Hikaru Nakamura shared his opinion on the importance of IQ in chess in an interview with Tejas Khoday. Nakamura believes that high IQ isn’t relevant to achieving the GM title, and notes the importance of pattern recognition ability.

Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura

World's No. 3, streamer

“High IQ, I would say, is not relevant to becoming a Grandmaster in chess. But you do have to have a certain understanding or spatial awareness of patterns.

I think if you have that ability, you can become very strong even if you don’t have a high IQ. I don’t think we can correlate IQ with pattern recognition is what I would say.”

In interviews, 13th World Champion Garry Kasparov noted that chess mastery depends more on deep preparation and endurance than on a high IQ. Magnus Carlsen believes that a high IQ can hinder a player and cause them to overthink.

Credit: Crystal Fuller