^ I am left-handed. Should I take offense to what you just posted?
Relationship between Chess rating and I.Q?
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I don't know you could, I know I did. Then I got over it because I really didn't understand at that time, and I am still kinda lost on it
That makes two of us.
FYI, lefties make the world go around.
Southpaw Rules
I, also have an IQ which would indicate a much better strength than my current chess rating, and am left handed.
maybe it is a left handed thing that does this
Based on the formula, an individual with an IQ of 20 (severe mental retardation - it is said that with much effort an individual with this IQ may be able to learn basic life skills) is able to achieve a rating of 1200. That seems to dismiss the validity of the formula, for me atleast.
It is important to note that the original post attempted to relate IQ to chess rating POTENTIAL.
If there is a formula that relates IQ and chess rating... it's a complex one! This is comparing two different distributions of IQ and rating, which involved are many factors (genetic, environment, etc.) making these distributions multivariate. To prove statistically significant for some kind of correlation you would need a very large sample size.
There was a very interesting program on the Discovery channel just about a week ago that tackled this subject. A chessmaster, an engineer, a novelist, an artist, and a few others were put through a number of unusual tests of their brains. It turned out that the mental challenges were very different than traditional IQ test challenges and the results suggested that future IQ tests should test for a much broader range of mental abilities. While all the subjects scored well, some were much more capable one way than another. The variability of it was quite surprising.
In the end, the engineer and the artist shared top honors. The chessmaster was (I think) a distant third.
I can't help but think that there must be some causal relationship between intelligence and chess playing ability - or perhaps we should say potential chess playing ability. As with anything, we all get better with study and practice.
We all must earn some points for having chosen to play such a wonderful game.
To 9ofjoker...Levitt [the author of 'Genius in Chess' & creator of the 'formula'] assumes people with I.Q > 100...but there was always the risk that some smart-arse was going to point out the 'flaw' in the simple equation I provided :-)
I've heard about the program referred to by FossilRabbit and found that the chessmaster was an unusual one...one of the Polgar sisters...who arrived at the GM level through intense-indoctrination from an early age. I think it was Susan? I wonder if the other competitors were top in their field? I'd love to see the program just to see if the tasks asked of the members demand a broad education and experience of the 'material world' [such as mechanical understanding] or not? Also, what of the ages of the competitors etc. Yes I'm pissed off that we didn't win :-)
There is no real possible way as intelligence has nothing that can be compared to except for people who where exceptionally intelligent, or outright stupid, and a little test isn't going to prove anything
what about luck. Sometimes you get lucky and the other player makes a mistake. How can you put a variable on luck? But in that case you would have to use the other player as a variable which would ultimately lead to a never ending equation with no answer.
luck, also known as chance, can only get so far, but as you pointed out will turn out to be an unending equation because of all the possible outcomes
well not just all the possible outcomes but you would have to compare every player to every one of their opponents. But even if you did get to the end of that by the miracle of god, the answer would be so biased based on that luck or "chance" that no correlation would ever exist.
it is like playing poker what is the chance that you will get a full house, or all kings. it is over 1,000% last that I recall
So I encountered this topic again on the main page... and I pondered: What are the units of chess rating and IQ score? Furthermore, how can they be compared?
there used to be this guy at my school, he was the best chees player in that region, but he only got an OP6, you'd expect something higer than that if you had a rating in the 1900ish area, so that obviously proves it wrong.
There seems to be much discourse about IQ not relating to ability at chess. However, this is not true. In the social sciences, and psychology, the field to which this discussion pertains, there are no absolutes. If a simple majority display a trait or behaviour it is accepted as generally true, while not universally.
IQ, as has been prior to this post expounded, is not an accurate means of discerning intelligence. It is simply not something quantifiable through tests of kind that are typical in the realm of IQ. IQ, strictly, is a measure of an individual's ability to recognize patterns, and this is quite helpful in chess. That doesn't mean that a brilliant mind, in an quantitive definition (i.e., according to IQ tests) will always be good at chess, and that one who is simply average according to our faulty system of measurement will not surpass their putative potential. Yet by far there is a correlation between ability and potential and IQ, simply because one can more aptly recognize patterns. This has no effect on acutal intelligence in the least.
Anyways, any attempt to force into an equation enormous variations in genetic and environmental factors, utilizing an already fallacious system, will undoubtedly be met by failure. Ah, those crafty mathematicians tryong to encroach upon the field of social sciences. As seen by the debunked mathematical theories on linguistics, this never accurately portrays anything in the world of individual variation as there are no absolutes.
PMContest! Indeed :-) So what is chess? What is any competition/exam/sport etc? In answer to Kasparov v Einstein I cannot say. Bobby Fischer was tested in school and went off the scale at 184. I'm getting the impression that smart people [like boring309] who are not particularly strong players try to belittle those who play at a level they simply don't appreciate. This is another quirk of human nature that interests me...i.e that 'clever' people who are not 'clever' at some particular activity such as chess [in spite of years of practice] feel a need to demean 'skill at chess'.
Why is this so? For those who have high I.Q's [like old redsox] but not so high chess ratings it is my observation that such people are usually convergent thinkers who are not good at the lateral thinking that is often required to play high level chess. Sure, chess relies on pattern recognition & visualisation to play sound tactics, but positional understanding and particularly reasoning become super-important in less tactical positions. I have a few friends in the same box as redsox...very smart but ratings < 1600! I hope I haven't offended anyone...I'm just interested in other players' perception of chess skill etc
No offense, this was about the same thing I was told when I asked a Phsycologist what it meant to be left handed