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As for the whole computer thing, you kind of corrected yourself on it. Computers don't use the same skills in accomplishing the same tasks.

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No, this isn't the point.  I was merely arguing that it is invalid to say that chess requires "advanced spatial/temporal reasoning skills" when clearly it is not a requirement at all.

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And I'm curious to see who these brilliant chess players with less than brilliant IQs are (link to the Kasparov one?) and what criteria their intellect is judged upon. I'm not aware of Kasparov or many other chess players having actually disclosed their IQ scores.

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I can't find much about Kasparov at the moment.  I've found a few websites that claim that a German magazine Der Spiegel tested his IQ but I can't find anything that really convinces me.  

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Quote: from InsaneBlue at 1:25 pm on Sep. 6, 2009

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As for the whole computer thing, you kind of corrected yourself on it. Computers don't use the same skills in accomplishing the same tasks.

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No, this isn't the point. I was merely arguing that it is invalid to say that chess requires "advanced spatial/temporal reasoning skills" when clearly it is not a requirement at all.

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And I'm curious to see who these brilliant chess players with less than brilliant IQs are (link to the Kasparov one?) and what criteria their intellect is judged upon. I'm not aware of Kasparov or many other chess players having actually disclosed their IQ scores.

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I can't find much about Kasparov at the moment. I've found a few websites that claim that a German magazine Der Spiegel tested his IQ but I can't find anything that really convinces me.

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Oh, ok. Well next time I'll be sure to specify that I'm talking about human beings.

And if you do relocate those articles, let me know. I'll be surprised if I find their reasoning sound, and I don't mind intellectual surprises.

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BASTARDS!  

anyway, a few things:  

1) There has been lots of research on chess and IQ.  

There is something called the Levit equasion, which basically suggests that for every 100 Elo points above 2000 = 10 IQ points.  

Therefore, on this rather simple logic we can infer that kasparov (who peeked at 2851, if memory serves) has an IQ of 180.  

Bobby Fischer, can give some crediance to this theory, his ELO at is peek was around 2700, aparently, his IQ was tested at school as being 180. [a source: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/iq.htm ***]

The problem with this sort of analysis is of course, that FIDE has been suffering some rating inflation over the years, Kasparov was the first player ever to reach 2800 elo, But I think several players have since reached 2800 (Krammik, Topalov?, Annand?*), So maybe If Fischer was playing today he would have also reached 2800. Maybe 20 years from now, players will be reaching 3000, but this would not necessarily mean 200+ IQs.  

Addionally, This equasion would also Crush that 1500 figure that was floating arround a few posts back -- (since IQ= 100 = 2000 ELO)

Basically, since Elo ratings are not designed to co-relate with IQ, we cannot reliably co-relate them with IQ.  

2). It is not true that computer dont use pattern recognition, they spot patterns differently, but nonethless they spot them. (i.e a particular chess pattern/motif is programed into its evaluation feature.

3) Chess computers, when competing against human players, will often have resources not given to the human oppenant (i.e a vast opening book, Endgame tablebases, and sometimes even Game databases)

add to that human problems (i.e lack of sleep, fatigue, etc) it means that human players might often lose to computers not necessarily because they are weaker players.   Indeed, Krammik once missed a mate in 1!   [source: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3512]

Not forgetting, that Humans still do will against these monsters:  
http://www.chess-poster.com/great_games/kramnik_fritz/k_vs_f.htm

4) I will also confirm that Telomere is not talking shit. Kasparov was paid a great deal of monney by a German magazine for them to find out his IQ. he scored 130-140, with an exceptional memory.  

I would provide a source, but I could only find Bill Walls page, and I dont speak German.  

* I checked. I was right:  
http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=4101588
http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=5000017
http://ratings.fide.com/id.phtml?event=2900084

*** when it comes to chess, anything written by Bill Wall is a pretty good source.

Post edited at 4:53 pm on Sep. 8, 2009 by Blackadder

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

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I took an IQ test last year for this school program I'm in, and I got a 158.

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Addionally, This equasion would also Crush that 1500 figure that was floating arround a few posts back -- (since IQ= 100 = 2000 ELO)

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Typo, sorry meant 2500.

That's pretty intriguing if Kasparov tested that "low".

It's also odd how many great chess players are Jewish, although honestly, I wouldn't expect anything different.

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Click Me

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2). It is not true that computer dont use pattern recognition, they spot patterns differently, but nonethless they spot them.  (i.e  a particular chess pattern/motif is programed into its evaluation feature.

3) Chess computers, when competing against human players, will often have resources not given to the human oppenant (i.e a vast opening book, Endgame tablebases, and sometimes even Game databases)

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For the record, I do know a lot about computer chess.  It's true that computers typically have huge databases stored that they can reference, but generally these are limited to specific positions.  It's not really any different from a human memorizing specific opening sequences, etc. but for the fact that a computer can store many more of such positions than a human (but in general is less able to generalize them to apply to subtly different situations).

The principal strength of computer chess programs is the minimax algorithm with pruning; the evaluation functions are usually relatively uninteresting.  

Ultimately, though, computer chess boils down to things that could easily be executed by even a stupid human given a very large pad of paper and an unlimited amount of time.

This is in contrast to most IQ tests, which often cannot be done by computers at all.  Some of them can, of course, and some of them only can't be done by computers due to assumptions implicit to human culture and psychology (i.e. crappy ones), but there's still a large class of problems, purely logical in nature, that humans can solve that computers simply cannot.

It's this last set of problems that I think are by far the most relevant in terms of human intelligence, and I see absolutely no reason to believe that these skills are measured by chess in any way.

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This is partly true. But, a computer that can see 30ply ahead is completly usesless unless it knows what to look for. This is where eval functions come in. And, I should think that these eval functions work in a similar way to "pattern recognition"  

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The truth is what money can be made from a lie.

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This is partly true. But, a computer that can see 30ply ahead is completly usesless unless it knows what to look for. This is where eval functions come in. And, I should think that these eval functions work in a similar way to "pattern recognition"

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Evaluation functions of even the best chess programs in history weigh material more heavily than anything else.

IBM says:

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At the heart of Deep Blue's ability to play chess is its evaluation function. The evaluation function is an algorithm that measures the "goodness" of a given chess position. Positions with positive values are good for White, and conversely, positions with negative values are good for Black. If the overall score is negative, for example, this means that Black has the advantage.

Deep Blue's evaluation function looks at four basic chess values: material, position, King safety and tempo. Material is based on the "worth" of particular chess pieces. For example, if a pawn is valued at 1, then the rook is worth 5 and the Queen is valued at 9. The King, of course, is beyond value because his loss means the loss of the game.

The simplest way to understand position is by looking at your pieces and counting the number of safe squares they can attack. King safety is a defensive aspect of position. It is determined by assigning a value to the safety of the King's position in order to know how to make a purely defensive move. Tempo is related to position but focuses on the race to develop control of the board. A player is said to "lose a tempo" if he dillydallies while the opponent is making more productive advances.

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Of course, this is a hideous oversimplification (particularly if you include the opening books, endgame tables, and other stuff). Still, the "pattern recognition" is limited to situations that are explicitly delineated (not necessarily just specific positions, but categories of positions that can be identified through simple means). Basically, pattern matching rather than pattern recognition.

Attempts to write evaluation functions that use more "organic" pattern recognition like artificial neural nets do not lead to good chess playing, at least not yet.

Post edited at 10:26 pm on Sep. 10, 2009 by telomere13

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I've never taken a legit IQ test, and I probably won't. I don't have the patience for an online IQ test....

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