IQ and Chess: The Real Relationship

Whatever...like I said I could post some pictures of pancakes if it would help. It would probably help your credibility if no one questions what seems delusional.

MyCowsCanFly, you've contributed absolutely nothing to this topic. Not one useful comment. You're out, brotha. As a former troll, I could tell you that if your conscience hits you... it'll hit you HARD. Adios...

AnthonyCG, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not blocking him because he disagrees with my point. What he did is accuse me of lying and plagiarising - and to me, that IS abuse.

Plus, if you've read anything I've written, then you'll understand that I ENCOURAGE people to argue against my point, granted they provide evidence like I have done. Is that not being perfectly fair?

EDIT: let's please get back on topic. This is supposed to be about discussing chess and IQ.

While it could be possible to estimate a persons potential maximum chess rating based on IQ, I seriously doubt that every grand master has an IQ between 140-150.  Clearly a person with a lower IQ that spends an enormous amount of time playing chess will likely have a higher rating that a person with a higher IQ that has spent less time playing chess.  The idea that playing chess can potentially increase your IQ is rather interesting and plausible.  Given a group of 1000 people with an average IQ of 100 and another group of 1000 people with an averave IQ of 120, I would expect that after each group spent the exact same large number of hours playing and studying chess, the average rating of the group with the higher IQ would be slightly higher, but I would also expect that some of the people with an IQ of 100 will have much higher ratings than some of the people with an IQ of 120 just because some people pick up chess and increase their rating faster than others regardless (or in spite of) IQ rating.

henkesb, thanks for the contribution.

I also doubt that every grandmaster would have such a high IQ. In fact, I believe a person with an average IQ could become a NM, FM, or even higher with strong effort. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of other factors also contribute to the making of a grandmaster. However, a lot of new studies would have to be done to prove this properly. A photographic memory would be a clear, but VERY rare distinction, as those are found very infrequently among humans.

In response to your second sentence, my article did discuss people who put maximum possible effort and reach their full potential.

As for picking up chess at different speeds - I do agree there are other factors involved. It will definitely be different per person. This article really discusses a general trend, which means a lot of variables would be somewhat disregarded. However, the variables you've stated are VERY important in considering this trend. Thanks for that notice. :)

Any more input would be very appreciated!

For what did you write the article?

 Frankly, I just wrote this for fun. :)

This topic happened to interest me, and I figured I could learn something while I'm at it and share what I learn with chess.com.

The potential for the development of this topic exists, however. Who knows what will happen?

I'm actually going to admit that my comparison got screwed up somewhere, and I'm not exactly sure where... So I'll go back to the basics.

I believe you were pointing out that even though the correlation between chess and IQ exists, that they don't necessarily have to influence each other. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.

On that point, I would have to disagree slightly. Studies both ways have revealed that chess tends to increase IQ and that IQ tends to influence the potential of a chess player's ability. This is particularly prevalent in children, whose minds are more susceptible to impressionability. That is how they learn things, after all, and is the reason most information is learned at an early age.

Just confirm your point and if it what I thought it was, I'll definitely continue putting more thought into it. If your point is different... same thing: I'll continue pondering this. This is quite tricky. :D

NatefJay, I definitely never tried to state that chess is the most significant factor in increasing IQ, but I do insist that IQ has a pretty significant effect upon the maxmimum potential for chessplay.

There are other unexplored factors that affect chessplay, of course - and that's why a study eliminating a good amount of those factors would be useful for these purposes. I actually briefly touched on this idea with Beester (reference post # 59 and its inserts).

The elimination of those other factors would give a decent idea to the solution of this issue.

I think there should be a positive correlation beween IQ and chess ability when studied with controls. That is all participants are given equal learning materials and practice and then rating all players over the course of their careers. There will be all sorts of individual factors influencing the outcome which would make this practically impossible. Such as personal motivation, extracurricular study/practice, etc.

In this way I think the study is somewhat impractical as learning is also assisted through neurotransmitters which aren't activated for every person. Some get more of a buzz out of chess while others aren't interested, for example. Or some like puzzles but aren't very competitive yet may excel over the very competitive. How would you go about setting up groups and monitoring time/progress, especially when it's so difficult to draw a line between theory and practice in actual performance?

NatefJay, I think your point of logical falacy is misguided, however correct. The issue you're confronting is about causation. I don't think either are causitive of the other here, just that there should be a positive correlation between ability (rating) and IQ because it's just like any other subject really. You put a group to work on a project and give them all the study materials then of the group you limit how much time a sector has for study and give the other sector say double the time, then you can hypothesize that the group with more study time will have better test outcomes (in general); then you can also hypothesize that some of the members in the group with less time will be fast readers, have excellent visual memory, or might have previous understanding of the subject matter; then you factor in the point that some of the individuals from the greater time limit might not grasp some of the concepts, might be poor readers, etc... overall you could safely say that after graphing all participants there will likely be a positive correlation between study time and results, and go about removing 'outsiders', if need be.

Tonydal, I said nothing about mental retardation. If you have buds there I suggest you use them however you normally do. I don't want them. On second thought, you'd better give those buds away mate, they're not doing you much good.

I think if u have a better IQ score you have more probability to be better then a person with much lower IQ score. But chess is much more than intelligence, u have to see the board in your mind and preview what can happen in further moves...

Maybe a person have a high IQ score but didnt catch the threat...

So its too much practice and experience, not only intelligence...

But your article is very interesting! Congratulations!!!

I don't think there's any particular correlation other than.. people with higher IQs will tend to do better in chess, but it's not gauranteed.  Kind of like people with IQs of 150 will tend to make better biologists than those with IQs of 120.  But it's not definitive. 

Thanks for the comments, everybody.

Dhalsim, I agree that it would be quite difficult to find ALL of the factors involved in performing this experiment properly, and especially to try to control them. However, I think a person who likes chess would generally be interested in solving puzzles, etc. Motivation is a difficult one; however, over a short period of time (say, 2-3 months), most people would still be in the beginner's stage of this game and therefore not lose motivation so quickly. But it's still tricky to determine.

tonydal, I find it fun to play with your towering ego, so here it goes: if you're really that adamant about not taking this subject seriously at all, then why are you still commenting here? :)

And everybody who comments here: remember that IQ is really a small part of what is considered to be overall 'intelligence'. You don't need a high IQ to be considered intelligent - in fact, a huge majority of things a person does wouldn't require as much as an average IQ. Chess just happens to have a high correlation with factors that are involved in IQ, which is why the argument I made seems to be validatable.

Another interesting point about IQ tests is that, strictly speaking, they only measure ability/performance on IQ tests themselves. The guaging purposes of which is to determine the abilities of the individual taking the test. Since chess does make demands of the same mental faculties as the IQ test (such as cognition, pattern recognition, mechanical types of cause and effect, etc) it is little wonder that earlier generations had directly associated chess playing ability with a person's overall intelligence. Back then it really was a battle of wits. Similarly, Tonydal doesn't have a great deal of insightful comments but instead points out whatever strikes him as though his opinion could be proven correct. The basic premise of using an opinion as a point of argument is already misguided. Have a point of view but at least argue with something to back you up apart from your emotional evaluations.

Your opinion doesn't count without supporting argument. It's like saying IQ has nothing to do with chess playing ability because that's what I think. So am I supposed to make the illogical leap to say that what you think is true simply because you think it, or do you think that yourself?; Lay off the buds . . .

Dhalism is absolutely correct here. If you're going to comment here, post something constructive. If you disagree, give some proof against my point, just as I have. If you agree, feel free to post some more proof.

And if you have no interest in this topic, as you claim, then get outta' here.

As far as I've understood, the whole point of IQ tests was to try to measure intelligence. Through decades of research, it's been found that it's a small portion of what's considered 'intelligence'. I like to think that researchers are using these measurements to help improve a child's ability to think clearer. Wouldn't it be great if this could ultimately help somebody who is unable to process certain information as quickly as others?

But again, that's my subjective opinion of using IQ and chess together. Objectively, I'm just trying to prove a relationship, and by pointing out what's missing from my argument should help in the understanding of how to make the relevance clearer. What happens from there we'll see in the future.

Maybe the best way of accomplishing this would be to develop a "chess IQ" test. You could have one component based on ability to think ahead, another on problem solving, and so on. I would really appreciate being able to sit such a test and be able to identify my weaker areas. Actually I think I will take a standard one and have an evaluation done there in the mean time :D who knows, maybe the standard one will pull up information on cognition, visualisation skills, working memory, attention span, and other abilities that will come in handy for assessing where I could improve my play OTB.

Have you looked into brain plasticity? I'm going to see what I'm able to find on the 'plastic model', and chess. Very neat ideas that are far separated from the old 'locationist' belief of one region one function. The brain is monogamous, and constantly learning, and recently discovered to generate new brain cells, esp' through physical activity. Anyways, trailing off here - must find out how the brain "learns" chess to the extent that it can and how to enhance the conditions to give it the best learning experience possible...

 Well, there is still some discussion, but it's definitely winded down significantly. I'll bump it to see whether anybody's still interested. :D

Good luck.

"...quality of your work"

I've said it before: this was just something I did for fun, and it has the potential for improvement. That's why I allow people to respond and tell me how to improve this idea. And people have given suggestions. People have given more sources.

"You dismiss or respond in a negative manner to any challenges".

Well, after all of these posts, you must have not read anything I've written. How many times have I said that I encourage people to post points against my argument? Are you slow, buddy?

"You can't see the obvious."

And the obvious is what exactly? That my work isn't top quality? I already know. That I don't like it when people criticise the fact that I've written this article instead of actually contributing information that could be used against what I've written? I already know.

Anyway, if you have nothing to contribute to improving the quality of this topic (which you seem so distressed about), then please leave. So far, you have not added ONE useful piece of discussion to this and I really don't want to block you permanently... It's your choice.