It's definitely cliche, but I don't think it's cringe.

I don't think it works as well these days, tho. Chess is so fucking old that every possible combination of moves is well known and a good enough player would know the outcome of the game after the first move, so it's less about intelligence and more about memory.

GO might be a better game. That shit is way more in depth than Western chess and actually takes strategy all the time over memorizing movement patterns.