"Chess improves specific cognitive abilities", yeah that's the far transfer that the article talked about and that is questionable if it really does beyond neurogenesis that happens when you learn new things. So the idea that chess would make someone smarter is unproven to begin with, which in the context of this thread make it even likely that playing chess instead of checkers would have any real difference.
And as someone who does programming, I can tell that one doesn't need to "work hard" to have good results from programming. Continues, light daily coding > working really hard for a short period of time. I mentioned programming as some activity which teach problem solving skills better without having to put in "GM" hours of study.
The point of all this is that these specific cognitive abilities are directly related to the abilities that you apply when playing go or shogi, it is also directly related to abilities in things that have to do with problem solving (such as programming or mathematics). .
Yes, you can develop problem solving skills by studying programming, but there are programmers who do that much better than you because they work much harder; The more work you do in a discipline, you get better results and develop better skills. If we were to measure the ability to program with a certain rating, a programmer would have something equivalent to a relatively good rating in chess, because a programmer doesn't learn a few commands for fun, like some casual players learn almost nothing about chess by playing it for fun.
As for transferring chess skills to other areas, you have to take into account that it is not that you can apply that immediately in mathematics or programming, but surely a few in about two weeks a professional chess player would learn quite quickly comparing with individuals who do not practice any discipline that exercises the brain, which is an undeniable benefit and does not make sense to dismiss.
Do they have engines in checkers so that you can cheat?
Yep.
"Check" this out.
heee heee
bruh lol