Should you be good at maths if you are good at chess?

But does an average Joe have any correlation? For someone who is decent at chess, let's say an 1800.

You can be good at both, it really depends.

Also, being good at math doesn't mean you're good at chess. And vice versa.

possibly.

you could do a survey. it would provide a rudimentary answer if asked the right question.

The connection is mostly psychological. In popular consciousness the traits associated with math and chess are very similar. "Smart people do this, it's hard to be good, it involves problem solving." And so their intuition says chess and math are linked, but in reality they're not.

It's the same when you see people get into nonsense like energy crystals or detox or whatever buzz words people use these days. Sickness can be mysterious. Ancient people certainly thought so, it was associated with the supernatural... and if you failed math and physics and etc, then crystals are also mysterious. In the loose association of ideas in the uneducated mind, there is some kind of connection between crystals and sickness.

im extremely good at maths and just good at chess 10min rating: 880

This subject crops up every so often. Chess and mathematics both concern themselves with systematic applications of logical problem solving, but the things they're solving are in very narrow and specific applications. I've never been particularly good at math, but I've applied myself to chess in my youth and had much better results.

Some young children show a remarkable ability to master mathematics, music, and chess within a short time of learning the basics. Often referred to as "child prodigies", it seems these people's brains are somehow "wired" in a way that makes these subjects seem simple to them.

Some examples are chess players like Capablanca, Morphy and Reshevsky; mathematicians Gauss and Einstein; musicians Mozart and Khachaturian. Some people are "gifted" in more than one area--Philidor was also a leading comic opera composer in his time. However, there is no evidence that someone with this extraordinary capacity in these fields necessarily has similar abilities in the other fields, nor that they must have a genius-level IQ.

This question has been studied extensively, and the current evidence supports what the parents were saying. A comprehensive 2016 meta-analysis identified almost 2,300 scholarly articles on the issue! The meta-analysis then looked at the 19 most relevant studies incorporating 26 independent samples. They did find a statistically significant correlation between chess skill and numerical ability. The correlation was fairly robust (r=0.35, p<0.001). They conclude: "The results suggest that cognitive ability contributes meaningfully to individual differences in chess skill, particularly in young chess players and/or at lower levels of skill."

1. Alexander P. Burgoyne, Giovanni Sala, Fernand Gobet, Brooke N. Macnamara, Guillermo Campitelli, David Z. Hambrick. The relationship between cognitive ability and chess skill: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Intelligence, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2016.08.002

You don't learn calculus from playing chess and you don't get good at chess from learning calculus. Being good at math doesn't necessarily make you a good chess player but if you are a chess player that can learn opening theory and tactical elements you got the traits that collerates well for learning calculus.