Do Chess Masters have high IQs?
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No chess masters don't have very high IQs, they are just very good and moving pieces of carved wood.
Definitely not. It's a misconception that chess is directly linked with high IQ. That isn't true.
Of course they do. People who are irrationally insecure about IQ always turn up in these threads to huff copium together about how IQ doesn’t matter. But if two people put in equal work at the game, and one of them has much higher IQ than the other, that one will be the stronger player every time.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
Yes, yes, what we needed was another "Chess and IQ" thread. The dozen previous ones were not enough.
IQ is overrated, but it's definitely a factor since most of chess is based on pattern recognition.
But there's also knowledge-based skill, memorization, mental visualization, stamina, emotional investment / passion, physical fitness, and calculation.
xFallesafe wrote:
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But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win.
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win.
That's not the whole story - there's also psychological / interpersonal intelligence. And many other intelligences.
A boxer can be equally trained but if only one of them has the mind of a champion, that one is likely to win, and not just a few pounds of extra muscle tissue will help that.
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#8
xFallesafe wrote:
Of course they do. People who are irrationally insecure about IQ always turn up in these threads to huff copium together about how IQ doesn’t matter. But if two people put in equal work at the game, and one of them has much higher IQ than the other, that one will be the stronger player every time.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
You are simply wrong. Intuition has relatively little to do with IQ. Calculation, on the other hand, may well be IQ-dependent. But here it's much more a matter of visual perception and evaluating what you calculate. And the difference between a master and a grandmaster is not that the master is simply much worse at calculating, but that the grandmaster finds more accurate ideas, etc., which again has nothing to do with IQ. The whole pattern recognition argument is stupid because these mental processes eventually become automated. And you have that in any sport. You also need pattern recognition in boxing, but what IQ did Myke Tyson have?
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#9
xFallesafe wrote:
Of course they do. People who are irrationally insecure about IQ always turn up in these threads to huff copium together about how IQ doesn’t matter. But if two people put in equal work at the game, and one of them has much higher IQ than the other, that one will be the stronger player every time.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
People like to feign ignorance to support their preferred conclusions. They’ll say things like “Bill Gates has a high IQ and isn’t good at chess” (No kidding. He doesn’t practice it. He’s busy running Microsoft). Or… “Hikaru tested 103 and is one of the best players in the world” (online IQ quizzes are meaningless).
But IQ is to Chess as strength and weight are to boxing. Given two opponents of equal training, the stronger heavier boxer will win. Given two players of equal practice, the one wit the higher IQ will win. He’ll just see things that the other one won’t. And he’ll make good decisions much more quickly and easily.
It's just as easy to call it copium in the other direction. People who are bad at chess want to believe it's not their fault. They want to believe that people who are good at chess were gifted their skill at birth due to their high IQ. They ignore facts like how Kasparov scored 135 on a real IQ test (results published in Der Spiegel) and how just about any moron can be a 2200 titled player as long as they started at a young age vs how nearly no one can be a 2200 titled player if they start at age 30.
If two people who are totally equal in every way begin their chess journey, except one of them drinks water and the other drinks coke, then the healthier person will be better... but that doesn't mean water and chess skill are related. Yes a high IQ would be useful when everything else is equal, but that's a poor argument. A high IQ is not necessary.
Everything depends on the person. Some may have a high IQ, some may not. This cannot be determined within a group.
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