The fact that you claim to know "a hell of a lot" about chess tells me all I need to know. And I'm not misconstruing what you say - you claim that anyone with proper training and work can become a GM, which is utter and absolute BS. The last sentence of my post was a somewhat flip remark that isn't consistent with what I was saying, I admit that - it was expressing annoyance at the fact that people apply labels to things and understate the talent required to earn something that they'll never even attempt to obtain.
Any others with high IQ suck at chess.
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Sacrificing wrote:
The fact that you claim to know "a hell of a lot" about chess tells me all I need to know. And I'm not misconstruing what you say - you claim that anyone with proper training and work can become a GM, which is utter and absolute BS. The last sentence of my post was a somewhat flip remark that isn't consistent with what I was saying, I admit that - it was expressing annoyance at the fact that people apply labels to things and understate the talent required to earn something that they'll never even attempt to obtain.
yeah exactly, keep not responding to anything specific I wrote while throwing barbs. it's your only defense here as I am completely right.
you know what? I could turn Paris Hilton into a grandmaster. lol. under the right conditions. she wouldn't ever be kasparov or carlson, but if she wanted it bad enough, she could obtain the GM title. ok, maybe a little bit of an exaggeration. but not much. point being, "talent" aka extraordinary visual/spatial analysis intelligence is what separates super GMs from GMs. it is not what separates GM from IM or IM from FM or FM from expert or expert from Class A.
Sacrificing wrote:
The fact that you claim to know "a hell of a lot" about chess tells me all I need to know. And I'm not misconstruing what you say - you claim that anyone with proper training and work can become a GM, which is utter and absolute BS. The last sentence of my post was a somewhat flip remark that isn't consistent with what I was saying, I admit that - it was expressing annoyance at the fact that people apply labels to things and understate the talent required to earn something that they'll never even attempt to obtain.
oh yes because I used the phrase "a hell of a lot" and not something pretentious and pseudo-sophisticated means I'm obviously just a know-nothing peasant right?
suck it crumpet eater.
omertatao wrote:
Sacrificing wrote:
The fact that you claim to know "a hell of a lot" about chess tells me all I need to know. And I'm not misconstruing what you say - you claim that anyone with proper training and work can become a GM, which is utter and absolute BS. The last sentence of my post was a somewhat flip remark that isn't consistent with what I was saying, I admit that - it was expressing annoyance at the fact that people apply labels to things and understate the talent required to earn something that they'll never even attempt to obtain.
oh yes because I used the phrase "a hell of a lot" and not something pretentious and pseudo-sophisticated means I'm obviously just a know-nothing peasant right?
suck it crumpet eater.
bro im just trollin. its quite amusing to see how people really got into my comment. I seriously don't care... really... wat is a gm anyways? general motors? I can eventually buy a gm car if a work hard so I see ur point. by the way its suckthis not suck it... dude ur grammar sucks. the word "it" has too much ambiguity and if u do not kno wat "this" is then... i really would like to help but its a bad word. however, i guess ur ratings suggests that people with low iq can get a high rating.
Whats a crumpet eater? wats so bad about eating a griddle cake? iono... i just think u got some issues. Its like me calling u a sushi eater... 0_0 omgsh sorry thats really insulting... didnt realize it.. golly im pretty dumb but maybe one day i can become a transformer and become a gm car...
Well those past dozen posts sure did SUCK. 
P.S. That old horse about IQ and TALENT and (everybody) making GM has been beaten to death SO MANY, MANY TIMES in these forums. Check out the old threads for some history lessons.
Chess players are such a (loving) and eccentric group. Myself included.
Time for the OP to buy at least one more chess book to empirically test our well thought out (and well fought out) theories about how to improve at chess.
Well I just can't let this one go by: " the average person could become a GM ". If a person were to study the games played by GMs, IMs and FMs from top tournaments such as the ones featured in magazines like Chess Life one would see the reality of the situation. I would say that the average person would be Very Very Very lucky to achieve the level of a FM never mind a IM or a GM. I mean lets get real here, these titles have to be earned and if it truly were all that easy we would be overrun by FMs, IMs and GMs lol.
cabadenwurt wrote:
Well I just can't let this one go by: " the average person could become a GM ". If a person were to study the games played by GMs, IMs and FMs from top tournaments such as the ones featured in magazines like Chess Life one would see the reality of the situation. I would say that the average person would be Very Very Very lucky to achieve the level of a FM never mind a IM or a GM. I mean lets get real here, these titles have to be earned and if it truly were all that easy we would be overrun by FMs, IMs and GMs lol.
the average shmuck would be very very lucky who starts out at adulthood to get to expert....let alone FM,NM,IM and all that jazz.I've been busting my butt at this game for 4 years now and don't even have a A-class rating to show for it (and am about 140 IQ)
ivandh wrote:
This site has taught me that there is no correlation between intelligence and chess.
I have to restate ivand. Some of the comments/arguments on this thread are completely absurd.
...
Every 400 rating points in USCF is a qualitative leap in chess performance.
IMO, anyone can make USCF 1600 with a little sweat and a touch of O.C.D. And they can do it in 1-2 years, at most. Otherwise consider taking up bridge instead.
But breaking USCF 2000 or 2200 is a different matter all together.
USCF 1800 presently represents the top 10 percent of active tournament players. 2000 is the top 7 percent. And every rating point above 2000 comes with great effort.
Don't kid yourself. Just because the Polgar sisters did it is NO argument that EVERYONE can somehow become a titled player. Just ain't gonna happen.
Everyone above USCF 1800 is very good with the Black pieces and very good in the endgame. It's a qualitative leap, every 400 points. The average person will only make the leap once or (perhaps) twice. After that, all bets are off whether they can go any higher.
Expert Class (2000-2199) is a more typical endpoint for the average "chess fanatic." Class A would satisfy most people.
If you can play chess at a reasonable strength level (say Class A), and at a reasonable speed (say G/15 through G/60), what's not to like?
That is an interesting assertion. I found a professor on here who seemd to have to be relatively intelligent and have decent spatial reasoning skills to teach philosophy. On the other hand that is subject in and of itself.He wasn't rated so well, around 1000 and had been at it for a while.
For an interesting spin on the discussion, I don't give much creedence to IQ testing. They are subjective. Of course some right answers are obvious, but others are a matter of interpretation and therefore subject to someone's opinion. Aside from that, how are you supposed to truly isolate raw intelligence, versus what we have learned, that is required to express it in the first place?
Hence a 50 year old man would always generally appear to have more raw intelligence than a 5 year old, though it may not be true. I have taken multiple IQ tests, one of which said I was 186. If so it would stand to reason I would be a better chess player, however, I think patience, interest level and memorization ability go along way to actually determining how good you are at chess. You can be really intelligent, but if you have deficiencies in those area, you can really hinder you, not just in chess.
agree
If chessplaying and IQ were truly correlated, we wouldn't keep seeing this idiotic topic being posted here. 
kborg wrote:
Every 400 rating points in USCF is a qualitative leap in chess performance.
IMO, anyone can make USCF 1600 with a little sweat and a touch of O.C.D. And they can do it in 1-2 years, at most. Otherwise consider taking up bridge instead.
But breaking USCF 2000 or 2200 is a different matter all together.
USCF 1800 presently represents the top 10 percent of active tournament players. 2000 is the top 7 percent. And every rating point above 2000 comes with great effort.
Don't kid yourself. Just because the Polgar sister did it is no argument that EVERYONE can somehow become a titled player. Just ain't gonna happen.
Everyone above USCF 1800 is very good with the Black pieces and very good in the endgame. It's a qualitative leap, every 400 points. The average person will only make the leap once or (perhaps) twice. After that, all bets are off whether they can go any higher.
Expert Class (2000-2199) is a more typical endpoint for the average "chess fanatic." Class A would satisfy most people.
If you can play chess at a reasonable strength level (say Class A), and at a reasonable speed (say G/15 through G/60), what's not to like?
At most? Ouch, guess I was riding the short bus for quite a long time.
AndyClifton wrote:
If chessplaying and IQ were truly correlated, we wouldn't keep seeing this idiotic topic being posted here.
waffllemaster wrote:
kborg wrote:
IMO, anyone can make USCF 1600 with a little sweat and a touch of O.C.D. And they can do it in 1-2 years, at most. Otherwise consider taking up bridge instead.
At most? Ouch, guess I was riding the short bus for quite a long time.
lol...well, once again we seem to have run into one of those arbitrary "The Level Which Any Reasonably Intelligent Person Can Be Expected To Achieve" statements.
I thought these questions had been settled a long time ago:
Reasonably intelligent person: 1800
Unreasonably intelligent person: 1700
Reasonably unintelligent person: 1500 (I've maxed out my talent - hurray!!)
Unreasonably unintelligent person: 1400
ciljettu wrote:
Although it might not be pc to admit it, yes, there certainly is a correlation between IQ and chess strength.
There is a correlation between IQ and doing anything well. This ain't exactly rocket science. And btw you're hardly likely to find anybody less PC than I am (to me that acronym still, and always, refers only to computers).
Huskie99 wrote:
I thought these questions had been settled a long time ago:
Reasonably intelligent person: 1800
Unreasonably intelligent person: 1700
Reasonably unintelligent person: 1500 (I've maxed out my talent - hurray!!)
Unreasonably unintelligent person: 1400
I just hope we're not talking USCF ratings...
omertatao, spend some time working with an "average" GM and see just how wrong you are. Or, better yet, talk to an IM or an FM about how any average Joe could make GM if they cared. Ignorance isn't really an excuse for what you're saying as knowing nothing about a field doesn't give you right of way to disparage it. My only suggestion to you is to become a GM and then tell everyone else how easy it is.
"Ignorance isn't really an excuse for what you're saying as knowing nothing about a field doesn't give you right of way to disparage it"
and what the hell are you talking about here? I am not "disparaging" anything. and if the "field" is chess, I do know a hell of a lot about it.
WHATEVER