Chess and IQ Relationship

If you play chess, does that increase your IQ? If so, how much?

I don't think it's possible to raise / lower your IQ, you're pretty much stuck with the IQ you're born with.

oh,ok

I'm 13, mine is 126, yet my chess rating is terrible, so no

IQ is defined loosely as "Basic cognitive ability" and "the ability to learn".

Your IQ CAN change when you are young (Mine went from 165 at age 5 to about 140 now), but by the time you're 8-10 years old, you are pretty much stuck with the same IQ. You cannot raise or lower your absolute IQ under almost any circumstance, especially as an adult.

Now, playing chess can give you an outlet to take advantage of your full IQ - Not everything requires the advanced visualization and thought processes that chess does - but it won't increase your ability to learn.

Unlike IQ, chess is a learned skill, not a semi-inherited trait. I've had a 140 IQ for a heck of a lot longer time than I've been playing chess, and I still started out at the 900 level. Chess is just a matter of time and study - If you want to get better, and you want it bad enough, you can. IQ doesn't work that way.

I think iq depends of your life style, how active is your brain, and i think players with better IQ are able to increase their rating faster...

Wait, so, if IQ can change from 8-10, does chess affect it?

ok, thx

That can't be right; that way a 20 year old GM rated 2700 would have a chess IQ of -700, and a 50 year old rated 2000 would have +3000.

I can't believe that anyone would try to use Flowers for Algernon as an argument for anything scientific ;)...

Even though the story is not 100% true

Lol...it's not even 1% true.  It's pure fiction, and not even science fiction.  Just a tear-jerker written to a certain backdrop.

They weren't born with the talent.  Not even Mozart had talent at birth.  Leopald had to teach him.

I think you need to read the definition of the word "talent".  By definition, talent is not taught, it is inherent in the individual.  Thus the phrase "natural talent".  If talent were taught, it would just be called "experience" or "knowledge" ;).

As for the other arguments...IQ affects chess.  But it does not affect chess and more or less than it affects other endeavors.  

Chess does not affect IQ, at least not more or less than any other form of "brain exercise".  In other words, chess is no better than Sudoku or Word Jumble in terms of making people smart, or proving that they are smart. 

Chess and IQ relationship:  there is none.

I agree btickler... You might want to look at this:

http://www.thechessworld.com/learn-chess/4-healthpsycology/223-chess-rating-and-iq-score-correlation

When I say "Your absolute IQ", I simply mean your IQ rating. Now, different tests will score you differently, but your rating on the same type of test will almost always be nearly the same.

When I say "Your full IQ", I mean that you are taking advantage of all the IQ you have when you are performing an activity that requires all of your cognitive strength, whether that's playing chess, playing piano, or whatever it might happen to be. I THINK (This is completely baseless, but makes sense) that a person who does not "excersize" their brain regularly might have an IQ of 120+, but, because he/she only does activities that require the cognition of IQ 100, he/she will become cognitively "rusty" until his/her brain is excersized again. Basically, IQ is a potential "ceiling" of cognition for a person, NOT how their brain performs 100% of the time.

I think it can because you'd be adapting your brain to new tasks and the fundamentally epistemological and scientific nature of chess makes one aware of the analogy to the real world.  In reality one has physics and optimally correct ways of performing tasks, in chess one has similar laws such as bishops cannot move off their color, and different tactics being effective such as zwugzwang and material superiority (all else being equal) are rooted in these laws. 

Similarly, in life if one gives away too much information that information could be used against them like in business and can't undo the mistake, as in chess one may move a pawn too forward, which will be closer to the opponent's king in an endgame giving him better chances there. 

http://www.jlevitt.dircon.co.uk/iq.htm

Also take a look at this... The chess IQ formula is an ELO formula based on your IQ, not a different number:

Elo ~ (10 * IQ) + 1000

Where the symbol ~ means "Given years of hard work and effort". ~ could also be replaced witgh ≤.

That puts most people at a potential of 2000, and me at a potential 2400 IM... although I doubt I'll ever reach 2200.

I dont have a low IQ....

This is talent only in a mythical sense.  There are not talents that aren't evolutionarily driven "inherent" in anybody.

I didn't say whether the concept was a good one or not ;).  Nevertheless, that is part of the definition.

As for the juggling argument...the "natural talent" would be superior finger dexterity, or balance, or what have you...and yes, someone born with stubby short fingers or a misshapen inner ear (enough to affect balance) would be "lacking in natural talent" for juggling.

And as for the retort about Flowers for Algernon being <1% "true"...it doesn't matter one iota what real world examples you choose to quote later:  using a fictional short story that contains not a lick of science in it (I know the story quite well) and then trying to prop up a scientific argument with it is ludicrous.  You might as well say that the great wall of china predates the pyramids because the opening song of the Big Bang Theory implies it ;)...

Anyway, it works opposite, IQ defenitly help in being a good chess player. Just as an example, judit polgar's IQ is 170, Bobby Fischer has an IQ of 180, and kasparov has an IQ of 190.

Those IQ figures are total rubbish. I suspect they were posted once on some random blog and copied across the internet as they seem to be quoted everywhere. Kasparovs IQ was measured to be about 135, which is good but not exceptional. There's probably a loose correlation between IQ and chess ability but memory is more important than IQ when in comes to playing chess.