Does chess ability and mathematical ability go hand-in-hand?

[battousai]

I do not know if this is the correct forum to post this, but I have always wondered if the ability to play chess and mathematical ability go hand-in-hand with each other. A lot of people around me always tell me that. I like playing chess, I don't know if I'm good, but I like playing it. I also like math, not a genius or anything like that, but pretty good at it.

Thoughts?

 

[flyingpig]

Your name reminds me of Rurouni Kenshin

Anyways, I think to some degree yeah, but not always.

 

[fluidistic]

I do not know if this is the correct forum to post this, but I have always wondered if the ability to play chess and mathematical ability go hand-in-hand with each other. A lot of people around me always tell me that. I like playing chess, I don't know if I'm good, but I like playing it. I also like math, not a genius or anything like that, but pretty good at it.

Thoughts?

I do not think so. Maybe a very little but nothing more.
By the way I find it hard to "measure" mathematical ability. You'd also have to use the term "chess ability"because no all mathematicians know how to play chess.
I've seen a game played between Einstein and Oppenheimer (I consider both good at math), yet Oppenheimer looked like a total newbie despite having some knowledge in the opening. If you're interested, you can see the game there: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1261614.
There's a learning curve in both fields. Being a mathematician doesn't imply you'll start at the end of the learning curve in chess. In the same line, being Kasparov doesn't mean you've the ability to math a mathematician has.

 

[Jack21222]

I'd have to say no, not directly, because both are learned skills. Knowing the intricacies of the isolated queen pawn position and being able to do topology have nothing in common. Now, it's quite possible that certain mental characteristics will help the acquisition of knowledge in both mathematics and chess, but there's no way I'd say the two go "hand-in-hand."

 

[KingNothing]

There is probably some small correlation.

 

[fluidistic]

There is probably some small correlation.

I agree with you. To some extent. In chess some end game positions depends on how well you can "count" moves. "Will I get my pawn up to queen before my opponent does if I exchange pieces here and there". But this can't be called "mathematical ability" as a well rounded mathematician can have.

 

[battousai]

Your name reminds me of Rurouni Kenshin

Anyways, I think to some degree yeah, but not always.

yes, I got it off of RK

--------------------

Anyways, I thought about it more, and I would say that chess has more to do with "calculation", more so than "mathematics". Would that make a more accurate statement?

 

[Chi Meson]

There is probably some small correlation.

I also agree here, but it is not a direct link in the brain, not as much as music and math seem to be. I would not be able to personally provide supporting data, that's for sure: I learned chess when I was 6 I have always liked it, and have played it off and on for 40 years now. I decided to "get good at it" twice in my life, once in HS and again just after college. Both times came to no avail. I am simply just "not so good at chess."

I'm not a math genius, but I have a degree in Physics, and I think that some people around here will support the fact that you have to be at least "pretty good" in math to get that far. A direct correlation would suggest that I should be "pretty good" at chess; I am not. My 8 year old son, Simon (MY GOD, HE'S EIGHT!) can just about beat me at it. I appear to be physically missing a critical part in my brain.

 

[rolerbe]

I think the correlation exists only in the sense that pattern recognition (PR) does come into play to some degree in symbolic math manipulations. Chess is largely a PR problem, but it is more one specifically of spatial relations (a subset of PR) than just general PR.

 

[Chi Meson]

I think the correlation exists only in the sense that pattern recognition (PR) does come into play to some degree in symbolic math manipulations. Chess is largely a PR problem, but it is more one specifically of spatial relations (a subset of PR) than just general PR.

Again, interestingly by this observation, I should be excellent at chess since my spatial mental capacities are evidently the strongest of my abilities (that and running steep downhill trails). Seriously, In a series of tests a group did on me when I was in 6th grade (damn probes) my "spacial" skills were measured in the 99.99 percentile.

Back in the late 80s, when computer chess became ubiquitous, I tried one summer repeatedly playing speed chess against the computer, hoping that my intuition would kick in. Learning the game by numbers and points wasn't working, so I figured I just needed practice to let my head see the myriad possibilities and develop that pattern recognition that master players have. Didn't work. Even when setting the computer to "stupid," I rarely could fight that thing to a tie.

I have come to accept my "condition," even though it is frustrating. I would really like to be good at it.

 

[fluidistic]

Interesting case Chi_Meson. May I know how do you think you are at tetris?

 

[Chi Meson]

Interesting case Chi_Meson. May I know how do you think you are at tetris?

Tetris is so easy. It is exactly the kind of game I could go pro at.

"Professional Tetris Player"
Almost as non-lucrative as "Professional downhill runner."

 

[I like Serena]

My own experience mathes Chi Meson's 1-on-1.

I excel at mathematics and physics, but I've never been able to be more than moderate at chess.
And yes, it frustrated me too that I had to set the computer to stupid, just to beat it at chess.

Oh yes, and tetris is easy.;)

 

[fluidistic]

Wow guys (Chi Meson and I like Serena).
Have you tried Go?

 

[Dotini]

I have always wondered if the ability to play chess and mathematical ability go hand-in-hand with each other.
Thoughts?

Emanuel Lasker was one of chess's greatest champions, and was also a mathematician.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker

Other chess greats have lacked the ability to keep up a checkbook.

I have won some games against a prominent American chess player who later went on to become a perennial candidate for the world chess championship, yet my math abilities are modest at best.

My conclusion is that chess ability is normally distinct from math ability.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Given that my math skills are rudimentary and my chess is lousy, I would say that there is a very good correlation.

 

[Chi Meson]

Wow guys (Chi Meson and I like Serena).
Have you tried Go?

When I lived in Portland, OR, 16 years ago, a group of SCARY strange (and smelly) guys took over the cafe tables at Powell's Books once a week for Go tournaments. It scared me permanently from the game. After seeing documentaries on Chess and Scrabble players, this is evidently no different from the obsessed among those games. But too late.

I do enjoy similar games, such as 3-stone and Othello, but I understand that Go has similar strategical complexities as chess. So no disrespect intended.

 

[joelupchurch]

Lasker argued that Chess had a correlation not only with Mathematics, but also with Music.

Mathematical thinking is generally held to be more or less closely related to the type of thinking done in chess. Mathematicians are indeed drawn to chess more than most other games. What is less widely known is that very frequently mathematicians are equally strongly attracted to music. Many musicians do not reciprocate this attraction, but I firmly believe that this is mainly due to their lack of acquaintance with mathematics, and to the widespread confusion of mathematics with “figuring.”

An intriguing phenomenon that links mathematics, music and chess is the fact that child prodigies have been known only in these three fields. That children have never produced a masterwork in painting, sculpture, or literature seems only natural when we consider their limited experience of life. In music, chess, or mathematics, that experience is not needed. Here, children can shine, because native gifts are the dominant factor. Aesthetic sensitiveness and ability to think logically are certain inborn qualities. How, otherwise, could Mozart have composed a minuet, and actually written it down, before he was four years of age? How could Gauss, before he was three years old, and before he knew how to write, have corrected the total of a lengthy addition he saw his father do? How could Sammy Reshevsky play ten games of chess simultaneously when he was only six?

The reasoning ingredient in a chess combination is always of prime importance, even though a vivid imagination will make a chess player think of possibilities that will not occur to a less imaginative logician. (p. 142)

http://www.edutechchess.com/whychess.html"

I personally think we talking about sets of ability, rather than a single ability and the sets are overlapping, but not the same in each case. A strong ability in one would correlate with the other fields but it wouldn't be an identity. for that matter, I suspect the same could be said about the different fields of mathematics.

It also takes so much time to master one field, that it seem unlikely that many people would have the time to master two fields much less all three even assuming they had all the requisite abilities.

For a modern example, I would also throw Computer Programming as a 4th field.

 

[Chi Meson]

Just in the past month, and by coincidence, my kids have gotten into chess-- especially my 6-year-old, who is a precocious math genius [side anecdote: a 5th grader tried to stump him with "what the cube root of 27?" He didn't know what a cube root was, and I got halfway through explaining what the term meant when he said "you mean like 3?"]

So we've been playing chess, and Benny plays it on the computer, on the iPod, and against his older siblings, and against me. I enjoyed about a two week window of being able to beat Benny, but that ended today. With no "gimmes," or take-backs, the little guy check-mated me after about 20 moves.

I have never been so simultaneously proud and ashamed in my life.

 

[Ecthelion]

Yes - what Lasker said makes a lot of sense.

I think a variety of people here are trying to connect the "numbers" and "counting" aspects of math with chess. I think these abilities are loosely connected but ultimately trivial when compared to the logical and deductive mindset that both mathematics and chess requires.

I've thought about this relationship before and have always likened the very general field of mathematical modeling to chess - where it's not necessarily one's exceptional math skills that provide success, but usually the ability to see the pieces and their unique attributes (so variables) within the context of the board's positioning (the system).

@Chi Meson - I also experienced a similar situation at Borders (RIP), and made the tragic mistake of asking to play a game... I couldn't resist, lol but ya... it was scarring to say the least... very strange verbal comments during game play.

 

[Quantumjump]

Playing chess just to play chess of having fun, is great, but I think that trying to be good at chess specifically in order to get more mathematical maturity is a waste of time. To get mathematical maturity, read (and study) Euclid: even if it only deals with (not so) elementary geometry, you will find yourself being able to "think" in a way that will scare you at some point. In my own case, I read Euclid before studying Mathematical Analysis and Group Theory, and though those fields are basically unrelated at first, I found no problem in using the deduction skills I learned from Euclid when moving to Analysis and Group Theory, and I did fairly well in these exams.