Interesting question.
I think it depends on who you are and what age you are as to whether a or b applies. People learn quickest when they are very young and that ability to learn becomes less as you get older. For that reason I think that as a child you can learn a lot from Chess that you will be able to find useful in future for all things.
Most of the kids that I have seen playing Chess are pretty intelligent. I can't say for sure if that is as a result of Chess or that they end up playing Chess as a result of being intelligent in the first place, I suspect a bit of both. In any event I do believe the Chess does improve their mental capacity in memory, patience, concentration, respect and discipline. Chess is to the mind what martial arts are to the physical being imo.
On the other side of the coin, if you are much older and try to learn how to play Chess then you will find it much more difficult in general to ever be very strong and by the same logic, you will probably not benefit much in other ways either.
Like anything there are exceptions to the rule but in this scenario they are few and far between imo.
A
Greetings Comrades.
An old mate of mine challenged me to a game of chess the other day. Being a man whose strength can be gleaned from the statement: “Well, I know the rules…” it was a fairly one-sided affair – to the point of being almost meaningless (I’m sure you’ve all been there – “Uhm, sorry mate, but move that pawn and I can take your Queen… You have to, uhm, try and get out of check… No, putting your King there means it’s in check from the Bishop…” etc). After about nine moves, the game was over, at which point my mate was gushing in his praise at how good I was. Feeling like this was extremely untrue, I tried to point out that I am a weak player, second-string club standard at best, I’ve just played a lot more. He was, however, having none of it. To my surprise, the conversation got a little heated. He just could not seem to come to terms with the fact that the only reason I beat him was because I had practiced more. I have little or no real talent and I have average intelligence. To him, I was a mental genius and a master logician. I used the analogy of music – a helpful one to describe chess strength to a non player. If we both played the guitar to the same standard we play chess, he would know little more than plucking the strings would make note, whereas I could strum a few tunes.
Anyway, it all got me thinking. I once heard Martin Amis say: “Being good at chess proves nothing other than that you are good at chess”. There seems to be a tendency amongst the chess community to imbue the game with more meaning than it might warrant. I can think of no situation where me having played chess for a few years in any way aided me in my everyday life, yet it is advocated as an excellent mental trainer, an improver of intelligence, and some even think it should be taught in schools. I may be wrong, though, and I am willing to accept that its benefits may be more subconscious than I realise.
So, is chess:
a) A self-contained pastime where improving only affects how you play chess? or:
b) An intelligence and cognitive ability improver that has positive benefits to the rest of life?
Answers on a postcard.
ED.