Play helps improve learning what one plays at. The animals learn survival skils by playing. Even adult animals like to play. That is the best way to teach them something new BTW.
Chess has areas, that are beneficial for people as well. Its brain exercise, whether for relaxation, or pleasure can't be a bad thing unless taken to the extreme. Which in that case anything can be viewed negatively.
Contentment.
I like where IM Silman says you can impress non chess players with your end game knowledge by sounding very intelligent when you say something like, "Yeah, I just used triangulation to win the opposition and put my opponent in zugzwang."
So it can make you sound smarter to non chess players.
And before you laugh too heartily, take into account what you thought of chess players before you learned.
They were "smart" right?
I used to be in awe of some players, who, looking back now, were probably only intermediates or strong beginners...but boy, did I think they were in league with Einstein.
Nobody with a triple figure IQ who doesn't play chess would believe that you were intelligent if you tell them that you "won" your opponent. Just the same as nobody worth their salt, chess player or otherwise, would believe that because the average chess player has an above average IQ that playing chess makes you (significantly) more intelligent.
If you read it again, you'll find it's win the "opposition" that I wrote and not "opponent". 
If I was in charge of an educational system, there are two courses I would require. Chess is one. Among other things, it teaches logical thinking, planning and complex pattern recognition. The other course is poker, which teaches risk managment and people reading skills.
I also am very thankful that I am not in charge of an educational system
You are probably right about a logic course being better than chess for teaching logic. I suppose logical thinking is not exactly the right word for what I wanted to describe. I am trying to think of a better word but can't right now. Maybe someone can describe it better for me.
Good term! I like it.
does it make you smarter or what?
My chess playing skills improve while playing chess.
does it make you smarter or what?
Some answers different than those found here so far were offered in response to a bold assertion in the negative last week. See http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-is-a-board-game-and-nothing-more.
For me chess gives me another way to procrastinate when I don't feel like doing work.
As for poker; I like to think that I have a talent for reading people, who knows how well founded it really is. That is what initially attracted me to the game however I have found that beyond very low levels of play this skill becomes fairly redundent.
It really doesn't, it becomes more important. What good is being able to read someone if they aren't even considering pot odds, position etc and they don't really know how good they are in the hand? A lot of reading is about betting patterns anyway, not someones hand shaking etc.
Yes I do. Even at a high level, people are going to be less scared of a raise from a player who has been raising with weak hands, than someone who has only made a few raises.
At a low level, what does it matter that you know your opponent is confident in his hand? You know he's probably not considering you have something strong to still be there. Any information you gain from a weak player is less reliably because their play isn't logical.
I can't agree with you that opening with more hands means they are necessarily hitting more. There's a big difference between a hand Dan Harrington would open with to a Gus Hansen. You only have to read there literature to see this.
At a high level somebody who is opening regulaly on any given day is being hit by the deck, not opening with a wider range than his competition. The diversity of play at high levels is nothing when compared to casino games. Your best local casino player would probably not be able to spot a single difference in the play of two top players.
I don't know anything about poker (although it sounds like it would be fun to learn). What does this lingo mean? "Hit by the deck" meaning they're getting good cards often? And when you're talking about casino games are you saying people often play with bad hands, bluffing a lot (or just being stupid)?
everybody wants to be on top of everyone and chess helps makes that drive for supremacy improve by competition. thus sooner or later the person becomes the worst character of his former self yet he becomes one of the best players at the board.
Yeah that's what he means by hit by the deck.
Yeah playing with bad hands (low suits with small implied odds [people don't have large stacks compared to blinds so potential value is small]), bluffing a lot, not calling given fantastic pot odds (sometimes even with a bad hand that you know is worse it makes sense to call) etc.
Ok, so my poker knowledge comes completely from watching WSOP on youtube for about 2 hours one day lol.
I think blinds means how many times you can buy into a pot (the initial bet) but I'm not sure.
Sure I could google it, but I'm just letting you know I honestly know next to nothing :)
What's the best way to learn? Is it like chess? Play a lot and read / get a coach? The game looks like a lot of fun except for the part where people win and lose money lol.
I think it does help with certain analytical skills and visualizing. I was always pretty bad at the latter and I feel it does get a little better if I try to calculate and analyze correspence games I'm playing while I don't have a board. Using the same technique, you can also make maps in your head of towns you visit often so you don't get lost.
Anything related to intelligence is a myth believed by non players. Just like how grandmasters are so good because they see so far ahead when studies show people rated in the 2000 range calculate the most. GMs calculate much less (but what they calculate is more relevant because they know more about chess).
And what area of the brain lights up most when master play chess? Pattern recognition. They're remembering what they've studied. They're not super calculators or using difficult logic.
I agree about the intelligence myth. However, the "GMs don't calculate as much as experts" is turning into a myth of its own. GMs definitely calculate way more than experts in a game. There's just no doubt about it, watching their post-game conferences where they share the variations they considered during their games. Any analysis of a serious tactical GM game is more than enough evidence. They routinely go amazingly deep and miss very little relevant stuff.
You're actually both right, with the key difference being that GMs simply visualize moves so much better and deeper from a vast knowledge of structural middlegames that they don't "calculate" in the normal sense that an expert does, at least in most situations. I've often heard the figure being 10,000 positional formations memorized for an expert/low-rated master compared to 100,000 positional structures burned in to the GM brain. This is why you can't "break book" and leave them wondering what to do. They have played so many different pawn structures and themes that any given middlegame dictates their plan of attack. So how they "calculate" is by drawing upon that internal database when tasked with a position on the board. This indeed allows them to see strings of lines quite deeply. Meanwhile, the expert doesn't have that pool of engrained data to work with, so they are forced to try to work it out more concretely by trying to visualize the outcome without forehand knowledge of the structure and correct established play from that position.
FirebrandX's comments accord well with what I have read. I might add that GMs spend less time considering unproductive moves that tempt the rest of us.
My deepest and most complex calculation in my last OTB tournament began with a single candididate move. I did not consider another move. However, if that calculation (thirteen minutes off the clock) has revealed problems with my move, I would have found an alternative.
I'm rated a little under 2000 OTB. When I was 1600, I would have looked at three moves from that position, and I probably would have chosen a "safer" and less optimal move.
Some of what I've read as well as picked up from watching post-game conferences, GMs are far more efficient at weeding out candidate moves that weaker players spend time calculating. Maybe a GM would have looked at my position and made the correct move without the thirteen minutes spent looking roughly eight moves deep in some lines.
Footnote:
My deep calculation begins with this position.
16...e5! is best. It makes sense positionally, but I had to verify that it was correct tactically.
I had spent some time preparing this move. This moment appeared the correct time to make it. If not now, White might play Ne5, which would then necessitate more preparation.
Calculation was simple and straight-forward if White replied 17.Nxe5 or if he replied 17.dxe5.
However, the zwischenzug 17.Bb5 creates complications. It was this line that I analyzed for thirteen minutes.
I briefly considered a) 17...Bd7, and spent a few minutes looking at b) 17...e4. I considered the latter as an unattractive, but safe option. Here, my analysis concluded in a position where I thought that I was better, but Stockfish evaluates as equal. However, I missed the best move half-way through this line.
The line that took the longest to calculate and assess begins with c) 17...exd4! It is the best move.
Chess is akin to fly fishing, those who do it well are professional wasters of time.