figure out how to do it one way, you have to try another.  Also, it helps you to see things from a different perspective, in that you always have to think about what your opponent is going to move next.

Or, it could just be a game.

Studying and playing chess will hopefully make you a better chess player, but it does not help you in life. I think the opposite is true - it is more likely to hinder your life. Chess is an addictive intense game that can easily take over a person's life. It has to be managed carefully like drinking and gambling.  

it "builds character", whatever that's good for.

I've read an article, I think i googled "benefits of chess", and it said that no matter what your level, the benefits are the same. I read it long time ago; memory may fail.

To answer your question: What do you think?

When you play chess, you exercise your brain. I saw a documentary (nat geo I belieave) with susan polgar. Her brain adapted to chess.

Chess requires: Concentration. It develops it too.

You were bad at chess when you started, right? But you got better. Your brain changed. For the better!!

Think about it some more. What is concentration good in life? Many things. I think that you will start to notice your details better. You will be more consious. For example, you won't forget your keys or something haha. That reminds me, it is good for memory too.

I guess it probably has much more benefits. Thanks for the thread! We all reply together, all of us know different things, this is really great, sharing knowledge is super awesome hehe.

Well it does make me look for little subtleties in anything, which I guess helps decision making, but, other than giving you happiness (which is actually rather important!) as a result of an endless, rewarding, fun challenge to play and improve your game, not especially, though for such a mental game like chess, it certainly can't be bad for your brain.

@ivandh: In what ways? I'm curious.

Any time you devote an inordinately large quantity of effort into a totally pointless activity, it is said to be "character-building".

Says who?

as far as my comment goes, your lack of humor has trounced my lack of motivation

I don't see the humor. The sentence doesn't seem to make sense, but that doesn't really make it funny. I've never heard people claim that before.

Didn't seem to have helped Bobby Fischer in his "real-world" endeavors. 

Well, Fischer's problem was probably just Fischer. He of course went as far as dropping out of high school for chess, but perhaps he was just a very obsessive boy who was looking for something to latch onto, which happened to be chess.

Fischer had what experts think was osberger's syndrome which is basically autism.

 But what if we think of it from a different perspective. If you are good at life you will also be good at chess. Those who make good decisions in life will make good decisions on the chess board (with some study and practice). Ying and Yang. There is a correlation between the two however I don't believe there is a rule. 

It helps you survive the more social aspects on the topic of Chess, if that counts.  Maybe that girl you meet likes chess - BAM something in common.  Will it cure cancer or find a breakthrough in rocket propulsion?   Nah.  Will it make you a millionaire?  Nah, not anymore atleast.  Will it make people think you're smart?  Hell yes.

That is worthy of quotation. And it is good advice for those who go overboard. My brother-in-law had to stop playing tournament chess after he had a heart attack. He told me that he was just unable not to get over-excited. So now he serves as a tournament administrator in order to stay involved, safely.