what kinds of people play chess?
Alex
do you want to get good at it?
can anyone become a chess master?
Offramp
Apparently, in young people games like chess help construct synapses.
In old people, playing mind games with other people (like
intentionally calling them by a name of the opposite sex) can slow
down the rate of deterioration of brain cells.
I have always really enjoyed chess. But as in most games the horror of
losing is far far more profound than the joy of winning. You can prove
this yourself by kicking baboons on cocaine.in the bollocks. I love
reading about chess and I live in hope that this reading will help me
improve, and thus make my losses rarer. That is why I want to get good
at it.
I think that many more people can gain a title than actually do. I
know of one British Grandmaster who gained the title merely as an
extra qualification to put on CVs and lettrerheads.
Anyone who has the vouloir and pouvoir to obtain a good science degree
could, in my opinion, and with a little talent, get an International
Master title without too much trouble.
Good luck!
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)
> do only smart people play chess?
More to the point:
do any smart people play chess?
> why do people play chess
In army they would ask you: why would a dog lick
its balls? And the answer was: because it can.
> and why
> do you want to get good at it?
I'll let you ponder this one.
> can anyone become a chess master?
No and No to both q's.
Regards,
Wlod
ChessFire
one of the rare studies into chess suggests the answer is no. howard
gardner of harvard illustrated chess as one of his intelligences,
saying that it had to do with abstract spatial perceptions - and while
these can be tuned, they are essentially hardwired, so if you don't
have much abstract spatial perception, then you can only attain good
scores at chess by rote-learning method
adrian de groot in an earlier study suggested the same thing
therefore being 'smart' is a limited thing in chess, and may mean
nothing more than you are good at playing chess !
surgeons for example have to be both intellectual 'smart' within their
specialty, and also kinetically 'smart' or dexterous, since you really
can't be a surgeon if you say 'whoops!' too often ;)
uses of chess players are rare, and maybe the biggest use or
contribution they made was in the second world war at spotting
patterns in messages. some time ago chess players usually masters were
being recruited to wall st. and this was written up as good publicity
for chess, but the propaganda is shown to be flawed since after a few
years chess masters were no longer recruited to wall st
in terms of why people play; there are two aspects to that [unless you
are a rote learner and like what other people tell you to do]
a] first you have to see things, patterns of energy on the board and
tune into the major or important patterns, and
b] switching to the other hemisphere of your brain, you then have to
logically sequence the order of moves to bring about new desirable
patterns
these are in themselves enjoyable activities if you like to do your
own seeing and resolve your own problems
cordially, phil innes