Daniil Dubov spoke about playing chess as an indicator of intellectual ability. Dubov states that the ability to play chess does not mean a person has other talents. Daniil notes that he came to this conclusion over his 20-year professional chess career.

Daniil Dubov

Daniil Dubov

Russian GM

“One thing I would like to point out is that chess certainly taught me that people can be crazy talented in one aspect and more or less dumb in all the rest. And it’s fine. And I think I’m very much like that too, actually.

Most of the chess players, from the side, it feels like they are bright, they’re probably intelligent, they could probably be good at math or science or whatever. But actually, most of us are just good at chess, and we do not have this special gift for anything else, to be honest.

So, chess players are only good at chess, and that’s it. That’s basically what my 20 years in chess taught me. I finally realized that these people are not smart or talented. They’re just good at what they are. Same as doctors, boxers, and whoever it is.”

The world’s top chess players often launch business and media projects in addition to playing. Magnus Carlsen is the creator of the Play Magnus Group ecosystem. It includes projects Chess24, Chessable, New in Chess, and others.

Anish Giri joined the ChessMonitor platform as a co-owner and partner in 2025. Fabiano Caruana created the C-Squared Podcast media project. Hikaru Nakamura actively runs a YouTube channel with more than 3.2 million subscribers.

Credit: Lennart Ootes