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Unlike in movies, most smart people aren't good in chess. (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Sure, playing chess needs intelligence, dedication, and good chess players are smarter than an average person. But it's waaaay exaggerated in movies. I'm a math researcher, and in any movie, my department will be full of chess geniuses. But in reality, only about 10% of them even play chess.

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[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

From my experience most smart people learned and played chess at some point but few get the point of memorizing stuff. Especially if they are not good memorizes. Its a great game to teach and play with kids as it does stimulate the mind with the way the pieces move and having to think about the changing board and next move. That being said I was not even aware of en passant until I met a guy in college who actually went to competitions. Heck I rarely could remember how to castle due to how rare it was to get into a position to do so. Really though any type of stimulating activity is helpful. Someone mentioned rubicks cubes and like suduko and crosswords and really any gaming. They all have limitations. I often say crosswords is more about knowing the crossword author than anything else. They all have favorites and biases in their puzzles.

this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025

364 points (97.2% liked)

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