My Hypothesis on Chess and IQ

In short: Chess Rating is a function of IQ and hardwork, ELO= f(IQ, WORK)

This is my response to Contrablue’s “hypothesis” on a thread at chess dotcom:

“Below grandmaster level and/or an IQ of 130, chess play is more likely to be limited by general intelligence (as measured by IQ) than by other talents, and ranking may well follow the Levitt formula. Above that level, IQ becomes less important than other talents and the experience and education of the chess player.”

I found that the discussion is more biased toward psychology and only has small relation to chess, let alone to answer the real issues. That’s why I write this thread, to focus on the “real” relation between chess and IQ which I think many has got it wrong but I think is important for chess players (I’m sorry if I have to say that I know what I’m talking about).

First, you need to know the difference between “logic/reasoning” and “phenomenon”. Phenomenon is never wrong, but logic/reasoning may be wrong. The above hypothesis is more like phenomenon, and that’s why it is useless to debate or disagree with it. But I unfortunately had to disagree with many of the reasonings in the discussion.

For me it is very simple. Psychologists (who doesn’t understand chess) will understand, and chess players (who doesn’t understand psychology) will hopefully understand.

IQ test measures certain skill which is referred to “intelligence”. This skill is required to do certain things (such as answering IQ test questions). This IQ determines the “maximum” people can achieve. For example, if your IQ is 60, no matter how much work you do, you won’t understand Einstein’s relativity theory. But if you try to understand why you should not jump from the roof, you don’t need to have an IQ of 170.

So the IQ sets the limit of your potential. This is in line with Levitt’s idea: “an I.Q of 120 indicates a person could, with sufficient work achieve a rating roughly = 2000 + [I.Q - 100] x 10”.

Please highlight the word “sufficient work”, which is relative in magnitude, that makes the formula bulletproof! So there are two major variables that determines chess rating: IQ and WORK.

Look at the graph of chess player playing skill: going steep at the beginning then start to level at certain point. Why it is getting level? One of the reasons is because you are approaching the maximum of what you can do or can understand (which can be measured by your IQ).

First issue: how important is the IQ to achieve chess mastery? I will say (presumably) that if your IQ is 100, you can expect to become a club champion (which requires relatively “harder” work than those with IQ of 125), but forget to become a superGM.

Next issue: How much work is required to master chess? This is an important issue, because no matter how deep you understand psychology you will not understand if you don’t understand chess.

Compared to other technical things’ "mastery", chess mastery requires more study and practice. A lot lot more. Intelligent people can understand the chess theory (initiative, tempo, weak pawn structure, imbalances, color complex, etc) but cannot automatically earn the other “skills” such as instinct, intuition, blunderless move and whatever it is that you can hone only through practice. This makes IQ become “useless” in chess because the dumbs may work harder than the smarts.

My IQ is not bad, and I have put a lot of effort too (tho relatively). Then why I’m not a GM?? Good question!! Should I add LUCK into the equation? Bad luck is something like putting a lot of work/effort but in a wrong direction, and good luck is something like dating a grandmaster’s daughter. No, that’s not scientific. How about AGE? Wow, this is another thing that I think is a simple issue but seems never been fully understood.

What are your qualifications for writing this article? Has anyone ever done an actual study to corelate iq rating and chess rating? That is, has anyone taking a sample of thousands of chess players whose ratings vary from alphabetic players to grandmasters? If so, what are the results of this study?  

 May be none. What qualifications do you expect? As a chess player I'm not an extraordinary person (but I'm not sure yet as I'm trying to do what everyone else think is impossible). As an expert in psychology? Let me tell you something. Some people are born to understand things and intentionally or not transfer the knowledge to others, some other just born to listen and nod. If the words come from Freud, the harder the nod. Psychology, is not something that you can understand by reading psychology books or doing research. Psychologists are crap when they think they can always understand what they can read. If the understanding doesn't come to you automatically, you can only nod, and will never fully understand.

Shakespeare says "What is in a word" (or something like that). Knowledge cannot always be transferred. But we can use good methodology to make it better trasferred.

This is probably hard to understand, but the research etc are out there and valid (as long as we know the limitation). And there is nothing new in my post or in the next post.

N.B. Please take out "emotional contents" from the discussion. Only mind to mind. My intention is to make it clearer (with a short paragraph) that to master chess you need to have a certain level of IQ and a certain amount of HARDWORK. If your IQ is higher you can do less work, but unfortunately the dumbers out there are playing chess day and night. They forget their families, do nothing but playing chess. Whereas you the geniuses, you need to do other things such as running your multi-billion company. No mistery here but people are asking questions (and doing research). Can you stop them from asking?

I'm the one who should ask the question, because I really want to know if I can become a GM, where everyone thinks it is impossible, without presenting assumptions. I know my IQ is higher than some superGMs. And I know how much work they have put in chess so I know how much work I should do (I'm worrying my family now). I'm just worrying how I do the hardwork (methodology and approach). Writing this thread doesn't help at all I know. 

That is one of my point. The hardwork is more important when the level of difficulties is still low. But going to GM level, the difficulties is getting higher. You need to be able to read chessbooks in Russian language (jokingly). You need to be able to instal Rybka on your computer. You need to be able to filter databases based on predefined position. You need to be able to do things that is impossible for the average people (note: the above is not the example).

Basically, chess is a competition. As in any field of competition, as long as the smarters are given a good reason to get involved, in the highest level of competition (where everyone do the hard homework), the champions will be dominated by the smarters.

I stopped playing chess when i was 40, took it up again when i was 50.  Found that without even playing one game or picking up a book on chess, my rating (uscf) increased over 300 pts.  Did my iq go up in those 10 years?  Did everyone else get stupider?  Or did the average chess player just get worse.  In any case, my measured school iq was below average, but i can beat most people here in blitz.  There are people called (unflatteringly) "idiot savants."  Some can calculate like a computer or play a musical piece on a piano after hearing it once, or draw an impressive picture of a complicated scene.  They have subnormal intelligence but they do pretty well for themselves, better than most people.  iq measurement is an artificial barrier erected by people with no imagination or creative ability, who like playing with statistics and making up nonsense terminology to impress the insecure and unwary.

What conclusion you are trying to draw from those facts? That you have below average IQ but you have special kind of intelligence so you can beat most people in blitz here? Honestly I cannot find any good logic in that. You are most probably a lot more experienced than most of your opponents. And I don't believe you have a below average IQ either (unless you believe in those cheap IQ tests). Wanna try some blitz games with me?

Many geniuses cannot play piano or sing a song or paint a picture. That is most probably because they don't have interest on that activity. But in a competitive world, who is the famous pianist/singer/painter? Do you think they have bad IQ?

Yes, it is very unfortunate for the insecure and unwary. There is nothing wrong with IQ test. It does measure something. It is just those uncreative psychologists or implementators who thinks they know what that IQ test is all about.

But the test is helpful to be used as a guidance for something, tho some people will misuse it.

 If IQ is the basis of whether a person is "intelligent" or "smart", so what? IQ is Intelligence Quotion, period. It measures what it measures. Intelligence or not. Why people cannot accept that?

Well, the answer is because some people tend to think that intelligence is so important, that IQ is a big deal, that people with higher IQ is more special and more respectable. This unnecessarily (and wrongly because it isn't true) hurts those with lower intelligence. Not only emotionally.

 In how long run?

If I'm not mistaken, IQ is more critical in rating level 600-1400. This is a level where we need to lear simple basic chess theory. The one with high ability to learn fast will be dominant than those with lower IQ.

Above 1400 things get more complicated. We need to learn more advanced tactics. Most of us learn the tactics from practice. This is where the hardwork kicks in.

But what happen next when everyone already work as hard as a mad dog? Will everyone get to 2700? What makes some people stuck in 2000? Some in 2200? Some in 2400?

I remember my old biology book which had a pyramid of animals from the most intelligent on down to the least.  Naturally, man was at the top.  Because he made the chart.  dolphins think they are the most intelligent because they can swim really well and catch fish, octopuses because they have lots of arms to manipulate their environment, and eagles because they can fly and have great eyesight.  Intelligence is supposed to be an ability to do something, otherwise it's meaningless.  So what can humans do best?  Kill, of course.  That's why we are despised by every creature on earth because we kill for fun and we do it really well in so many different ways.  Pardon my digression; i'm depressed by the whole discussion.  But it's interesting, anyway.

IQ=136

not so high rating!

Ok, IQ isn't intelligence, we get it :)

It seems fairly obvious to me that if everyone practised and played chess an equal amount with the same effort, that as a general trend (with some exceptions, of course), the people with greater intelligence will perform better.

Oooh, yet another hypothesis on IQ and chess.  Yay.

yeah, what BlackKnight said.  I have a pretty high "psychiatrically tested" IQ and I suck so bad at chess...even with lots of effort.  lol. 

I can see why people make the connection between the 2 but I feel that Chess is a measure of Chess playing ability and nothing more.  Most of the aspects that make a good player only come through playing a lot of games over a long period of time. 

Surprisingly, IQ and chess ability are not correlated according to one study.

See here and here; read the whole pages.

Thanks.

Yes, there is no corelation between chess and IQ. That is so obvious. I know someone whose IQ is below average but several times get into the top ten of tournament winners. And I know a MENSA member who doesn't even know how to do the castling.

Your post seems a little disconnected. From the link:

"The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness."

Analysis and learning from your mistakes are both functions of intelligence.

"Even the hardest decisions and interactions can be systematically improved."

As with chess, but those with a more intuitive, solid grasp on the problems in the first place will evidently be able to improve more. No kid knows how to do quadratic equations before they start learning them, and every kid can improve in this area. But the most intellgent kids will end up better at quadratic equations with the same amount of teaching as the less intelligent kids.

This is such a dumb example and argument that for once I'm not going to try to give a reasoned response.

Right.  I think if you set two people down to play a game of chess...after teaching them the rules, the more intelligent one "should" pick it up faster and outmaneuver the other?

Even this might be iffy.

If somebody doesn't even know how to castle, that would obviously prove they weren't familiar with chess, so you wouldn't expect them to beat somebody less intelligent who was a player. 

But have you ever sat with someone who just learned the game...and they are eerily on point?  That freaks me out and makes me feel ill.

 Could be iffy, some smart people are very slow learners, in some cases so slow they appear stupid, then everything clicks and suddenly they're twice as good at whatever.