Camille

Why is only chess boxing a thing? Why not chess running or like chess tennis or chess football? The possibilities are endless

One thing I’ve noticed after more than two decades of professional chess is that almost everyone dramatically underestimates how much preparation has changed. People still imagine opening prep as memorizing a few lines from a book. That world is long gone. Today it’s databases with millions of games, engines stronger than any human has ever been, neural networks evaluating positions that used to be considered equal, cloud computing, custom scripts, opening trees, novelties hidden 25 moves deep, and increasingly AI helping organize all of it. But here’s the funny part. The biggest difference between the very top players isn’t usually who has the strongest engine. We all have access to incredibly strong engines. It’s knowing what to ask. You can spend six hours analyzing a position and learn almost nothing, or ask the right questions and discover an idea in twenty minutes that completely changes your understanding. Over the years I’ve also realized that preparation isn’t really about finding “the best move.” It’s about finding positions where: you understand what’s going on, your opponent probably doesn’t, and the practical decisions are difficult. That’s why sometimes you’ll see a super-GM voluntarily enter a position that’s objectively only equal—or even slightly worse. If it’s easier to play for one side, the engine evaluation isn’t the whole story. Another misconception is that preparation ends once the game starts. The first novelty is often just the beginning. After that you’re relying on pattern recognition, intuition built from thousands of hours of analysis, psychology, time management, and occasionally just stubbornness. Chess has become both more scientific and more human at the same time. The computers keep getting stronger, but understanding which positions fit you is still something no engine can optimize perfectly. At least not yet.

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Many are surprised the correlation between chess Elo ratings and general intelligence (g) is low, around ~0.25. This means cognitive ability (IQ) accounts for ~6% of the variance in performance.