IQ versus Chess Rating

I'm a 27 year old male with an IQ of about 120, yet no matter what, I can't seem to get past the same dumb 1100 or so rating I've been stuck at for what seems like months, possibly a year. I got so frustrated I quit the game, but have recently considered taking it up again if it's possible for me to improve. I've tried playing many games, both against players and engines, reviewing them, and even doing tactics puzzles, but no matter what, I'm still stagnant at around 1100.

My question is I guess twofold. One, does IQ and Chess Rating have any relationship whatsoever? I've heard the argument that intelligence doesn't necessarily play a role in good chess, meanwhile, Fischer and Kasparov both had about 180 and 190 genius level IQs respectively. And two, how can I improve my own game, or have I simply reached a wall I can never get over?

Oh, and before anyone asks, I don't play on this account. Thanks in advance! =P

Those are just stories.  You can find another thread on here showing Kasparov at 135 IQ, which would be gratifying at 3 points less than me ;)...but I know better than to believe any of the IQ numbers flying around for world champs.

A few things. First off the Fischer and Kasparov IQs were likely measured on an old scale which had higher values. A more modern measurement of Kasaprovs IQ showed it to be 135.

Chess and IQ have almost no relation to each other. A few years back I measured at about 129 and im still sub 2000.

Just keep at it and you'll improve.

waaaaay less than some (most?) people would like to think

Well, I'm not a good player at all, am sure many better players can be far more helpful, but for what it's worth I tend to learn in jumps rather than gradually and a few things helped me:

I/ 15 minute games work best for me for learning – especially position. 

At our level, we don’t tend to play with any more depth, but we do get bored, so it’s counter productive. And while blitz is great fun, you don't really get to improve your thinking, you’re your responses.

Blitz is however very good for getting to know openings and playing out ideas over and over again to tweak them against our level of players.

II/ Play people a bit better than you - but not a lot better.

(if youre rated 1200 don’t play 1800+ rated players they’re a really big step up from us). Play those around 100 points better most often, Don’t bother playing anyone with a lower rating until you feel improved.

I love playing 2000+ rated people, but they are way too good for me to understand why I lose. If I do win, it’s only because they are multitasking or have bandwidth problem so it’s pointless.  Someone a bit higher than me will be tactically better, or have better position, or better strategy than me but I can recognise why they are better if I’m honest so is better and develop.

III/Try not to be judgmental on why people beat you. 

I lose to people for many reasons but when I lose 2 in a row then there is something they have that I am not dealing with.  If they always win even just by promoting one pawn quicker than me, then they are better than me and I need to find out why.  When I feel hard done by (and I do) then I don’t learn, and I don’t get better.

IV/ Tactics trainers are good fun, but not good for learning if you don’t pay attention to why each move is successful. 

Personally, I don’t invest the time, so they don’t help me get better at all – I prefer to learn from people. 

V/ Computer programmes are great for working out an opening and end games.

     (A similar thing is to review the openings of great players       

     http://www.chessgames.com/)  

This doesn't help my tactical propsects in general, until I can think in an equally sophisticated a manner – which I can’t.  But I dont have to understand everything to benefit from it's being good.

I used computers to getting familiar with some basic variations on openings that fit my personality/styles best, and to avoid making bad moves – For this big programmes like Fritz are superb. This is really important to help you get started in each game. Assuming decent comprehension of basic tactics, a good opening repertoire and key transitions (for around 10 moves) for Black and white, and knowledge of basic end games should get you above 1400 in about 50-100 games time.  

Just my thinking - for our level, Queens Pawn for White is better, because it's easier to follow the basics, and harder to get into open quickly. Think CaroKann is pretty solid for black.

VI/.

Then online video strategy and tactics guides are brilliant ways to jump start your basic game.  I really liked Josh Waitzkins one – he’s class. But actually Chess.com’s probably is really similar.

VII/ Finally procedure:

So one thing could be: I go to a very good programme, play the opposite colour of the colour opening I’d like to learn, and learn the basics of the opening. I see where the key moves are, get an idea of the major opportunities and weaknesses.

Once I have that I go play 10 blitz games with it – against people about 50 points better than me.

I lose.

Then I lose more but start to adjust the opening very slightly. Then I don’t lose so much. eventually I win a few. After 6-10 games.

Then I go play 2-3 15 minute games. After that I get a much better perspective of the positioning, and how that helps.

Then shower rinse repeat as needed.

VII/ Oh finally, Don’t worry if you lose to any player at any rating.

For me the easiest way to do this was that I created an account to learn with. I go into each game fine with losing, points are no issue, I just want to learn. It’s amazing how much better you can play without putting your own pressures on yourself and allowing yourself the luxury of losing.  Turn chat off if it helps to block out the few assholes out there.   

And remember, for whatever reason lots of low rating players can somehow suddenly play with the same depth as Fritz. Some are great players just starting, some miraculously find the capacity to channel new depths.  Neither matter to us, we just learn.

read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Spearman

IQ level affects only to the g-factor (general intelligence)

to play well, you need a "special" knowledge of chess, try to visit any chess school.

for example, I also have a good level IQ, but I can not jump over 1500 in  blitz & 1400 in bullet, because I have not appropriate chess knowledge.

Thanks for the speedy and informative replies, particularly alittlegameatwork. Unfortunately, everything suggested here so far I've tried and it's failed to raise my rating. As far as playing players higher rated than myself, I feel that gives a false impression of ones actual rating. When I used to play, I'd keep the default -200 +200 rating range intact so's not to discriminate, and plenty times I'd lose to a 950 and win against a 1250. And I don't have the money for a chess school. =P

It is a movie, it is fiction. There was never a chess grandmaster Luzhin nor was he ever - obviously - world chess champion. The movie was loosely based on the life of von Bardeleben. That man was a very good chess player indeed, but is especially remembered for his role in a fantastic game of Steinitz.

haha, yeah nor me. The Josh Waitzkin was was online - can just youtube it. He's cracking really worth investing the time (but not money).

When I'm learning, I don't play anyone at all below my rating, not ever. We can give back to the chess community after we improve, but not during. 

Let me be blunt then for the sake of clarity and please forgive me for being a bit rude.  Some people are new others are sneaky and others again cheat - plenty cheat at the lower levels, far less in the middle.  

BUT neither experts starting a new account nor cheaters typically play people with a lower rating than they have.   They'll both be drawn to players with higher rankings than them.  I can tell you it's definitely much easier to keep a 1600 rating than a 1400 rating on blitz here.  Why? maybe because experts and cheaters alike will sail past the 1600 - you may get the occaisional but they'll likely be in transition.  New experts will come in and they'll have to start at the bottom.  Crap players who use a prog sometimes and sometimes not, will be stuck in the lower levels because on their own they are useless, or they will sail up to the higher ground.  It was the same on Yahoo chess, and all other popular game sites.  1200-1500 full of ups and downs.  Once your at 1600 its far more stable.

Would you be interested in playing a few games together? I'm not good at all but can give you my honest feedback.

There have been sooooo many threads on this before.

And they all basically boil down to the same thing. IQ measures how good you are at doing intelligence tests. ELO measures how good you are at playing chess. If you want to improve at chess, you're better off practising playing chess than practising intelligence tests.

Diawn! you're totally right. Look at Fischer, incredible strategy on the board and zero sense off it.

But surely there is SOME correlation between the two, no? I've never known of a moronic chess player (besides myself), and this is even evident in the way people post on this website, with the vast majority of people having good spelling and grammar ability. And to alittlegameatwork, 1600 is WAY out of my league, let alone your 1755! I'd play you, but I'm sure you'd just trounce me in seconds.

I mean we don't have to play for competition, just to go through options on the game and we see where we can both improve the most easilyand quickly - if it's tactics, position, gameplan etc. Can do unrated so it's totally no pressure.

Jonathan Levitt has tried  to find a correlation between IQ and ELO

http://www.jlevitt.dircon.co.uk/iq.htm

The books "Genius in Chess" and "Secrets of spectactular Chess"

are very entertaining.

I did a bit of research (i.e. google-style research, not real, laboratory,orignial research) on this topic a while back.

What I took away from it is that there is not much correlation between IQ and Chess playing ability.  Chess seems to be about pattern recognition.  Everyone says that, but it was still confusing to me.  IQ tests measure pattern recognition, so there ought to be at least some correlation.  At least, so it seemed to me.

It turns out that the sort of pattern recognition measured in IQ tests isn't the same sort of pattern recognition needed for Chess.  An IQ test might show you a set of numbers and ask you what's the next one in sequence, like  1,4,9,16...what's next?  That's more like pattern analysis and discovery than actual "recognition".

As best the research shows, the sort of pattern recognition that makes someone a good Chess player is closely related to such abilities as recognizing faces.  It's more of an instant recall, recognizing that this pattern of pieces is similar or identical to a previously seen pattern.  Once you recognize the pattern, you remember the right thing to do with that pattern.

So to become a good Chess player, you first have to have an innate ability to recognize complex patterns, which ability is not measured on IQ tests.  Then, you have to expose yourself to a lot of those patterns, i.e. play lots of Chess and study.

ETA:  And there does appear to be a weak correlation between IQ and Chess, but it is quite weak.  The best Chess players do tend to be pretty smart, but there's hardly a direct correspondence.  Certainly, there are lots and lots of people who are very smart, work hard, and never get very good at Chess, while there are plenty of grandmasters and Chess prodigies who are of above average intelligence, but not geniuses (as measured by IQ tests).

25

Interesting. 

That answers a lot of questions. 

Do you intend to say that grammar and spelling mistakes (which I'd gladly call 'E-factor' in the text that follows) mean the one on the other end has minimal or no sense of chess, or in simple words, tends to have a MUCH lower rating than the average player? 

I deny. Sorry, but I deny this statement entirely. 

By bringing the E-factor in, you are actually making one's chess playing skills rely on a completely irrelevant base that simply depends on how far and much that individual has learned that language. And this absolutely does not aid pattern recognition, logical thinking or calculative speed. 

So your E-factor here is nothing but one's external personality, approach and communicative capabilities among people of diverse origins of language that I believe is not concerned with thinking skills in any way. 

If I recall correctly, the correlation was in fact weak enough to be all but explainable-away by social bias.  Which is only to say that kids smart enough to excel in their early schoolwork are far more likely to be steered toward chess as a recreational activity than are those who struggle with their lessons early on.  And adults who pick the game up later on tend to be fairly smart adults, because chess is a thing "smart people do."

Which means that the correlation between success in chess and intelligence isn't significantly different from the correlation between any experience in chess and intelligence.