SYAC:

“What all this shows is that it is unlikely chess has a significant impact on overall cognitive ability. So while it might sound like a quick win – that a game of chess can improve a broad range of skills – unfortunately this is not the case.“

If chess made you smarter, every Paradox grand strategy game player would be a genius. Victoria 3 is much more intricate.

This is a bad article.

Being more “intelligent” makes one better at chess and chess reinforces patterns traditionally seen as a measure of intelligence.

Being good at chess is: memorization and pattern recognition. Being able to abstract and anticipate. All of these things are traditionally seen as intelligence. But that’s a bad way of looking at intelligence and chess, generally.