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When children are just beginning to learn chess, their intelligence -- that is, their performance on IQ tests -- plays a role in how quickly they can learn the game and reach a certain minimal level of competence. Kids with higher IQ scores generally find it easier to learn and remember rules and to develop and carry out strategies; all of these things give them an advantage in the early stages of learning the game, when one plays by abstract thinking applied directly to the pieces on the board. This type of learning is not all that different from the learning that goes on in schools, which was the target of Binet's original project developing IQ tests.

THE REAL ROLE OF INNATE CHARACTERISTICS The results from the chess study provide a crucial insight into the interplay between "talent" and practice in the development of various skills. While people with certain innate characteristics -- IQ, in the case of the chess study -- may have an advantage when first learning a skill, that advantage gets smaller over time, and eventually the amount and the quality of practice take on a much larger role in determining how skilled a person becomes.