Okay everybody, so we've all read the stuff that says that playing a lot of chess has all sorts of benefits to our overall mental capacities. I'm curious to know if any of you have actually experienced anything like this. I'm looking for specifics, not just a yes/no answer. Do you feel like playing copious amounts of chess has benefited you anywhere outside of chess? If so, how?

Well, once I was playing legend of zelda twilight princess and there was this block puzzle thinger that was making me think. I saved and turned off the game...did about 200 tactical problems on CTS...and when I turned zelda back on the answer to the puzzle just came to me easily, out of nowhere.

So what I'm saying is, chess helps with zelda block puzzles.

I'm a firm believer that Chess benefits the brain in all of the following areas:

Pattern recognition/identification

Analysis

Creativity

Imagination

Logical and Sequential Thinking

Probably lots of others, but I don't want to sit here thinking about it for the next hour.  ^.^

lol. Thanks ericmittens. and thanks Joishi too for your response. I think I agree with you in all those things, I'm just interested to see what others have to say.

i think it does, but i shut up now because i cant think of an example

No, chess does not do anything extraordinary for our outside lives, except providing us with a challenge to overcome.

It distracts me from my homework too much.

I feel you LordLoss. I also should be doing homework right now!

I just played 2 hours of chess instead of studying for my exams.  So sure, it helps.

I think it definitely does.  On my walk home from school some students from a rival high school who I think were drunk, started harrassing me, and it soon led to physical violence, (I was playing black in this fight and instigated nothing) but in my own defense I found myself converting every move over to a chess board automatically, he threw a hook (fianchetto a bishop!) I staked a claim to the center (solar plexus straight punch anyone?).  I made a lovely queen sacrifice (totally opening up my right side to a few punches) which led to a beatiful stalemate in my favor, (tackle and pin knocking the air out of him, then jogging home)

Pseudoprogrammer, I assume you're joking. However, I actually heard somewhere that the guy that movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" was about went on to win a bunch of chess tournaments and then decided to take up martial arts and won a bunch of tournaments in that too. Then, so I heard from some guy once, he wrote a book about how fighting and chess were similar. I have no idea if that's true, and I'm not sure if I buy it, but I found if kind of fun to think about.

"i was playing Black in this fight".....best line ever

Haha yeah that was pretty good I forgot to say that a second ago.

Well, one time my gym teacher in high school made our class read an article about "chess boxing." Basically two guys duke it out over a chessboard, then in a boxing ring. Not really sure why they chose to combine these two things as a new sport, but it does exist....

mmmmnnn... interesting

Actually LDSSDL, that's a "real sport"! I saw something about it on T.V. a few months back. I think some German dude one via checkmate. Crazy, right?

Meh, I just joined this site a couple days ago, after playing chess for only 3 weeks before this.

It's only taken me 8 moves to hold a king in check, in 3 different spots (for my 6th game here on chess.com). He left after the 3rd check, so he'll come back to a missing queen. So I gotta say, I feel alot smarter than when I first started. I think chess helps you mentally with tactics/strategy, and what JoishiBoido said.

I'll get back to this more when I notice some positive changes in work or public.

Playing chess definitely helps with my concentration while playing tennis.  Particularily on the return of serve.  Also, I think chess teaches you to think outside the box which is a skill you often need while playing chess and is very useful in every aspect of life.  

lol its fun to waste time on

Phoenix52: For some reason, what you say makes me want to play you. I'm challenging you.

Chess teaches you to think ahead and weigh up alternative actions in different scenarios.

Chess will not automatically improve other areas of your life. You would have to actively use what you have learned in chess in other pursuits.