Is Chess Genetic ??

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Avatar of aflfooty

If it is  I must have skipped a generation.............Wink

Avatar of gambitattax

Don't think so.

Avatar of arkansasgrl101

trust me if it were genetic id be a pro.

~jj con

Avatar of ajttja

no. period.

Avatar of InsanePlayer99

ajttja, how could you be so sure? Nothing's proven till it is.

Avatar of chuckfloyd2011

Well, partially for sure. Partially, environmental as well.  For example, a tree can't play chess as far as we know, and it's because a tree's gnome doesn't include the necessary genes. But environment would be key. If one was raised in a chess environment their genetic potential would be more likely to be reached.

Avatar of Knightberry

People with autistic tendencies or eidetic memory have a gigantic advantage over regular people, if only they were interested in chess (most are not).

An autistic person could in theory even devote his life to memorizing all the possible openings and variations in random 960 chess and crush any opponents. It wouldn't be an extraordinary feat;

There are some autists who can even recall an exact landscape they havepreviously seen and draw it building by building with minute details.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223790/Autistic-artist-draws-18ft-picture-New-York-skyline-memory.html

To answer OP, there is no gene that magically makes you a good chess player. Neither does being a savant or having eidetic/photographic memory, but it would certainly help since your capacity for memorizing things would be exponentially higher than that of a regular person.

Avatar of aflfooty

The author of a new book says genetics rather than chess lessons have a bigger effect on success.  Bryan Caplan an Economics Professor at George Mason University in Virginia studied identical twins and based his findings on twins who shared the same genes but were seperated at birth and brought up by different families.

Conclusion:

"Kids literally inherit educational and financial success from their parents."

Avatar of manerer

Well Magnus Carlsen can play over 20 games at the same time without seeing the bord. I think this is really near to autistic tendencies. Also you have to keep in mind that only a really small part of autistic kids are that genious. Most of them has the potential but never use it.

Avatar of MuhammadAreez10

If chess was really genetic, then how could I've learned it?

Avatar of aman_makhija

What rubbish.....NO!!

Avatar of aflfooty

In the case of say one in ten Autistic persons who show savant syndrome  directing their energies towards chess it would be interesting to see if this gene variation would allow chess mastery...........Much of chess is memorising move variations which they would excel in.

Avatar of SaintGermain32105

Yeah, which they would wtih Excel in. I got to 2200 without memorizing a single page. Must have been all drunk. My genes are of a German Spitz, dominant black with the liver gene (bb), which has turned its solid black coat into brown, and the Greyhound and Weimaraner with the dilution gene (dd) added on top, making them blue. In the dog world it is possible to be genetically black without actually being black!

Avatar of JuergenWerner

Would be cool if an autistic person with savant would destroy all chess engines most of the time as if the chess engines are patzers while their performance ratings are 2800+

Avatar of u0110001101101000

An autistic person may have a good memory or special skill, but having a good memory or special skill doesn't make you autistic.

Also, knowing all the openings wouldn't make you a good player.