The Value of Learning Chess Is More Than Just "Becoming Smarter"

Does playing chess actually make you smarter? Is learning Go or chess genuinely useful, or does it just sound impressive?

If we rely on intuition alone, this question is hard to answer. But when we look at findings from cognitive science and educational psychology, the picture becomes much clearer than most people expect.

Let's start with the conclusion first: chess is not a shortcut to intelligence, and it is not a magical add-on for the brain. However, it is a form of cognitive training whose benefits have been repeatedly supported by research.

When someone plays chess, the brain is not performing a single task. Every move simultaneously engages memory, reasoning, judgment, planning, and self-control. A player must keep track of the current position, anticipate possible responses, weigh trade-offs under limited time, and suppress impulsive or overly simple decisions. In psychology, these abilities are often grouped under the term core cognitive abilities, which are closely linked to intellectual development and learning capacity.

Among all board games, chess has been studied most extensively. In 2006, cognitive psychologists Fernand Gobet and Guillermo Campitelli published a comprehensive review in Psychological Science, analyzing a large body of research on chess education. They found that children who received long-term chess instruction tended to perform better on measures of fluid intelligence and complex problem-solving than their peers who did not receive chess training. Importantly, this advantage remained even after controlling for initial intelligence levels. This suggests that the effect is not simply due to smarter children choosing chess, but that chess learning itself contributes additional cognitive benefits.

If review studies can still be questioned as correlational, school-based experiments provide more direct evidence. Educational researcher Roberto Trinchero conducted a randomized controlled study in Italian elementary schools. One group of students received structured chess lessons for a fixed amount of time each week over an entire school year, while a control group did not. At the end of the year, students in the chess group showed significantly better performance in mathematical problem-solving and logical reasoning tasks. Notably, the improvement was especially pronounced among students who started at a lower academic level. This type of study matters because it points to causality: children did not improve because they were already more capable, but because chess training helped organize their thinking.

Research on Go, or Baduk, offers another interesting perspective. Go has an extremely large state space, and the consequences of a move are often not immediately visible. As a result, it places particularly high demands on long-term planning and global judgment. For this reason, researchers often use Go training to study executive functions. A study by Jung and colleagues, published in Frontiers in Psychology, found that children who received Go training showed significant improvements in executive function tasks, especially in inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. These abilities are widely recognized as key factors in learning efficiency and self-regulation.

That said, it is important to be clear about the limits. Chess will not dramatically raise a child's IQ, nor is it an instant solution for learning difficulties. Earlier studies did suggest that the effects of chess training might remain largely domain-specific. However, more recent research indicates that during childhood and adolescence, sustained and guided chess learning can produce positive transfer to general cognitive abilities, especially when training goes beyond repetitive play.

In other words, the real value of chess lies not in winning or losing, but in analysis, reflection, and strategic explanation. When children are encouraged to explain why one move is better than another, or to review and understand their mistakes, the brain is practicing structured thinking. This process closely resembles the kind of reasoning used in mathematics, logic, and even writing.

From a practical standpoint, chess also has a less obvious but important advantage. Its sensory stimulation is low, but its cognitive demands are high. There are no rapid visual rewards or constant feedback loops, yet its effects accumulate over time. It does not rely on language or cultural background, and it requires minimal equipment. From a scientific perspective, it is not flashy, but it is remarkably clean.

If chess learning has a proper place, it is best understood as a long-term investment. It cannot guarantee the emergence of genius, but it quietly trains patience, logic, and self-control. These qualities may not produce immediate results, but over time, they tend to reveal their value both in learning and in life.