English Chess Forum

Yesterday I was reading up on some chess players...Wikipedia...I started with Kamsky, then Kasparov, then Korchnoi. During my research I read that Kasparov is a genius...not just an ordinary genius (IQ 140+) but a super genius. His IQ is 194 which puts him at the 4th highest IQ in the world today and at no.9 in all time history. Of course I would assume all past and current world champions would have very high IQs. I read that Magnus Carslen has an IQ of 190. I would think Fisher and several others past world champions would be right up there at the top.
https://list25.com/25-highest-iqs-throughout-history/4/
Anyway cutting to the chase I was curious about mine and found a nice short online IQ test (under 30 minutes which I took) and mine was 119 (although I was tired and was not tuned in and misunderstood that there was a timeframe involved....(that cost me several points I 'm sure) I am very confident that if I took it again (it takes about 30 minutes) I would achieve a score in the range of 125 - 130. excuses excuses lol
My ECF grade has been a rock steady 170 for the past decade. My ECF 170 - my IQ 119
I conclude that there is a direct correlation between a chess players playing strength and their IQ. Judith Polgar has an IQ of 170.
Any others here care to take the online test and prove or disprove my conclusion that there is a direct link between ones chess rating and ones IQ?
The link to the IQ test is here:
http://www.myiqtested.com/
you need to only input your sex, age (important as this is taken into consideration) and name and email address (I used my real name and a throw away email address) the results don't seem to pull any punches....I post my results below...too old to care...i would be very interested to see how other chess players IQ results compare to their chess rating!
Perhaps FMs and IMs might have IQs in the 130 - 140 range and GMs in the 140-150 range? Super GMs 2600 plus 150 plus?

PART 1/4 - Martin Crichton's IQ Report
Most People
IQ
119
Left Brain
59
Right Brain
45

Your IQ Score puts you in the Bright range of intelligence (110 - 130), indicating that you are of above average intelligence. You are a moderately logical person with an ok grasp of logical concepts. More exposure to and practice in understanding logic will assist you in constructing more convincing arguments and along with better creativity can help you in problem solving, however you have good word comprehension skills and perform well at language based tasks such as writing an article or understanding written works.

You have superb spatial relations abilities that give you a huge advantage when undertaking such activities as estimating space or parking a car.
2 / 4 - Left Brain
Most People
Overall Score
59
Memory
52
Word Comprehension
74
Logic
51
Numerical Sequences
63

You have good memory skills and are able to memorise and recall a sufficient amount of items. Practising memory games will help to boost your memory ability and enhance your intelligence score. You have good word comprehension skills and perform well at language based tasks such as writing an article or understanding written works. You are a moderately logical person with an ok grasp of logical concepts. More exposure to and practice in understanding logic will assist you in constructing more convincing arguments and along with better creativity can help you in problem solving. Your numerical skills are advanced and you are good with numbers and mathematics. Your firm grasp of mathematical concepts gives you an advantage in number based jobs such as accounting or finance.
3 / 4 - Right Brain
Most People
Overall Score
45
Perception
26
Visual Designs
36
Spatial Relations
86
Creativity
37

Your perception skills are poor which generally means that you will not perform well at tasks such as editing written work. More time spent re-reading and correctly your work would help you to improve this skill. You are not a very visual person and do not have strong visual analysis skills. More work in this area, such as studying art works or taking up photography would be of benefit to you. You have superb spatial relations abilities that give you a huge advantage when undertaking such activities as estimating space or parking a car. As a moderately non creative individual you will not do well at tasks that require creativity. You should focus some energy on increasing your creativity through brainstorming and exposing yourself to new situations. This will assist you in coming up with new ideas or finding better ways to solve existing problems.
4 / 4 - Share
Share your Report
Direct Link:

Martin Crichton wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:58 pm

I conclude that there is a direct correlation between a chess players playing strength and their IQ.

And that's science

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 16, 2019 4:40 pm

Martin Crichton wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:58 pm

I conclude that there is a direct correlation between a chess players playing strength and their IQ.

And that's science

Justin...same age and rating as me...take the test!

I'm sure there is more entertaining buffoonery I could get involved with

I reckon the likes of John Nunn and Jon Speelman would have very high IQ test results...(both of whom I have met and are nice people IMO and would talk to anyone)

John Nunn - Oxford grad at 18, PhD at 23, and one whom Carlsen said didn't become world champion because, essentially, he was too intelligent.

Didn't Kasparov's originally come back at 135. Perhaps he sorted out a retest later?

I'm genuinely shocked - as in - that Paul Truong doesn't get a mention here. He was Cambodian national chess champion at age 5. And four times Vietnamese champion by age 8

By the way, I know one person who will confirm Gary Kasparov as the fourth most intelligent person of all time.

Trouble is, with these remarkably intelligent people, why did they select chess as their medium of expression?

Chess performance can, crudely, be reduced to a combination of three elements: natural ability, study and practice. Chess performance measured by grading can be influenced by many factors, including the number of games played, the relative strength and range of the opposition faced etc. IQ is supposedly about natural ability (although critics of tests to measure IQ would say that familiarity with the type of questions certainly does no harm).

I can think of several chess players at university whose strong academic performance was not translated into a high chess grade, even though they seemed to dedicate lots of their leisure time to chess.

The Bletchley Park code-breakers included very strong chess players like Hugh Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry who probably had very high IQs, but the most distinguished of all was Alan Turing whose chess ability was not on the same level (perhaps it could have been if he had neglected his other interests to concentrate on chess - thankfully, he didn't).

The only time I came across IQ before was about 15 years ago when a friend of mine and work colleague was the membership secretary of Mensa and he asked me would I like to take over the role of secretary? I replied that I don't think I would be clever enough but he explained that wasn't a requirement...I politely declined (having been membership secretary for a few chess clubs in the past I knew it would be a thankless task).
I just googled more info on IQ and it turns out 119 is a reasonable score after all...just for fun I think people should try the test in the link above...it takes less than 20 minutes (not 30 like I said...but I was tired and it felt like 30 minutes)
https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx

IQ isn't a figure, it's a percentile in the population spread. On that basis, you might perhaps estimate Carlsen or Kasparov as being in the top 0.1%. Possibly. Maybe.

Actual IQ "scores" are meaningless since they depend entirely on the actual test. For instance, in the two main tests for Mensa – the Cattell 3B and Culture Fair – the top 2% scores (required to join) are (iirc) 148 and 132. Note that you can't score "190" in either of them. The highest possible score for the 3B is 162. Most online tests are worthless btw. They're designed to inflate your score and make you feel good. But whatever, that score is just a score on the test. It's not your IQ.

Jon Tait wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 18, 2019 7:54 am

IQ isn't a figure, it's a percentile in the population spread. On that basis, you might perhaps estimate Carlsen or Kasparov as being in the top 0.1%. Possibly. Maybe.

Actual IQ "scores" are meaningless since they depend entirely on the actual test. For instance, in the two main tests for Mensa – the Cattell 3B and Culture Fair – the top 2% scores (required to join) are (iirc) 148 and 132. Note that you can't score "190" in either of them. The highest possible score for the 3B is 162. Most online tests are worthless btw. They're designed to inflate your score and make you feel good. But whatever, that score is just a score on the test. It's not your IQ.

There's a certain amount of scepticism about IQ tests in general but I'll leave this to one side in what follows. If I understand the basis behind these tests correctly, the typical IQ test - which is designed to measure IQs over the range which most commonly occurs in practice - is such that anyone with an IQ at or above the top of this range should score 100% or very close to 100%. Consequently, the typical IQ test won't differentiate between persons with IQs above this range. To measure IQs much above 145 or thereabouts (Cattell), I think you'll find a separate test is needed with harder questions and/or less time.

And at the end of the day the "reliability" of an IQ test is simply how well it correlates with other IQ tests. All rather circular. In times past there was the well-known catch phrase that "IQ is a measure of how good people are at doing IQ tests". I'm not quite that cynical, but OTOH I'm not that far off.

Michael Farthing wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:43 pm

And at the end of the day the "reliability" of an IQ test is simply how well it correlates with other IQ tests. All rather circular.

Of course, chess rating systems are difficult to evaluate for precisely the same reason.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:03 pm

I'm sure there is more entertaining buffoonery I could get involved with

yeah,like making stupid condescending replies to every halfway meaningful post on these forums. I don't know why carl hasn't banned you, you are such a blatant troll.

Nice to hear from you Joey. Projection is a terrible thing, but if you want to know why I don't take IQ tests terribly seriously, several other posters have taken the time to explain above.

(By the way, how's the research going?)