holy shit.
there’s an interesting (but not necessarily causual in either direction) link between chess and depression https://www.chess.com/blog/AstroTheoretical_Physics/chess-pl...
either how, RIP
there’s an interesting (but not necessarily causual in either direction) link between chess and depression https://www.chess.com/blog/AstroTheoretical_Physics/chess-pl...
either how, RIP
When applied to war we celebrate the general’s brilliance. When applied to economics we say they had excellent foresight. When applied to any human endeavor, except chess, the accomplishment is celebrated as a human achievement.
This is due to humans placing great value upon thinking and planning ahead. Only the intelligent exhibit this behavior.
But, having watched some of Naroditsky's videos, it seems pretty clear that he was in fact very intelligent as well as very good at chess.
(from Wikipedia)
Intelligence is multifactoral. Being good at chess was one aspect of intelligence in the complexity of Daniel's life, and in anyone's life.
"'Even in our book, we don’t want to call this theory a complete myth, but instead label it as ‘nuanced’."
> Why? Well, the basic idea behind this theory is that people are different, and maybe you’ve noticed – they really are. People have different interests, different abilities, different moods, etc.
The author isn’t saying that the multiple-intelligence theory is itself valid. Rather, in an educational context, there is a kernel of value in the idea that different students are different. That’s entirely consistent with intelligence being a single thing.
Formal definitions aside, it isn't possible for "stupid" people to be good at chess. There also is no other animal or known alien that is good at chess. Thus being good at chess is a strong sign of an intelligent human.
We can't go the other way. There are plenty of humans generally known to be "intelligent" who are not good at chess. There is a lot more than intelligence needed to be good at chess (practice and study come to mind, there might be more).
While there are no known aliens that are good at chess, that doesn't preclude that we may discover them in the future. (not in your lifetime though - the speed of light is too slow for them to learn the rules of our chess and communicate back proof that they are good, no matter how intelligent they are)
Were you entertained when he publicly dissed his pregnant wife for her play in the recent US Championships?
I get it that lots of chess nerds enjoy this kind of thing, but that doesn't make it intelligent.
Or if you like tests ... he himself has mentioned not scoring well on an IQ test.
I wasn't interested in chess but I could see their entire plan unfold on the board. Unless they were actually good I didn't even try to win, in stead I let them unfold their plan into their own demise.
My winning streak ended when I got to play against the best kid from a different school. His was the biggest brain I have ever seen from the inside. He pretty much violated basic principles of the game in a way that still bothers me 35 years later.
The game was much to open to really look far ahead. The way one would play against a computer. His actual goal was to trade his knights and bishops for two pawns each!?!?! He pulled off 3 such trades. He carefully set up the trades and it made no fkn sense.
Then came a really long and slow pawn push that didn't allow me to trade my knights and bishops for more than a single pawn.
It took so many moves that he pretty much convinced me that 2 bishops and a knight are worth less than 5 points. I haven't seen a second game like it but I'm still 100% convinced.
But I think where people get confused is in the inverse. If you take a very smart person and he dedicates two years of his life to chess, all alongside training from some of the world's best, then he's still going to be, at best, a strong amateur at the end. In fact I know at least one instance where this exact experiment was tried. This is generally unlike other fields where such an effort would generally put you well into the realm of mastery.
But that's the unconscious competence part - chess takes many years of very serious training to even start to have it become 'natural' for you, and it's that point that your training journey begins all over again because suddenly things like opening preparation starts to become critical. So it can give the appearance that since seemingly smart people don't do particularly well at chess, while people like Magnus who has/had (daddyhood changes a lot...) a complete 'bro' personality, is arguably the strongest player of all time, it gives the impression that being smart must not be a prerequisite for success at chess.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9879926/
Playing competitive chess may trigger depression because of the constant comparison of people better than you.