Does chess have anything to do with math?

Hey its will_n! The thirteen year old that beat Stockfish 8 handily. What are you up to kid?

I would guess that there is some correlation between math skill and chess skill, but there are a lot of differences. In chess, it is pretty essential to be able to work out complicated things in one's head. In math, it usually is not a big deal if one chooses to do some scribbling on a piece of paper. In math, the big deal is to be able to prove things. In chess, very little is proved.

My knowledge of physics is pretty close to the amateur level, but I am pretty sure that it is like math in that the big deal is to come up with publishable stuff. In chess, publishing is largely something that one does for the extra income. All three fields place some value on discipline in one's thinking and enthusiasm for exploring the unknown.

"In math, it usually is not a big deal if one chooses to do some scribbling on a piece of paper."

Those of us who began our serious math educations before electronic calculators became common see a major big deal in being able to do things in our heads. I can't tell you how many gifted students I've taught in chemistry and physics who have divided a small number by a large number, made a mistake in entering the data, then it didn't automatically occur to them the answer must be wrong because their answer is larger than one - they just routinely accept what the calculator says.

Additionally, there will be store signs that say "30 cents each, 3 for $1" where you see people scooping up three items, not realizing they're paying 33 1/3 cents each.

When I do my personal budget and divide a grocery receipt into groceries (healthy), snacks, and beverages, it speeds things up that I can divide up the items in my head, including the tax.

I think chess skills correlate better with skills in the Geometry branch of math than with the more abstract stuff, because chess is a practical/visual game.....when they wired people playing chess to MRI the part of the brain in use was indicated to be principally the creative part and not the logical/analytic part...also some of the best players I know are good at art.....and one told me that math was his worst subject!

Sure chess has something to do with math. There's the 50-move rule and the three-position repetition rule.

Chess is based on logic, which is also the base for mathmatics.

That being said, the calculations chess players do have little to do with math. Unless you're applying numbers to calculate a material advantage I guess.

it's a connection between the two math is it both used math is in chess 

The thing is, you aren't really talking about the math world. You are talking about math as used by chemistry students and math in everyday life. That is substantially different from what is seen to be of value in a mathematician.

That is not a skill that makes one a top mathematician. Publishing is what counts and there is not much concern with how much paper was used to arrive at the published result. Even in a lowly math class, one generally is allowed to use paper as much as one wants.

The high school geometry class is pretty distant from what a math professor does, but even high school geometry (with a focus on proofs) is already far removed from chess-style thinking. About 2 days ago, in another thread, I brought up the position resulting from 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 h4 g4 5 Ne5 Nf6 6 d4 d6 7 Nd3 Nxe4 8 Qe2 Qe7 9 Bxf4 Nc6 10 c3 Bf5 11 Nd2 O-O-O 12 O-O-O Re8 13 d5. I am unable to think of anything in geometry that is comparable to thinking through that position. Can anyone think of anything in chess that is much like proving the a^2 + b^2 = c^2 thing in geometry?

There seems to be a vivid similarity between the two but I can't make it out for some reason.

Below is a short paper of note

Fischer dropped out of high school. Does that say any more?