Chess is a great game that can be learned at any age.  Chess is a very rare type of sport, in which a ten year old can beat a veteran with decades of experience under the belt.  Many studies suggest that chess, not only a very fun game to play, but also a very beneficial one.  It has been observed many times, that chess improves many characteristics required to be successful at school and at work: memory, concentration, critical thinking, logic, pattern recognition, imagination, creativity, and so on.

Chess is very complicated. Playing on the high level requires a good memory:  to memorize those complex opening lines and the endgames.  Good memory is also required at school, at work and pretty much anywhere else: you don’t want to forget these calculus formulas for upcoming exam or lose business contacts with your sponsor.

Concentration is also a very important skill to learn. Playing chess in large, noisy playing halls of various hotels with spectators, other players and just random people wondering around, teaches to ignore these destructions to perform well.  College or work surely requires the ability to concentrate on current problems also.

Chess teaches critical thinking and logic. To be able to play good chess, a player needs to understand the logic behind coordination of pieces. Chess player needs to find various combinations in all kinds of situations: when sick, when losing, when only two minutes left on the clock.  Player needs to evaluate the position arising on the chess board frequently throughout the game. Any intellectual work from a website designer to an engineer requires the ability to think critically and employ logic.

A good chess player must be a good pattern recognizer. Ability to find a good tactics in the position comes from a pattern recognition or, more precisely, from those previously analyzed tactics problems, and finding similarities between those  and over the board position. Pattern recognition is a very important ability when it comes to taking standardized tests.  It was proven that chess playing students score at least 15% percent higher on these tests. Any scientific research requires good pattern recognition: experimental results need to be matched with a theory.

Chess is a game that requires some imagination and creativity to play well. Players need to find a way out of complicated, dead lost positions, where it seems like it is impossible to survive and nowhere to get help from. Imagination and creativity can help a chess player to come up with some sort of solution that would draw or win even a completely lost looking position.  14^th World Chess Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, says that chess is a game and an art altogether.  Any intellectual job requires from an employee to be creative and original, remember “Google” and “Facebook”.

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