I have always loved the intellectual reputation of chess.
You know the one.
A person sits silently at a chessboard, gently touching their chin while staring seventeen moves into the future, and everybody immediately assumes they could probably explain quantum mechanics if only they weren't busy sacrificing a bishop.
Chess has somehow become the official board game of intelligence.
Nobody sees someone playing Monopoly and thinks, "There goes one of the great minds of our generation."
Nobody watches a heated game of Uno and whispers, "That woman clearly has extraordinary fluid reasoning."
But chess?
Put sixty-four squares in front of someone, give them a wooden horse, and suddenly we're prepared to assume they spend their evenings reading Dostoevsky in the original Russian.
Which raises a question I've wondered about for years:
Does playing chess actually make you smarter?
I wish the answer were beautifully simple.
Unfortunately, science has once again shown up to ruin a perfectly good cultural myth with phrases like "effect size," "active control group," and "correlation does not establish causation."
The short answer is that chess appears to exercise some genuinely useful mental abilities. Strong chess players also tend to perform better on certain tests of cognitive ability. But the claim that chess broadly increases general intelligence is much shakier than chess enthusiasts occasionally make it sound.
In other words, learning chess may make you much better at thinking about chess.
I realize this revelation is devastating.
Chess Certainly Feels Like Intelligence
I understand why we associate chess with being smart.
The game looks intellectual because it is intellectual.
Chess forces me to calculate possibilities, recognize patterns, remember positions, anticipate consequences, inhibit impulsive decisions and occasionally realize that the brilliant attack I've been planning for six minutes loses my queen immediately.
That last skill is called humility.
Chess constantly asks the brain to do something humans aren't naturally spectacular at doing: consider the consequences of an action before taking it.
This alone separates chess from approximately 78% of human history.
Every move presents a miniature problem.
What happens if I move here?
What will my opponent do?
What happens after that?
What am I missing?
What does my opponent think I'm planning?
What does my opponent think I think they're planning?
By approximately move eighteen, I'm apparently conducting psychological warfare against someone named ChessDad1973 from Wisconsin.
There is genuine cognitive complexity involved.
Research supports that idea.
A major meta-analysis examining chess ability found positive relationships between chess skill and several cognitive abilities, including fluid reasoning, short-term memory, processing speed and accumulated knowledge. The average relationship was meaningful but nowhere close to demonstrating that chess skill and intelligence are the same thing.
That distinction matters enormously.
Smart people can be good at chess.
But that doesn't necessarily mean chess made them smart.
This is where our cultural reasoning occasionally performs the intellectual equivalent of hanging its queen.
Correlation Has Entered the Chat
Suppose researchers discover that people who regularly play chess score somewhat higher on certain cognitive tests.
There are at least two possible explanations.
Maybe chess improves those abilities.
Or maybe people who already possess stronger reasoning, memory or numerical abilities are more attracted to chess, improve more quickly at it, or stick with it longer.
Those are very different stories.
Research suggests cognitive ability does play a role in chess performance. One meta-analysis found chess skill correlated with fluid reasoning, short-term memory, processing speed and comprehension-related knowledge, with an average correlation around 0.24. Numerical ability showed an especially notable relationship with chess skill.
That is interesting.
But it doesn't mean I can buy a tournament set from Amazon and gradually become Einstein.
If basketball players are taller than average, we wouldn't conclude that playing basketball causes the human skeleton to lengthen.
Yet people often treat mental activities differently.
They see a group of intelligent people enjoying chess and conclude that the chessboard must be manufacturing intelligence.
Perhaps.
But perhaps intelligence also helps manufacture chess players.
Both can be true simultaneously.
Science, annoyingly, tends to demand that we separate them.
Then Researchers Tried Teaching Kids Chess
This is where things become more interesting.
Researchers have repeatedly investigated whether teaching chess to children improves skills outside the game.
That is the real prize.
Psychologists call this transfer.
If I learn something in one domain and become better at something significantly different, the training has transferred.
Near transfer isn't particularly surprising.
If I practice chess tactics repeatedly and become better at recognizing chess tactics, congratulations: learning still exists.
The sexy claim is far transfer.
Maybe chess improves mathematics.
Maybe chess improves reading.
Maybe chess improves reasoning.
Maybe chess improves general intelligence.
Maybe thirty hours of knights and bishops transforms little Timmy into a tiny strategic mastermind who negotiates bedtime twelve moves in advance.
A 2016 meta-analysis examined 24 studies involving thousands of young people and found modest overall positive effects from chess instruction. The overall effect was about 0.34 standard deviations, with somewhat stronger results for mathematics than reading. Longer training was associated with better outcomes.
At first glance, that's encouraging.
Chess wins.
Everybody buy boards.
Turn the cafeteria into a tournament hall.
Replace recess with the Sicilian Defense.
Except there was a rather annoying problem.
The researchers noted that none of the studies had what they considered an ideal experimental design combining random assignment, before-and-after testing and both active and inactive comparison groups.
And this is where educational research becomes less cinematic.
The Active Control Group Is Here to Ruin Everybody's Fun
Imagine I take one hundred children and give fifty of them chess lessons.
The other fifty receive nothing unusual.
Three months later, the chess students perform slightly better academically.
Did chess cause the improvement?
Maybe.
But perhaps the improvement came from having extra structured instruction.
Maybe the children liked receiving special attention.
Maybe being enrolled in something intellectually stimulating increased motivation.
Maybe additional interaction with teachers helped.
Maybe the kids believed chess was supposed to make them smarter and consequently tried harder.
Maybe the parents became more engaged.
There are dozens of possibilities.
That's why good experiments use active control groups.
Instead of comparing chess lessons with nothing, researchers compare chess with another activity requiring a similar amount of instruction, attention and engagement.
Now we're actually testing chess.
And when researchers have done that, the magic has often become considerably less magical.
Two experimental studies involving children compared chess instruction with active control activities such as checkers or Go. Researchers found no statistically significant advantage for chess in mathematical problem-solving or mathematical metacognition.
This is one of those results nobody wants printed on motivational posters.
"Chess: Possibly Better Than Sitting Around Doing Nothing, But Maybe Not Better Than Checkers."
Doesn't exactly sell tournament memberships.
The Better the Experiment, the Smaller the Miracle
This pattern appears repeatedly in cognitive-training research.
Early studies produce exciting results.
Headlines follow.
Schools become interested.
Companies appear.
Parents begin wondering whether they've irresponsibly deprived their children of bishops.
Then researchers improve the experimental controls.
The effects shrink.
A broader review of chess, music and working-memory training found that apparent benefits tended to get smaller as study quality improved. The authors concluded that far transfer—the idea that training one particular skill produces broad improvements in unrelated cognitive abilities—is generally rare.
This does not mean chess is useless.
It means human cognition seems stubbornly specific.
Practice something, and you become better at that thing and closely related things.
Practice chess, and you become better at recognizing chess patterns, evaluating positions, calculating variations and understanding strategic concepts.
Practice piano, and you become better at piano.
Practice French, and you become better at French.
Practice Sudoku, and eventually you become the person at family gatherings who mentions doing Sudoku.
What apparently does not happen reliably is that the brain says:
"Ah, you've become excellent at rook endgames. I shall now upgrade your general-purpose intelligence by twelve percent."
The brain is inconveniently unwilling to behave like a video-game skill tree.
Chess Experts Really Do Think Differently
Here's where I want to defend chess from the people who hear everything above and conclude, "So chess does nothing."
That's not what the research says either.
Expertise changes how people process information.
Experienced chess players aren't merely calculating more moves than beginners.
They recognize meaningful patterns.
A novice might look at a chess position and see thirty-two pieces scattered across sixty-four squares.
An expert may instantly recognize familiar structures, weaknesses, tactical themes and strategic patterns.
This is one reason expertise can resemble supernatural intelligence.
Experts aren't necessarily brute-forcing every possibility.
They know what matters.
Recent neuroimaging research adds another fascinating layer. A 2025 systematic review of brain-imaging studies reported differences between expert and novice chess players in brain activity and connectivity involving regions associated with recognition, cognitive control and decision-making. The authors also identified structural differences that may reflect increased neural efficiency associated with chess expertise.
That is legitimately fascinating.
Years of serious practice appear associated with measurable differences in how expert chess players process relevant information.
But even here, caution matters.
Finding differences between expert brains and novice brains doesn't automatically tell us exactly how much was caused by chess training, how much reflects people who become experts, or whether those changes broadly improve unrelated intellectual tasks.
The human brain is plastic.
Training changes it.
But "changes the brain" and "raises general intelligence" are not interchangeable claims.
Everything seems to change the brain.
Learning to juggle changes the brain.
Learning another language changes the brain.
Probably arguing with strangers on Facebook changes the brain, although perhaps not in the direction we'd prefer.
Chess Might Teach Something More Valuable Than IQ Points
This is where my personal view of chess changes.
I'm not sure chess needs to increase IQ to be valuable.
In fact, I think obsessing over whether chess "makes you smarter" undersells what the game actually teaches.
Chess teaches me to live with consequences.
Once I move the piece, I cannot pretend I didn't move it.
There is no customer service department.
There is no manager to speak with.
The bishop is gone because I made a terrible decision.
That's life education.
Chess teaches patience because impulsive moves are frequently punished.
It teaches planning because immediate gratification can sabotage a better long-term position.
It teaches perspective because the move I want to make may not be the move the position requires.
It teaches emotional control because anger after a mistake often creates another mistake.
Anyone who has ever blundered a queen and immediately launched an objectively ridiculous kingside attack understands this phenomenon.
You don't recover from one terrible decision by making five more emotional ones.
This principle applies surprisingly well outside chess.
The Most Useful Chess Lesson May Be "What Am I Missing?"
Strong chess requires asking uncomfortable questions.
What is my opponent threatening?
What changed after their last move?
What assumption am I making?
What happens if my plan fails?
Am I evaluating this position objectively, or do I simply love my idea?
That last question alone should probably be mandatory training for executives, politicians, investors and anyone preparing to get married in Las Vegas after knowing somebody for three days.
Humans become attached to our own narratives.
Chess punishes that attachment brutally.
I can believe my attack is brilliant.
The board doesn't care.
I can believe I'm winning.
The position doesn't care.
I can tell myself my sacrifice was "creative."
Stockfish will calmly inform me that I went from +1.8 to -6.4 because apparently artificial intelligence has no respect for artistic expression.
Chess is reality with coordinates.
You make a claim through your move.
Then the position answers.
There is something mentally healthy about interacting with a system that refuses to flatter you.
Chess Also Teaches Me That Intelligence Isn't the Same as Not Making Stupid Decisions
This may be my favorite lesson.
Intelligent people make terrible chess moves constantly.
Grandmasters blunder.
Experienced players overlook simple tactics.
People calculate complicated variations and miss something obvious.
Sound familiar?
Human beings often confuse intelligence with immunity from stupidity.
They aren't remotely the same thing.
A person can be brilliant and impulsive.
Highly educated and irrational.
Analytical and emotionally compromised.
Knowledgeable and overconfident.
Chess compresses this uncomfortable truth into a board game.
I can understand a position perfectly for twenty moves and then destroy the entire game with one careless decision.
It's beautiful, really.
Humiliating.
But beautiful.
Pattern Recognition Is Probably the Real Superpower
People often imagine chess masters calculating thirty moves ahead.
Sometimes they calculate deeply.
But expertise also depends enormously on pattern recognition.
Years of exposure create a mental library.
Certain pawn structures look familiar.
Certain tactical motifs become instantly visible.
Certain positions suggest particular plans.
The expert isn't necessarily thinking harder than the beginner every second.
Often the expert simply sees more.
This is true across almost every serious domain.
An experienced physician notices patterns a medical student misses.
An experienced mechanic hears something in an engine that sounds completely normal to me.
An experienced investor recognizes similarities between a current financial situation and previous cycles.
An experienced editor notices awkward writing immediately.
Expertise compresses information.
That may be one of the most transferable lessons chess offers—not because chess automatically transfers the patterns themselves, but because it demonstrates how deep knowledge changes perception.
We don't merely become faster thinkers.
We learn what deserves attention.
Chess Isn't a Brain Supplement
I think some people want chess to function like intellectual creatine.
Take one hour daily.
Increase intelligence.
Repeat until grandmaster or Nobel laureate.
Life unfortunately doesn't work that way.
There is no convincing evidence that simply playing chess provides a broad, automatic upgrade to general intelligence.
The strongest research suggests the benefits outside chess are modest and become less convincing when experiments use stronger controls.
At the same time, chess skill is genuinely associated with cognitive abilities such as reasoning, memory and processing speed.
Those two facts can coexist.
People with certain cognitive strengths may find chess easier.
Chess practice may sharpen skills especially relevant to chess.
Chess instruction may provide some limited spillover benefits.
But none of that justifies treating the game like a neurological multivitamin.
I'm sorry.
Your handcrafted walnut tournament set remains beautiful, though.
There Is Also the Tiny Matter of Practice
Another thing that irritates our cultural mythology is that elite chess ability requires enormous amounts of specialized knowledge and practice.
We love genius stories because genius is romantic.
Practice is boring.
We want Mozart spontaneously composing symphonies at breakfast.
We want Einstein staring thoughtfully at a chalkboard.
We want Magnus Carlsen seeing thirty dimensions while everybody else is struggling to remember how castling works.
But expertise is usually built through an enormous accumulation of experience.
Positions.
Games.
Mistakes.
Analysis.
Study.
Pattern recognition.
Opening preparation.
Endgames.
Tactical exercises.
Losses.
More losses.
Losses against twelve-year-olds who then calmly eat a granola bar while your sense of adult dignity collapses.
That matters because chess ability isn't simply "intelligence expressed through a board."
It is a specialized expertise.
An extraordinarily complex one.
But specialized nonetheless.
Does Chess Make Kids Smarter?
If I were a parent deciding whether my child should learn chess, I wouldn't sell it as an IQ enhancement program.
I'd sell it as a fascinating game that rewards patience, planning, concentration and learning from mistakes.
If additional cognitive or academic benefits emerge, wonderful.
But that's a bonus rather than the sales pitch.
The evidence for educational transfer is mixed. Some earlier research found modest improvements, particularly in mathematics, but stronger controlled experiments have often produced much smaller or nonexistent advantages.
That doesn't make chess a bad educational activity.
Children don't need every activity to increase standardized-test scores.
We have become weirdly obsessed with forcing childhood hobbies to submit quarterly performance reports.
Does music increase math scores?
Does sports increase executive function?
Does chess improve reading?
Does drawing enhance spatial reasoning?
Sometimes I think children should be allowed to enjoy something because it is interesting.
Revolutionary, I know.
Chess has survived for centuries without needing a TED Talk explaining its measurable return on cognitive investment.
Maybe "Smarter" Is the Wrong Question
The deeper problem may be that we use the word smart as though it describes one thing.
It doesn't.
There is memory.
Reasoning.
Knowledge.
Creativity.
Attention.
Processing speed.
Judgment.
Emotional regulation.
Verbal ability.
Numerical ability.
Spatial ability.
Strategic thinking.
Then there is the particularly rare human capacity to recognize that someone who disagrees with us might know something we don't.
Science hasn't assigned an IQ subtest to that one yet.
When someone asks whether chess makes people smarter, my first reaction is now:
Smarter how?
Better at calculating chess variations?
Almost certainly.
Better at recognizing chess patterns?
Absolutely.
More familiar with strategic thinking?
Very likely.
More disciplined about considering consequences?
Potentially.
Higher general intelligence?
That's where the evidence becomes much less dramatic.
This distinction isn't disappointing.
It is useful.
What Chess Definitely Does Is Expose Me
Chess exposes impatience.
It exposes arrogance.
It exposes poor concentration.
It exposes wishful thinking.
It exposes the tendency to move first and rationalize later.
It exposes how badly I evaluate risk when emotionally attached to an outcome.
Basically, chess recreates adulthood in approximately forty moves.
There are days when I'm not sure the board is training my intelligence so much as documenting my personality defects.
And perhaps that is why people keep playing.
Chess gives immediate feedback.
If I consistently make bad decisions, my rating falls.
There is remarkable clarity in that.
Most areas of life don't provide such clean feedback.
You can make poor financial decisions for years before consequences arrive.
You can remain in a terrible relationship while constructing elaborate explanations for why everything is fine.
You can pursue a failing business strategy while blaming market conditions.
But chess?
Hang your queen.
Find out immediately.
No committee meeting required.
So, Does Chess Actually Make Me Smarter?
My answer is:
Probably not in the magical, universal sense people sometimes imagine.
Chess is not a cheat code for intelligence.
Playing thousands of games doesn't guarantee that I'll suddenly understand calculus, remember where I put my keys or stop making questionable purchases after midnight.
Research provides decent evidence that chess ability relates to cognitive skills. It provides weaker evidence that chess training produces broad improvements in unrelated abilities.
But I've also realized I don't particularly care.
Because chess can still make me better at thinking without necessarily making me globally more intelligent.
Those aren't identical claims.
When I play chess seriously, I'm practicing attention.
I'm practicing patience.
I'm practicing decision-making under uncertainty.
I'm practicing perspective-taking.
I'm practicing accepting mistakes without being able to erase them.
I'm practicing separating what I want to be true from what the board says is true.
And I'm practicing one of the most important intellectual habits a human being can develop:
Before I act, ask what I'm missing.
That may not raise my IQ.
But considering the condition of modern civilization, I'd happily settle for more people asking that question.
The Final Move
So no, I don't think buying a chessboard automatically makes anyone smarter.
Owning philosophy books doesn't make someone wise.
Buying running shoes doesn't make someone athletic.
And downloading a meditation app doesn't make someone peaceful, especially when they're screaming at the app because the notification interrupted their meditation.
Tools don't confer virtues.
Practice matters.
And even practice tends to improve us most strongly in the thing we're actually practicing.
Chess makes people better chess players.
Along the way, it may strengthen or encourage certain useful habits of thought.
That's enough for me.
I don't need chess to turn me into a genius.
I like that it forces me to concentrate in a world designed to fracture attention.
I like that it rewards patience in a culture obsessed with immediacy.
I like that it punishes arrogance without holding a grudge.
I like that it teaches me that every decision changes the position.
I like that an idea can feel brilliant and still be objectively terrible.
And I especially like that after centuries of human beings studying this game, we still haven't solved it in any meaningful everyday sense.
There is always another position.
Another mistake.
Another idea.
Another person who sees something I missed.
Maybe that's the strange irony of chess.
The game most strongly associated with intelligence doesn't necessarily make me dramatically smarter.
Instead, it keeps reminding me how much I fail to see.
And perhaps recognizing the limits of my own thinking is worth considerably more than feeling intelligent in the first place.