do you have to be good at math to be good at chess?

I am reading a book rite now called "Born on a Blue Day" and it is about a Autistic Savant, who has a extraordinary mind that works in such a mathematical way it is beyond all imaginable his name is Daniel Tammet. Anyways his Dad taught him chess, and he immediately picked it up and excelled in it. Do you think that was because of his mathematical ability or was he just good at chess.

So the question is to be good at chess do you also have to be good at mathematics.

Not necesarily. The thing is that the escence of learning math and chess is very linked. How so? you may ask, well think about what makes a chess player good, there are three things, 1. Abstract calculation capacity which is the ability to look ahead a set number of moves you won´t go far in chess if you can´t see ahead at least 3 moves while the very best players can see ahead up to 10. 2. the second most important thing in chess is positional evaluation which will tell you how good your position is in comparison to your opponents and ultimately helps you decide what moves will lead you to a winning position 3. Memorization a huge part of chess especially in learning the openings. All three of these basic chess learning or playing abilities are nesesary in math...Abstract calculation is the equivalent of being able to calculate big numbers in your head, Positional evaluation will help you determine in math how to solve a complex problem and decide which steps to take and lastly memorization....I can think of few things where memorization doese´t help...so thats what I think on math and chess.

Daniel Temmet has a superhuman memory as well. There was a

special about him in television where it showed him learning a language in a week. If he read a couple games by some Grandmasters, he'd probably be able to put himself into good positions and even with average talent, manage a win.

That said, some of the earliest players who analyzed chess and studied theory

were mathamaticans. Emmanual Lasker, one of the first Grandmasters, had

written a paper on moving a knight onto every square on the chessboard

without hitting the same square twice.

 Koltanowski used to do the Knights tour with more then one board

Well, I'm a mathematician, and I'm a decent chess player, so take that what it's worth. Then again, I'm sure there are a ton on people, on this site alone, who are terrible at math, but can crush me in chess.

Maybe if I was in game theory or combinatorics or something. My field, topology, doesn't relate to chess at all.

stacy: whats up with you and that opening ?

*lol*

no I think you mean the Bongcloud Game because it must take major concentration to play a whole game that way

I'm excellent at math, but terrible at Chess. I don't know if that helps.

I think you must have patience to do well in Chess.

Chess has a mathematical structure to it and the need for a logical approach might attract mathematicians.  Maths is also another area (like chess and music) which can give rise to child prodigies since they are all self-contained worlds that can be mastered without reference to the rest of life.

I'm a mathematics graduate myself, but I don't think skill at maths is a necessary condition to be a good chess player.  I think my maths ability is better than my chess!