You need to be creative to do mathematics as well! There's more to mathematics than mindless calculation, you know.
Would you expect a mathematician to make a better chess player than an artist?
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Both yes and no. I think a creative person would do great, but you also need to have the ability to calculate moves ahead.
Jan 5, 2015
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#4
... it takes a good eye and visualisation, for example to play blindfolded chess. Not necessarily visualising the whole board but set patterns therein. Eg a knight outpost on e4 attacking g3, f2, d2, c3 or a white rook on the e-file defending the e-pawn etc...
You tell me? How do you visualise the patterns, are you not an artist? 
Computers play very good chess, cause they're very good with calculations.
They aren't very good with arts, though xD
Jan 5, 2015
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#6
Oh yeah, caluculations, algorithms and code-breaking! I give you... Bletchley Park!
The best chess player would have the following traits of various professionals:
strong visualization abilities (some kind of visual artist)
logical (engineer or programmer)
persistence and will to win (businessman)
physical strength and stamina (athlete)
ability to learn (teacher)
ability to stay cool and destablize the opponent (psychologist)
Jan 5, 2015
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#8
The mathematician may have better logical skills, but the artist has more free time to practice ;-)
Jan 5, 2015
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#9
Just before I shut down for the night can I say that all the artists I know are very logical, as well as being good at technique they have to also be able to analyse their artwork, and spend about 90% of their time problem solving, and are not problem solving skills the most important atribute of a good chess player?
The most famous chess player who was also a mathematician was Emanuel Lasker. His work in commutative algebra led to the Lasker–Noether theorem, shared with Emmy Noether.
The most famous artist who was also a chess player was probably Marcel Duchamp. He founded an art movement with his most famous work, Fountain.
Others include L.H.O.O.Q.
If you're one to keep score, Lasker was world champion, Duchamp was not. Mathematicians 1-0 Artists.
Jan 5, 2015
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#12
They wouldn't visualise the whole board itself... I would imagine they visualise the position of each piece, as I tried to demonstrate above.
Jan 5, 2015
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#13
Ellie47 wrote:
In chess you need to be good at making calculations, but wouldn't a very creative person such as an artist be better at recognizing chess patterns and good combinations?
Great question!!
Chess only needs a good memory... don't let anyone tell u otherwise!
Jan 5, 2015
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#14
In answer to the original question, in my experience mathematicians are generally much better at chess than at art.
JamieDelarosa wrote:
How do congenitally blind chess players visualize the board?
How do they think of anything like that?
With the kinesthetic sense and by touching things they obviously have a sense of 3d space and shapes of objects. Of course they don't at all see them as images, but I'm sure they understand them conceptually. Kind of like two different words with the same meaning.
So to answer the question I think they'd still "see" the space and patterns like we do... just not visually.
Jan 5, 2015
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#16
Yes, mathematicians are generally better at chess than artists. There are plenty of exceptional chess playing artists, but there are more world champions and GMs with math backgrounds than ones who were primarily artists. Of course, different arts such as music have closer affinities to chess than others.
Many great players I know have been divorced, drink too much, and don't have an advanced degree.
so add alcoholic college drop out to the thread title and you have your winner IMO
Incidentally, Duchamp even created art inspired by chess. Some examples:
Portrait of chess players
A pocket set he made and carried around
In chess you need to be good at making calculations, but wouldn't a very creative person such as an artist be better at recognizing chess patterns and good combinations?