Is chess mostly about intelligence?

Sort:
Avatar of Optimissed

I disagree with your assertion. I thought I'd made that clear, when I answered, that accuracy is not necessary in fast chess but it's completely necessary in IQ tests. I didn't think I had to explain that point. Both fast and slow chess have different demands that are not part of general intelligence but IQ is the best measure of general intelligence that's been devised, although of course it isn't perfect. I assumed you'd tried IQ tests. The answers tend to be "only one is right" whereas chess isn't at all like that. Chess is more of an art form, involving accurate calculation, than a science. I disagree with the pattern recognition claim because, again, patterns would have to be exact rather than general, for that to work in chess.

At least it's possible to have a proper discussion with you so thankyou for that. Not so with the other one and I'm glad you're not like that, more for your own sake than anything else. I really have to work. Thanks for the discussion.

Avatar of 00DanteAleph00

Again...

Supose chess is about intelligence and you compare it as a measure of intelligence as it could be IQ tests or all your definitions of intelligence. According with your tesis, GMs are the smartest persons on the world, ergo Kasparov , Magnus carlser anre the brilliants person in the world. And not tot talk that a peron that is even 100 points elo more than you should ofc more smart than you.

Avatar of Optimissed
00DanteAleph00 wrote:

Again...

Supose chess is about intelligence and you compare it as a measure of intelligence as it could be IQ tests or all your definitions of intelligence. According with your tesis, GMs are the smartest persons on the world, ergo Kasparov , Magnus carlser anre the brilliants person in the world. And not tot talk that a peron that is even 100 points elo more than you should ofc more smart than you.

You're drawing a conclusion that isn't the result of the premises. Chess ability is of course dependent on intelligence in a very general sense. Chess basically consists of a linked series of puzzles of the type measured by IQ tests but the puzzles are open-ended, meaning that they have no right and wrong answers and we play chess according to a style of play we prefer. Although chess ability depends on a general intelligence that is capable of finding good answers to a series of puzzling situations, it's also very dependent on learning and a GMs ability is much more the result of learning or at the very least it depends on learning and ability to solve puzzles. Since you can't measure a person's intelligence by asking them to name all the towns and cities with a population greater than 10,000 in Poland, your hypothesis that your reductio ad absurdum is sound doesn't hold. OK? happy.png

Avatar of Ziryab

Two positions that I've had in games on this site and also that I've seen in the games of Gioachino Greco. White to move in both.
In the first, there is one correct move.

In the second, there are several good moves. Greco's choice is an improvement over what he learned from Giulio Cesare Polerio.

Avatar of Optimissed

In the first my eye is drawn to Qa3 and that's an hypothetical solution I'll check first later.

Avatar of LorddVandheer

Qa3 does seem right, Qb4 falls to extremely annoying c5

Avatar of Optimissed

In the second I want to play Ne5. For instance:
1) Ne5 ...Bxd4
2) Qf3 ... Bxe5
3) Bh5+ ... Bf6
4) Bxf6 and black seems to have no moves
OR
1) Ne5 ...d6
2) Qf3
Seems worse.

Avatar of 00DanteAleph00

It was not even a reductio ad absurdum argument.

It was a contraexample argument.

You said that this game requires intelligence because of your definitions. In that sense at high level it will require more intelligence, it is just induction. An following that idea the better chess player in the world would be the smartest person according with your definitions and your tesis. 2. We know from experience that he is not the best candidate to be the most intelligent person in the world, not even by IQ tests but by general abilities and definitions of intelligence but because The guy is only good at chess.

You also said that Chess puzzles somehow are equivalent to IQ tests the only difference is that this are mostly open. Do you know that you can also be an expert on making iq tests?? just by learning patrons and repetition? The same applies to chess.

That is the reason if you are a psychologist taking an IQ test to a person , It is expected that this person has not done the test before because then he would have an advantage. So The fact that you have played for so long, learned, developed intuition acquired by practice, then it would not count as an analogy to an IQ test either.

A test of intelligence in chess would be that of a person who barely learned the rules and who somehow, by being more intelligent, would beat a chess master. That simply will not happen because this game is not about intelligence, it is about study, memory, practice, experience, repetition and learning patterns. The only intelligent aspect that his game could have is in the fact that if you are smart you would learn it faster.

The more you play it the better you are, no matter if it takes all your life

Avatar of Andrey00x

Its hard to tell. Personally i would say both "yes" and "no". If you play chess you train your brain with logic and move calculation and therefore, in a way, become smarter. But that doesn't mean you are stupid if you didnt play chess before. Its like solving Rubiks cube. If you did you become trained and more adaptive to puzzles but that doesn't make other stupid by not being able to solve it because they may be better in other type of puzzles or have more logic skills etc. So yeah, its kinda both ways...

Avatar of badger_song

The term, intelligence, is very ambiguous; when a key term in an argument is ambiguous, then the argument is typically doomed. In any event, what constitutes intelligence, and how it affects outcomes, is too complex to get agreement. If one were to claim that intelligence ( whatever that actually means) is the key to chess outcomes, then barring any outside influences, the World Champion of Chess,is the most intelligent player of...chess.

Avatar of Chessflyfisher

Yes.