Is intelligence directly related towards skill in chess?

I have a friend who is really good at chess but not so sharp at other things. Does intelligence necessarily have a relation towards skill in chess?

No, not really according to previous studies.

The number one factor is the time put into chess I think, along with how well you use your time, at what age you start etc.

seems fair I'm just always told that to be good at chess means that that person is smart.

... also, what skill level are your opponents?

The skill level is probably intermediate. we don't have a rating system it's more of a club at my school.

Have you ever been to a tournament?  This is actually pretty easy.  Almost everyone can do this.  Because the games are so long it's easy to remember the position.

So your saying that most people who play chess arent necessarily smart but have good memory? 

If you spend time thinking about your every move and testing it against various possible replies by your opponent and not to mention the emotional reaction you may get when you saw certain continuations, it is likely that you will remember the moves in the game. However, study shows that chess players' memory skill normally does not extend to other fields.

I'm no more than club standard at best, but I can do that easily enough, and I'd not consider myself unusual in that respect.

Honinbo so your saying studying effects skill?

not intelligence?

and by intelligence I guess I mean like IQ 

yes, in learning possibly but is it fair to say someone with an IQ or 150 is any better at chess than someone with an IQ of 100? or 50?

I bet you theres some of those top players who arent that smart.

I found the title of your post interesting so I had a read of what other people had to say. I think that chess ability is based on a number of factors. It's not just intelligence. For example, psychological factors can play a big part in your chess playing. If you are very preoccupied with events in your life, perhaps it will affect your game because your brain is no longer able to give 100% effort in your game as it churns over worries, doubts etc. I have often wondered if great chess players aren't just people who have a very constant emotional state. This could suggest why men are often higher ranked in chess than women as they are naturally less emotional. Of course there are many great female chess players, and many MANY female players who would wipe the floor with me.

I have noticed though, that when I am feeling negative about myself, I tend to lose more often. For example, someone with a "winners" mentality, someone who refuses to be put down in any way, would be more likely to win than someone who thinks: oh well, if I lose, never mind. You see, some people are extremely proud of themselves, and this makes them excellent sports persons. A self-effacing person would be less likely to win in chess than someone who likes to be seen as a champion.

In this respect, perhaps skill in chess comes down to the more primitive abilities than any lofty perceptions of "intelligence." It may in fact just be the instinctive desire to win the "fight" that makes great chess players. Of course people like Kasparov had great minds. Fischer and Tal were both geniuses, but Fischer was, like many geniuses, lacking in other respects. He seemed to lack social skills and ended up making himself into a pariah, rejected by his home country.

The question you need to ask is: What does "smart" really mean? To me, it means knowing how to survive. Great chess players just know how to survive better than the rest of us, on the chessboard that is!

I personally think that IQ is not a good measure of intelligence. All babies are born into this world with a blank slate. They know no chess, no mathematics, no language, etc. They gain those knowledge from learning. Learning creates neural connections. The more neural connections you have, the easier you learn new things. You see resemblance to what you have learned before, and hence you can assimilate new things faster. Mozart was gifted in music because he had learned things that he could use as stepping stones in acquiring his new skills in music. That is why he was "gifted" in music. Now I don't think that IQ test is a good test for this.

Babies learn in the womb as the five senses are available...Is face recognition instinct or is it the first thing you learn...chess function is related to face recognition...And IQ is not a good measure of intelligence!  What!!?   So how is intelligence measured?

Oh Boy, my Hormons are suggesting to bang your Head with a heavy Book about gender essentialism...

If you stare at something long enough, then you'll remember it. If you play any game for years and years, study the game, and think about it all the time, then you'll get pretty good at it. In my view, being good at chess is not what I would call an expression of intelligence. Probably more like an expression of one really enjoying that particular game

Talk about babies learning and neural connections.  Is it not true that some people learn or extract data differently then others.   Child A; standing at crosswalk will learn when lights change to walk across street like mom just did.  Child B; standing at same crosswalk with mom might be wondering about sign placement and who engineered this road in the first place.  Same thing in chess.  Being able to identify how active or well placed pieces are is important, not just keeping score of who is up a knight.  It all depends on the person and the use information gained.  Chess is not for everyone, for a variety of factors.  The memorization required to be really good, ie High Score/Rating in chess takes a bit of the fun out of chess for me.  For some I bet that it is satifactory to no end..  But yea, not being "stoopit" and being emotionaly balanced at time of play probably helps too.