Chess and Intelligence

In recent years the game of chess has been attracting more and more attention, not merely as an interesting and fascinating kind of contest, but as a readily affordable and highly effective means for intellectual development. Extensive experimental research has shown a positive effect of chess activities on logical and creative thinking, concentration of attention, memory and reproductive imagination. Chess helps children learn things easier. Therefore, as a rule, kids who regularly play chess do better at school than the rest of their classmates. Particularly wholesome is the influence of the ancient game on one's mathematical abilities.

Well, is it really enough just to play chess to grow "a little wiser"? Definitely yes. Chess in itself is a good method for the training of one's intelligence. Moreover, results of a number of recent psychological studies indicate this method can be made even more efficient if special chess-related games are employed. One such study (A.Bartashnikov, 1988) involved two experimental classes where pupils aged 8 and with approximately equal levels of erudition were instructed in chess. In both classes the chess lessons went on for half a year. But in the first class the youngsters were taught according to traditional methodology (which is practically the same in any chess primer) whereas in the second class special chess-related intellectual games were used. Those games were aimed at improving the kids' intellectual faculties rather than their chess playing skills. A third class was also involved in the study, serving as a control group. At the beginning of the experiment the overall intellectual level of children in that class was similar to that observed in the other two classes. During the six months period pupils in the control class were not instructed in chess at all. At the end of the term the researchers checked children's intellectual achievements in the three classes. Pupils from the first experimental class appeared to be well ahead of control class kids in terms of both intellectual testing results and learning progress in general; yet their advancement was inferior to that recorded in the second class where the teachers had been applying the intellectual games based methodology. Remarkably, when it came to playing chess the second experimental group defeated the first one in a match, thus proving that their playing skill was also the better.

The outcome of the experiment allows to suggest that the advantage of using a methodology based on chess-related games is not limited to the development of human intellectual abilities as a whole; purely playing skills can also be purposefully developed that way. Hence such games may be useful to chessplayers with particular sporting ambitions. It is games of this kind that you will find in the Chess Puzzles Series.