I'm dumb as rocks at night but I won 3rd in a competition once. My brain does that thing the DVD logo does on your TV when you're not watching anything but I can get a bunch of bullshit into the middle of the board really fast.
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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I don't have the patience to learn how to play chess well. I don't think more than one move ahead. My favourite game is Catan.
People need to stop putting chess on a pedestal. Its a game. General intelligence has no bearing. Its a specific skillset you can hone by practice and research, just like any other game.
It is a super deep game for how simple it is, i think that's the "genius" part. But remembering openings in chess and their names doesn't make you a genius, it makes you a genius in chess.
Almost anything where memorization is the primary skill is going to be dominated by people with specific interest, rather than general high intelligence (certainly doesn't exclude it, but it's just statistics). Gotta look for something frequently requiring novel problem solving and adaption to filter for high probability of high general intelligence.
Then there's also a lot of games requiring very narrow intellectual ability. Being able to parse a specific ruleset, or doing a specific kind of math fast, without needing to be able to handle anything novel. You'll certainly find some "interesting individuals" around those kinds of games.
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Chess is mostly a memorisation game for gambits / openers and subsequent sets of follow-on moves.
After that, it’s mentally simulating the board state a few moves ahead, varying pieces and guesstimating probability of what move the opponent will make. A lot of that you start to memorise, especially since other chess enthusiasts will often play well-known gambits / strategies.
Intelligence often correlates with memory but they’re not one and the same. I grew up knowing a competitive chess player and remember the time they referred to their “hambag” (handbag). English was their mother tongue…
this is inaccurate. edit tbd
"Ah ha! I see you've played the Frenchman's Cumsock. I will have checkmate in 4 moves!"
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Yeah I was sorta interested in pursuing Chess more at least as a hobby a few years ago. Learning about the 'meta' strategy was kind of intimidating and discouraging. The basic strategy is interesting to me but learning and memorizing different games just sounds awful to me. I guess it's like most things - the more you learn about it the more you realize there is a lot more to it than what you initially thought it was.
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Chess requires dedication, conviction, and patience. Anyone with average intelligence can learn the game to the point of competence in 30 minutes.
It requires much more time to become an expert, or master.
And most people don't have that much time to expend on it. That's not something to be ashamed of.
Much of the game of chess, particularly becoming an expert or a master, relies on memorizing every possible move and, then, every possible counter move. Mastery of chess is almost always reliant upon that memorization.
The game itself is not that complex, and most people can learn how to play chess fairly quickly. Much of the apparent wizardry of chest mastery is actually just a sign of excellent memorization of every possible move and it’s possible counter moves.
There’s not a lot of creativity in chess
This couldn't be further from the truth, and it's pretty clear you don't actually play the game. I had no idea this misconception was so common.
Chess is ALL ABOUT creativity and figuring out how to outplay your opponent and secure a win. It's a game of strategy and tactics, of timing and technique. The way "memorization" works is that players tend to have some number of moves in their opening(s) memorized (typically 5-10, though top players can go to greater depth), at which point they are "out of book" and into the middlegame, which is where the game is actually played using some combination of positional ideas, tactics, and calculation. Many players opt to play less theoretically viable openings (that is, variations that are not quite as good with best play), because it gets their opponent out of book faster. "Novelties" (a move in a variation not previously played by a master/grandmaster in a tournament) are played all of the time, even by grandmasters.
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You also need a sharp memory. I'm good in math, but terrible in remembering things. I forget terms that I'm actively doing research on, and constantly need to look at notes. (Aside: I work on modular forms, and often write them down as MF in my notes. I have more than once read that aloud as motherfucker, once in front of my advisor. Dude is chill, so it's fine. But I dread the day it happens during a talk lol.)
Disclaimer: not calling myself smart or anything.
I always found chess boring, for some reason. Like, not because it is too complex, but because it isn't complex enough, in a way. As an example, the first time I tried my hand at Medieval II: Total War, I fell in love with all things strategy.
I still can't do chess, though... It's like my mind goes to its happy place halfway through a match and I start making moves just to progress the game and be done with it. Gimme a 4X game, and I'd need reminders to pee every 12 hours.
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One of the daftest people I ever met managed to beat 3 of us at once at chess. Would routinely kick my ass every time and it wasn't even close.
The kind of person who absolutely would have injected bleach to cure covid.
There’s also a similar trope with the Rubiks Cube.
Bonus points is when there’s a game theory department in a movie. Then they all will be masters in any game.
Lol. Just in case someone finds it useful, the math of game theory has very little to do with games.
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Learning a few chess pro tips will make you better than anyone trying to figure that game out.
The top levels of chess are skill but the bottom is people doing pre-learned openers.
That checks out. I think I beat most of my friends simply because I remember a chess aficionado mentioning the center as being important to hold.
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I recall some top player saying that he'd deliberately do a really 'bad' move at the start of a game and watch his opponents head explode because they'd never seen any top level player do that.
„The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life.“
Folk always seem to underestimate the effect of training and experience. In a match between two unpracticed players, sure, the more analytically inclined of the two will have an edge. This is true of any game with a strategic component. General intelligence helps but specialist knowledge is better.