the average player rated 2000 or above? yes, simply because you almost always need a 3 digit iq to get there (not saying its impossible otherwise, but i bet the vast majority do), so basically, you have the average person's iq (about 100) and the chess expert+ population (same distribution or better than the average person but with far fewer of the lower tail
ergo, yes.
If You're A Chess Player, You're Probably Smarter Than Others. Is this, TRUE?


Literally any sport or activity where there is competition requires learning, planning, thinking, analyzing. Chess is no different than any other activity.
Yes, but that's about all there is to chess. No exercise, speed, strength, agility. It's only appeal is to the intellect.
chess has no relationship with intellect
if you're a good chess player, then you likely have decent pattern recognition and memory. playing chess won't make you the smartest in the world, but you will be just a little bit smarter than most people
the average player rated 2000 or above? yes, simply because you almost always need a 3 digit iq to get there (not saying its impossible otherwise, but i bet the vast majority do), so basically, you have the average person's iq (about 100) and the chess expert+ population (same distribution or better than the average person but with far fewer of the lower tail
ergo, yes.
Where is your proof that you need to have a 3 digit iq to get 2000? It seems like something u made up to feel good about yourself
Literally any sport or activity where there is competition requires learning, planning, thinking, analyzing. Chess is no different than any other activity.
Yes, but that's about all there is to chess. No exercise, speed, strength, agility. It's only appeal is to the intellect.
chess has no relationship with intellect
if you're a good chess player, then you likely have decent pattern recognition and memory. playing chess won't make you the smartest in the world, but you will be just a little bit smarter than most people
Again, pattern recognition is a "SKILL" which has nothing to do with intellect. For example, FPS gaming also requires a lot of memorization(you have tons of maps which u have to memorize), you have to guess player' position(just like you have to guess what move the other person would play) and on top of all of this you need good hand eye coordination... So theoretically FPS gamers should be above chess players in IQ...
Point is, chess has exactly 0% relationship with intellect and this is true for every single skill. Football, gaming, checkers etc etc nothing has any relationship with intellect
- Again, pattern recognition is a "SKILL" which has nothing to do with intellect. For example, FPS gaming also requires a lot of memorization(you have tons of maps which u have to memorize), you have to guess player' position(just like you have to guess what move the other person would play) and on top of all of this you need good hand eye coordination... So theoretically FPS gamers should be above chess players in IQ...
- Point is, chess has exactly 0% relationship with intellect and this is true for every single skill. Football, gaming, checkers etc etc nothing has any relationship with intellect
1. General pattern recognition is part of what we call intelligence, while specific pattern improves when you do that specific task. And the correlation is not "playing chess -> getting smarter", it's more "smart people -> easier to be better at chess".
2. Completely wrong, intelligence is ONE of the most important factors to learning any skill and act as a multiplyer, along with emotional stability, motivation and learning methods. Conscientiousness is probably most important which actually gives you the value of the variable "work put in", because 10*0 is still zero. Talent and ability are probably important to get into the top level or be able to perform at all: no matter how much Stephen Hawking wanted he would never be able to play fotball.
So sure, intelligence is not the only important factor for success in any skill but to think it have nothing to do at all is just wrong.
okay, here is some serious answer.
being a succesful chess player is more or less related with intelligence.
lower rated players probably feel inferior and want to deny that fact but remove someones intelligence and try to make him better at chess.. they will not respond appropriately to your teachings without moderate or above level intelligence.
that being said, some says an intelligent person wouldn't waste their time with chess. that much is partially true. a wise person would use their time for more useful things..
but hey, everyone needs a hobby.

Smart people are certainly doing other things than playing chess.
I agree. If most of the high rated chessplayer were that smart, they would get a real business.
You know, maybe they're not all that into exploitation?!
- Again, pattern recognition is a "SKILL" which has nothing to do with intellect. For example, FPS gaming also requires a lot of memorization(you have tons of maps which u have to memorize), you have to guess player' position(just like you have to guess what move the other person would play) and on top of all of this you need good hand eye coordination... So theoretically FPS gamers should be above chess players in IQ...
- Point is, chess has exactly 0% relationship with intellect and this is true for every single skill. Football, gaming, checkers etc etc nothing has any relationship with intellect
1. General pattern recognition is part of what we call intelligence, while specific pattern improves when you do that specific task. And the correlation is not "playing chess -> getting smarter", it's more "smart people -> easier to be better at chess".
2. Completely wrong, intelligence is ONE of the most important factors to learning any skill and act as a multiplyer, along with emotional stability, motivation and learning methods. Conscientiousness is probably most important which actually gives you the value of the variable "work put in", because 10*0 is still zero. Talent and ability are probably important to get into the top level or be able to perform at all: no matter how much Stephen Hawking wanted he would never be able to play fotball.
So sure, intelligence is not the only important factor for success in any skill but to think it have nothing to do at all is just wrong.
Apparently you completely missed my point. I am not debating about if IQ or intelligence is important or not, I am saying that chess requires exactly ZERO intelligence. Your whole statement about how intelligence matters and the stupid video you linked has no significance to what I was saying
Pattern recognition is not intelligence. It's just practice
okay, here is some serious answer.
being a succesful chess player is more or less related with intelligence.
lower rated players probably feel inferior and want to deny that fact but remove someones intelligence and try to make him better at chess.. they will not respond appropriately to your teachings without moderate or above level intelligence.
that being said, some says an intelligent person wouldn't waste their time with chess. that much is partially true. a wise person would use their time for more useful things..
but hey, everyone needs a hobby.
Why do you assume lower rated players feel inferior? Chess it just a completely useless board game, I highly doubt anyone really feels "inferior" to someone else because they didn't pour in 10000 hours into chess lol

okay, here is some serious answer.
being a succesful chess player is more or less related with intelligence.
lower rated players probably feel inferior and want to deny that fact but remove someones intelligence and try to make him better at chess.. they will not respond appropriately to your teachings without moderate or above level intelligence.
that being said, some says an intelligent person wouldn't waste their time with chess. that much is partially true. a wise person would use their time for more useful things..
but hey, everyone needs a hobby.
Why do you assume lower rated players feel inferior? Chess it just a completely useless board game, I highly doubt anyone really feels "inferior" to someone else because they didn't pour in 10000 hours into chess lol
Well said! i feel inferior to no one because of my lowly chess.com stature. I love the game and care about ratings as much as i care about today’s weather. I think THAT makes me smarter than a few others. Is that rain i see, again? Don’t care.
Apparently you completely missed my point. I am not debating about if IQ or intelligence is important or not, I am saying that chess requires exactly ZERO intelligence. Your whole statement about how intelligence matters and the stupid video you linked has no significance to what I was saying
Pattern recognition is not intelligence. It's just practice
Chess not only needs intelligence when you play, memory and pattern recognition are some cognitive process which are part of it, but you also need intelligence to learn how to play chess, see and learn those patterns.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181994/
https://www.britannica.com/science/human-intelligence-psychology
Apparently you completely missed my point. I am not debating about if IQ or intelligence is important or not, I am saying that chess requires exactly ZERO intelligence. Your whole statement about how intelligence matters and the stupid video you linked has no significance to what I was saying
Pattern recognition is not intelligence. It's just practice
Chess not only needs intelligence when you play, memory and pattern recognition are some cognitive process which are part of it, but you also need intelligence to learn how to play chess, see and learn those patterns.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181994/
https://www.britannica.com/science/human-intelligence-psychology
Literally everything u said applies to basically ANY activity which a human does with concentration. There is not a single competitive activity which doesn't require some form of skill, memory and intelligence.
Point is, chess is absolutely no different than any other competitive activity
Literally everything u said applies to basically ANY activity which a human does with concentration. There is not a single competitive activity which doesn't require some form of skill, memory and intelligence.
Point is, chess is absolutely no different than any other competitive activity
Yes, I completely agree with you here. And my point is that, given that everything else is equal, more intelligent person would do better in chess then someone less intelligent. But in real life everything is rearly equal and actuall work put in to a skill is often better then just being smart.
Not necessarily. Many very intelligent people do not play chess and many people who play chess are not particularly smart.
If you ask if an average IQ of chess players is higher than an average IQ of people who do not play chess, then I do not know. You'd need to do a statistical test, which would be a waste of time and money, because who cares