IQ of chess players

wormstar wrote:

no matter what group of people you ask, their IQs are invariably 120-160. I find it amusing, and quite descriptive for the whole IQ racket. it's about vanity, perceived social status, and tells a lot more about the testers than the tested.

Ah, yes. The famous Lake Wobegon effect. But I'm not as convinced as you are that this is in play here. First, when you're talking about IQ, the people most likely to post their (childhood) test results are the ones with the higher scores. Second, when they post, they usually have an exact value. "I was tested at age 9 and I scored a 144" or whatever. The Lake Wobegon effect applies more to subjective analysis like driving or stock picking ability. I thought it was the funniest thing when I first heard it from a friend: "90% of driver in Sweden answered that they believed they were above average drivers".

So in this case, I think it is more selection bias than Lake Wobegon.

PerfectGent wrote:

well i can tell you precisely that my iq is 148 (measured by mensa when they invited me to join some 30 years ago) puts me in the top 2% of the country. (mensa's figures not mine)

so if iq and chess skill were connected i should be a gm - i am not!!!

need i say more

 there's no way that 2% of people are capable of being a GM.  if i had to make an uneducated guess as to what the average guy with a 148 IQ who plays a lot of chess is rated- i'm guessing 1500-1600

and yeah, i agree with everyone else that IQ is BS anyway.  but i definitely think your average chess player is smarter than your average person. (because smarter people enjoy chess more than less smart people)

I think an important thing to keep in mind is the scientific truth : "Correlation doesn't equal causation." What that means is this; while a high IQ and a high level of chess skill may be correlated, the IQ doesn't necessarily produce the high level of chess skill. In my own experience, I have found a mix of pattern recognition and general theory have made me a better player. There are certain patterns (piece set-ups) that occour at the board over and over. Then there is another aspect of chess which is the general theory ideas such as space, time, etc. The way I find chess moves is to keep the end goal in mind, and trying to achieve situations on the board that bring that to fruition. The end goal, kill the opponents king. How do you do it? Attack him with more force than he has defending him.. game over. Now, the important IQ quandry. Well, depending on your own unique brain set-up, you will assimilate the information in different ways, at different speeds. Some people will have heavy emphasis on the visual aspect of the game, some people like myself may find abstract theory more palatable. I personally have to really hit the repetition hard for visual anchors to sink in. An important part of my chess development has been hitting middlegame theory and learning how to apply it to my own games. Euwe's Middlegame Books I and II are great for learning theory. This has helped me finding moves when book moves run dry and there are no patterns to guide my way. It's what I like to call organic chess thought.