Monday 31 May 2010

Chess makes you smart

Or do smart people play chess?
I tend to gravitate towards the former claim, as I have met plenty of smart people who can't play chess, but far fewer chess players who weren't that smart.
And anyone who has tried to get a foot in the door of the "Chess-in-Schools" coaching would also agree, as this is the sort of argument that carries a lot of weight with school principals.
Here is an article from Lawrence Journal (Kansas, USA) which lays out some of the benefits for the local school kids. Probably the most important point in the article isn't the intellectual benefit that chess gives, but the social benefit. So not only does chess make you smart, it also makes you friends!

2 comments:

Shaun Press said...

The initial headline for this post was "Chess make you smart", which clearly proves it did not in my case.

Paul said...

Are Chess people as smart as GO people ? :-)