Of course I've noticed that this forum seriously harms at least the linguistic abilities, as half the people here are convinced that you "loose" a game.
That's it, have fun at the expense of we poor loosers. 
Can an average person ever break 2000?
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paradoxically people who suck at spelling and grammer contribute more colour and consternation and more new words and novel expressions to the language than smart people ever will
There's no fairy tale that Einstein was bad at maths, he was extremely capable. What is true is that he wasn't a mathematical genius as people might imagine he was, his formulation of special relativity algrebraically was convoluted to say the least - it required Einstein's former maths teacher, Hermann Minkowski, to reformulate the theory the way everyone knows it today, geometrically.
I'd never heard of this theory of multiple intelligences. I don't think it's quite the same as what I think, but maybe to an extent.
If two twins start their chess careers on the same day and practise the exact same amount for 5 years, then one of them is 500 points higher rated than the other - all that says to me is that one of them is better at chess. Sure, from that we can suppose one of them has better problem solving skills, spatial awareness, pattern recognition, memory etc.. or maybe one of them just enjoys their time studying chess more. What I am unwilling to accept is that this particular skill set is the definition of what we call intelligence, or is even an indicator of it. Why these? football players need these skills and different ones to boot - is skill at football an indicator of intelligence?
Ultimately we can probably discuss this forever while our understanding of the mind is so minimal. To me it just seems that chess attracts people who think they are intelligent, more than people who are actually intelligent... but mainly it attracts people who like playing chess.
I can understand the idea of different types of intellegence. Geometry and math in general was a subject that for me required little to no study in school. English and writing not so much. I am forever mystified by those who play a musical instriment or paint/draw and are artistic. Simply put I do not express well if at all through the use of my hands.
What I like about chess is that it is possible to validate your thinking. Moves are either correct or they are not. Same things with investing. You put a ton of mental energy into something and its nice to see when what you thought to be true or correct, actually is.
As for the subject of those that think they are intellegent and so must be good at chess, never like beating someone more then the person who is visibly diconcerted at a loss.
The question "Can the average person break 2000?" is so ill-defined. Of course there are multiple intelligences, and people vary a lot in what types of activities they favor. Some people's development leans towards visual perception and visual activities, while others favor sound or motion. Most chess players don't tend to like cooking much, so an average cook might never break a 2000 chess rating (chess.com or USCF or FIDE or what?)
There is a lot of comments about this same subject in this link: http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/relationship-bewteen-chess-rating-and-iq here which could also be interesting.
madhacker wrote:
Tmb86 wrote:
The only trend I've noticed is that chess players tend to think of themselves as more intelligent than non-chess players.
Usually this is only weak chess players
Why would a weak player think that, knowing that being weak, you can't really call yourself a chess player at all? I don't refer to myself as one.
Dec 23, 2012
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#232
Seraphimity wrote:
i see we are 1/1/0 care for a tie break?
sure but your nipples might poke my eye out.
Dec 23, 2012
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#233
ilikeflags wrote:
Seraphimity wrote:
i see we are 1/1/0 care for a tie break?
sure but your nipples might poke my eye out.
Did you put it on your list, for Santa?
ilikeflags wrote:
Seraphimity wrote:
i see we are 1/1/0 care for a tie break?
sure but your nipples might poke my eye out.
wear safety goggles. chess is a sport and we wouldn't want you getting hurt.
xanthippes wrote:
check out BBC documentaries Horizon IQ tested 6 different people I'm sure one of them was a grandmaster at chess, What was interesting was how each persons school, collage and profession had a marked effect on how well they scored in the test
What did their collages look like? Were they the kiddy kind, cut outs from trashy magazines pasted on paper, or maybe the dippy hippy kind with tufts of wool and pieces of shells added into the construction?
When I'm hiring, people who can't spell common words correctly are excluded without the need for an interview. When I'm reading, their opinions are discounted according to the frequency of errors, and, importantly, the reproducibility of any particular error. A word consistently misspelt can be corrected, but random variations is evidence of stupidity
USCF had an article about that sort of thing in their magazine not too terribly long ago (a few years ago). There were zero sum games and some other kind (where you theoretically should be able to reason out the best action each turn).
The IMs and masters didn't do any better than the average person. The GMs, on average, did a little worse (although so little it was statistically meaningless, but still funny to point out).
I've always thought chess is a highly specialized skill. High intelligence may make you better at it for the first few weeks, so you get a starting rating of 950 instead of 800, congrats :p
astronomer999 wrote:
xanthippes wrote:
check out BBC documentaries Horizon IQ tested 6 different people I'm sure one of them was a grandmaster at chess, What was interesting was how each persons school, collage and profession had a marked effect on how well they scored in the test
What did their collages look like? Were they the kiddy kind, cut outs from trashy magazines pasted on paper, or maybe the dippy hippy kind with tufts of wool and pieces of shells added into the construction?
When I'm hiring, people who can't spell common words correctly are excluded without the need for an interview. When I'm reading, their opinions are discounted according to the frequency of errors, and, importantly, the reproducibility of any particular error. A word consistently misspelt can be corrected, but random variations is evidence of stupidity
I read that spelling isn't a measure of IQ either.
waffllemaster wrote:
USCF had an article about that sort of thing in their magazine not too terribly long ago (a few years ago). There were zero sum games and some other kind (where you theoretically should be able to reason out the best action each turn).
The IMs and masters didn't do any better than the average person. The GMs, on average, did a little worse (although so little it was statistically meaningless, but still funny to point out).
I've always thought chess is a highly specialized skill. High intelligence may make you better at it for the first few weeks, so you get a starting rating of 950 instead of 800, congrats :p
That's interesting, Wafflemaster. I had a quick look for the article but couldn't find it. Did find a few other snippets from chess.com, and some kind of study by Oxford University:
http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/642/1/Does%20Chess%20Need%20Intelligence-revision-finalINT.pdf
http://www.chess.com/news/-misconceptions-about-chess-players
http://blog.chess.com/sonofpearl/chess-and-intelligence
Dec 23, 2012
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#239
Conflagration_Planet wrote:
astronomer999 wrote:
xanthippes wrote:
check out BBC documentaries Horizon IQ tested 6 different people I'm sure one of them was a grandmaster at chess, What was interesting was how each persons school, collage and profession had a marked effect on how well they scored in the test
What did their collages look like? Were they the kiddy kind, cut outs from trashy magazines pasted on paper, or maybe the dippy hippy kind with tufts of wool and pieces of shells added into the construction?
When I'm hiring, people who can't spell common words correctly are excluded without the need for an interview. When I'm reading, their opinions are discounted according to the frequency of errors, and, importantly, the reproducibility of any particular error. A word consistently misspelt can be corrected, but random variations is evidence of stupidity
I read that spelling isn't a measure of IQ either.
Spelling is genetic, whereas IQ ...
Oh, never mind.
Tmb86,
you make interesting points but I maintain my opinion.
You probably refer to the theory of multiple intelligences, but mainstream psychology has found a really high correlation between the different aspects of intelligence. If you're good at math chances are you're also good at understanding people. If you have good spacial intelligence chances are you're also good in the linguistic department. Sure you might prefer one over the other so you go to study engineering instead of law but the bottom line is simply that your brain is better than others'. Up to you if you want to use your intelligence for chess.
Let me tell you, I believe there's just too much political correctness regarding intelligence. People seem to get easily offended or feeling the need to prove something. Thus the political correctness tells the child that is not good at math that he will be good at language or some other thing, and viceversa. They invented the fairy tale that even Einstein was bad at math, no doubt to give some sense of hope to the "mathematically challenged".
Now, with the same organ that you use to learn 2 + 2 and then equations and then inequation etc., with that same organ you learn about chess. You understand concepts, you memorize things, you learn patterns. If you think there's no correlation between being good at chess and intelligence, then you'll have to admit there's no correlation between intelligence and being good at anything else - at which point you have to ask yourself what do you think intelligence really means.
Of course I've noticed that this forum seriously harms at least the linguistic abilities, as half the people here are convinced that you "loose" a game.