I can’t speak for backgammon and bridge players, but I can speak from a chess player’s perspective. I’m a winning poker player (but not good enough to brag about,) and I’m a class A chess player (again, not good enough to brag about IMO.) I just enjoy playing and studying both games.

First, I haven’t seen any real correlation between intelligence and chess ability. I know plenty of rocket scientists and math whizzes that study chess a lot and still can’t play a decent game. School studies say that kids who play chess do better in school because of what they learn, but I think chess sharpens their critical thinking skills and isn’t necessarily linked to intelligence. There are common traits of chess and poker that appeal to chess players. These are the traits that appeal to me:

1. Elements of the game. Chess players begin to learn chess by becoming familiar with certain patterns (piece movement, checkmating patterns, pawn formations, etc.) and tactics (forks, pins, skewers) that appear several times in games. Poker has similar recurrence of patterns (hitting a flop, reading a board) and tactics (checkraising, slowplaying, overcalling, etc.) that are used in various combinations to a player’s advantage.

2. Analytical nature of the game. Chess can be analyzed almost to infinity. Players identify strengths and weaknesses in their game by going over past games, preferably with someone of greater chess strength. Poker has a similar feature.

3. Learning from books. Most chess players I know read books and magazines to gain new insight into the game. Same with poker. When I started studying poker, reading a book was a natural way to begin the process. This is probably true for other board games, but maybe not for other endeavors.

As someone mentioned, Bob Ciaffone is an excellent poker and chess player. In one of his articles, Bob mentioned that Ken Smith (of Smith-Morra gambit fame) is also a good poker player. Dan Harrington is a chess master. I’ve seen GM Walter Browne playing 8-16 at Bellagio. A lot of my chess playing friends also play poker or have given up chess for poker.

ScottieK