Open thread, Feb. 16 - Feb. 22, 2015

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I'm wondering if there are any fellow chess players here on Less Wrong. I'm a Fide Master from Sweden, ELO rating ~2300.

I think it would be interesting to get some statistics on the strength of the chess players here and relate that to other LW community statistics, such as IQ for example.

I expect chess rating among LWers to be determined far more by how much time one's put into getting better at chess than by IQ, for the usual reason.

Back when I was in secondary school I played a moderate amount of chess and was maybe somewhere around 1750 (i.e., better than almost anyone who has never taken the game at all seriously, and worse than almost anyone who's actually any good). I play only rarely and casually now; perhaps 1600ish?

3skeptical_lurker11y

ELO ~1825. I haven't played chess for a while, preferring go, poker, 'eurogames', computer games and so forth. I doubt that chess will correlate strongly with IQ - Kasparov only had an IQ of 137, which is below the LW average. A certain amount of intelligence is needed, but beyond that practise is more important.