Is there any empirical evidence at all that playing chess improves your memory/strategic thinking/pattern recognition...

Is there any empirical evidence at all that playing chess improves your memory/strategic thinking/pattern recognition skills, as it is often touted?

no

Playing a lot of chess makes you good at chess. It is caled practice.
Chess does not make you smarter, but it I do think it can help you process information in a more logical way. Again, any strategy game that makes you think about your next move carefully can increase your logical thinking.

pretty much this.
just like everything else in life

yes

>Chess does not make you smarter
Is there any empirical evidence for that?

>Chess does not make you smarter, but it I do think it can help you process information in a more logical way.
Then it makes you smarter.

>Is there any empirical evidence at all that playing chess improves your memory/strategic thinking/pattern recognition skills, as it is often touted?
The game of chess uses memory, strategical thinking, and pattern recognition. The brain has plasticity. Therefore, playing chess will improve those skills. Empirical? No, though studies probably exist. Obvious? Yes.

no, other way around. after reaching decent level in the game you can benchmark your current mental capabilities by your strength in chess.

Doesn't matter if there is or isn't. The base assumption should be that it doesn't, unless proven otherwise...and that hasn't been done.

Playing chess makes you better at playing chess.

>The base assumption should be that it doesn't
And you presuppose this on what exactly?

Ok, so you did a bunch of shit in school that you'll never do again, and even forgot the vast majority of it. Why even bother. Perhaps using your brain to solve one set of problems does make you better at solving another similar set of problems.

The question is if those skills gained in chess transfer to other domains, chesslet

the fact that 99% of intelligent people would get wrecked by your average brainlet who reads a chess book and plays a lot unless they also played a lot means intelligence has little to do with chess skill.

Also, most grandmasters don't seem to accomplish anything outside of their autistic game. Bobby fischer was basically retarded. Kasparov was too much of a brainlet to understand how computers work and thought they all cheated against him.

Does lifting a dumbbell transfer to lifting other things? Think before you talk.

This. Chess skill is directly applicable to almost any abstract strategy game or even grid-based movement puzzles. The converse also holds: being good in other strategy games or grid deduction puzzles increases chess skill.

Well playing video games do.

Read a book dude.
Null hypothesis: any differences we observe are according to chance
Alternative hypothesis: Playing chess increases your intelligence and/or problem solving ability

Then you test this and try to disprove the null hypothesis. If you assume that chess makes you smarter as your null hypothesis, you're making a completely groundless assumption, no evidence, none, and demanding it be disproven. That's retarded, I suggest you try educating yourself before you post more inane bullshit on Veeky Forums

I think it maybe increased my capacity for concentration (or something that implied that). I started making much less computational mistakes in scientific subjects at the time when I started playing chess a bit more seriously. That was in high school so maybe my brain just developed a bit more at that time (unrelated to chess).

>Empirical? No, though studies probably exist.
In other words, you can't provide any sources for your claims.

The scientific method of inquiry...you absolute fucking pleb.

No. You can"t improve your intelligence. It's entirely genetic. It's only environmental in the sense that huffing lead and growing up without food in Africa will lower it. That's it. Chess won't improve it. Studying won't. Exercise won't. Diet won't. Meditation won't. Amphetamines won't. Nootropics won't. And finally, no, you cannot succeed in STEM without at least 130 IQ using "sheet hard work", but feel free to take on student debt only to drop out of a major that was clearly too complicated for you from the outset.

This.
Also, if you apply models from game theory, you will definitely train your abstract thinking skills.

>empirical evidence
>born to be blinded by matter

learning new things and problem solving helps your brain. route memorization not so much. One of those diminishing returns kinda things.