to the OP- something that is often overlooked by people when they think about this subject.
While you may have an above average IQ, it is highly likely that people you are playing do as well. This is also true of good memory, discipline, focus and other favorable traits one might possess that selects for chess strength.
I think not.
our top board at our Club is ELO 2470 and as dumb as a post.
Emotion and psychology are a big part of chess. Tal, Fischer, Kasparov, they had a killing instinct, they went for the throat. There are times when I feel that same spirit, and I play brilliantly. Other times, I am more lackluster, and I lose badly.
Another take : Playing well takes some amount of discipline and the desire and ability to rapidly self-correct one's mistakes. Add some 100-200 serious games a year and you have a good player.
People with high IQs and deductive thinking abilities can exhibit this behavior (I'm sure a lot of them do) but that is never the rule now, is it?
It is a myth that chess requires intelligence or a high IQ. Chess is a board game -- it requires 'aptitude', not intelligence. People on the autism spectrum and people with learning and cognitive disabilities play chess as well as so-called normal folks. Professors and grocers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers all play.... so no particular education is needed.
It's a board game.
Jeez, I don't know about that...while I was winning the chess championship of my high school I was also on the verge of dropping out of it.
I must say the OP's comments amused me greatly. You seem to think that chess itself is some kind of IQ test...come on, be serious. It's a game like any other game (baseball or whathaveyou). And 3 months of play?! That was the best part yet. Listen, 3 months after learning the rules I was still learning the rules!
What exactly does that have to do with intelligence?
It is a myth that chess requires intelligence or a high IQ. Chess is a board game -- it requires 'aptitude', not intelligence. People on the autism spectrum and people with learning and cognitive disabilities play chess as well as so-called normal folks. Professors and grocers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers all play.... so no particular education is needed.
It's a board game.
It's not a myth, but there is no known correlation directly between IQ and chess rating. Gm Levitt postulated what he thought different ratings required in terms of intellect - http://www.jlevitt.dircon.co.uk/iq.htm
but I dont think he has anything but his opinion behind his thoughts.
i have an iq of 131 and i find chess a very enjoyable pastime
people with higher iq levels can learn more easily from their mistakes, therefore they improve and can play better
i have an iq of 131 and i find chess a very enjoyable pastime
people with higher iq levels can learn more easily from their mistakes, therefore they improve and can play better
I find this a bit suspicious. More accurate might be to say that higher IQ absorbs new ideas faster. Learning from one's mistakes is not just intelligence based, one needs humility to accept they might be wrong. Humility is rare company with those of high iq :)
Okay ... based on the above, let me modify my original suggestion =>
Learning from one's mistakes and never making them again => good.
Obsessive compulsive neurotic who wants all things to be at right angles => even better :)
THAT, my dear people, is the key to being a strong chess player :)
Chess is a matter of proactive thinking. Albeit memorization is needed you should also take account of your opponents moves and tactics. So put yourself in your opponents shoes and evoluate the game.
Hey chesslearner.. Are you intelligent? Really!?
if so don't worry a second... It'll just come. You have to adapt to stuff, get experience. I understand all the stuff too, I just don't see it sometimes. You gotta learn how to look at the board... It'll come easier. You'll be beating everyone soon enough then. I forget to look at the lines, forget to include some pieces in my game plan, etc etc etc, because I don't see it, maybe I have to remember myself to look at the baord better, not to be so lazy with my brain. But that's practice, because if you're intelligent, you have the skill, you got to develop it, so just keep on playing, you'll be really good.
Chess is more a game of experience than it is of intelligence, although intelligence helps a little. Much of it is memory and pattern recognition. Being able to think logically helps to a significant degree, but some positions require thinking "outside the box." By that I mean, a best continuation may require a move which at first seems contrary to logic.
This statement seems to match my experience. Not in any way to be boastful...but I'm significantly better than most at logic...and my pattern recognition I would have thought would be quite nice as I'm usually the first to recognize an area or follow intricate directions that I've remembered from long ago. My memory is not astounding but it's still definitely above average...and yet...I suck.
I think chess is about a lot of forms of intelligence and personality coming into bloom all together. The barriers to my success are so easily identified heh...a year later... 1. A disturbing degree of impatience 2. An insecurity that I will always somehow screw up a position so there's no point in exhausting myself with every single possibility on one particular move 3. Some bizarre subconscious belief that if I have to think about it too long...then it's not a sign of my intelligence - nevermind the fact that failure after failure already confirms that I'm not a chess prodigy.
How is that for creepy personality traits you wouldn't even think of as getting in the way of your chess play?
i have an iq of 131 and i find chess a very enjoyable pastime
people with higher iq levels can learn more easily from their mistakes, therefore they improve and can play better
I find this a bit suspicious. More accurate might be to say that higher IQ absorbs new ideas faster. Learning from one's mistakes is not just intelligence based, one needs humility to accept they might be wrong. Humility is rare company with those of high iq :)
thanks for correcting me
i must totally agree with your last statement!!
You don't have to be a genius to epic pwn at chess. Kasparov's iq was around 135 (although his memory was off the charts). But of course it helps.
Do not confuse IQ with intelligence. Richard Feynman was in the 120s and is considered a genius. The same applies to James Watson. IQ is supposed to correlate with the aspects of intelligence most involved in academic achievement, not to measure intelligence directly. It's a predictive tool. It's designed to discover cognitive deficits so that they may be corrected, not to determine high brilliance. Once someone has already established himself as a genius, an IQ test is fairly useless. It's a little like being a lawyer for two decades and then deciding to take a career aptitude test.
Moreover, multiple different IQ tests (professionally administered not the silly online ones) are required for a baseline and they need to be normed similarly. For example, a 130 on the Cattell is not the same as a 130 on the Stanford-Binet or WAIS. A person's culture and background can also muddy matters for all but a few tests like the Raven's Progressive Matrixes. It's complicated to make sense of what an IQ score actually means even within its limited usefulness.
Education comes from the Latin word Educo- To educe/ develope within. Maybe you should learn all facets of chess before you evaluate your game on your intellegence, that just might be the icing on the cake.
Chess players mainly rely on pattern recognition and calculation. Intelligence, i think, only is useful in avoiding blunders. (Its useful in other areas, too, but not especially, which is the point of what im saying)
I read somewhere that IQ isn't the prime factor in chess excellence. There was a study that found that high rated players had all had a high ability in visio-spacial relationships. the can see and recognize patterns. Chess is a game of patterns, mating nets,combinations, etc. the ability to see and recognize a pattern and how it can be used obviously would be of immense help to a chessplayer.
chess requires concentration, not necessarily intelligence ....... but logic is involved with chess