Chess is not about intelligence

(Originally posted in June 2012; updated most recently on 18 December 2021)

In this post I now use the Chesstempo PGN viewer that can be found on this site:
https://chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer/

Currently the Chesstempo PGN viewer is the best free online PGN viewer that I know of, but it's not perfect. For some reason it makes the first move by default and I don't know how to turn it off. I added a “null move” at the start, but You have to avoid “taking this move back” because the PGN viewer “gets confused” then and messes up sides. I also don't know how to make the move list window smaller, but there is “a vertical height resize handle” at the bottom, so you can make it smaller (or larger) yourself.

I have to say that chess is not about intelligence. What really counts is chess experience.

The below chess endgame is taken from one of my games. My opponent had just played “38...Rd4” offering a rook exchange. Calculating this position all the way to mate is impossible, but it was enough for me that I knew how to play with a queen against a pawn on the 7th rank. And the variation forcing such an endgame was possible to calculate.

Click arrows to replay the moves on the board.

[StartPly "0"] [FEN "8/p7/1p2k3/2pp4/3r4/4N1PK/PP1R4/8 b - - 0 1"] 0...-- 1.Rxd4 cxd4 2.Nd1 Kf5 3.Kh4 Ke4 4.g4 Kd3 5.g5 Kd2 6.g6 Kxd1 7.g7 d3 8.g8=Q Kc2 9.Qxd5 d2 10.Qb3+ Kc1 11.Qc3+ Kd1 12.Kg3 Ke2 13.Qc2 Ke1 14.Qe4+ Kf1 15.Qd3+ Ke1 16.Qe3+ Kd1 17.Kf2 Kc2 18.Qe2 Kc1 19.Qc4+ Kxb2 20.Qd3 Kc1 21.Ke2 1-0
It was all about experience – I knew such an endgame was winning and I remembered the key moves in this kind of endgame.

I think that even a very intelligent person would not be able to find such a combination without any chess experience. Of course there were other ways to win this endgame, but I was sure of success, so I didn’t care for other solutions.