Two players move sixteen pieces each with different movement rules across an eight-by-eight board, capturing and defending, until one king is checkmated. Openings, tactics and endgames give a lifetime of things to learn, and clubs, apps and school programs are everywhere.
Why it may be useful
Planning several moves ahead and resisting the tempting move are not taught by chess, they are the moves themselves, and no other tabletop game offers this much practice at it. Well-controlled studies find little transfer to school math, so play it for the game itself.
Used in teaching
3 documented cases ↓Italian primary schools (study led by University of Liverpool researchers) · University of Liverpool
Keep in mind
Well-controlled studies find little or no transfer from chess lessons to school math, so play it because you enjoy it, not for the grades.
Written 2026-09-15 · editorial assessment, not a measured effect · how we rate →
What the game is
Chess is played on an eight-by-eight board of light and dark squares with sixteen pieces a side. Set the board so each player has a light square in the right-hand corner, put the eight pawns on the second row, rooks in the corners, then knights, then bishops, and place the queen on her own color with the king beside her. White moves first, and after that the two players alternate, one move each, until a king is checkmated or the game is drawn.
The rules that produce this game took their modern form in Europe toward the end of the fifteenth century, when the queen and bishop gained their long range. There is no publisher: any set works, FIDE publishes the official laws free online, and the beginner set No Stress Chess adds cards that tell a new player which piece to move and is marked six and up. Two players, ten minutes to an hour depending on whether a clock is used, and no reading is needed, since notation is optional.
What you actually do
On your turn you move one piece. Each type moves differently, the rook along ranks and files, the bishop on diagonals, the knight in its bent jump, and a piece is captured by moving onto its square. Three special rules take a beginner a while: castling, capturing a pawn in passing, and promoting a pawn that reaches the far side. The real work is not the rules but the search. Before moving you check what your opponent could do in reply, and what you would do after that. Getting better looks like seeing one move further, noticing a threat you would once have missed, and giving up a piece on purpose because the position pays for it later.
What it exercises
Looks a move ahead and checks the opponent's best reply
Holds several candidate moves in mind before choosing one
Resists an attractive capture that loses material two moves later
Recognizes recurring patterns such as forks, pins, and back-rank mates
Loses a game and sits down for the next one anyway
Why we rate it High Worksheet score 72 / 100
FitHow much real knowledge or skill does the play itself make you use?80weight 45%
Fit lands at 80, one of the highest fit scores in the catalog. The thinking and the game are inseparable: planning ahead, weighing options, and resisting a tempting move are the moves themselves, nothing is added on top. It stops short of higher because a lot of improvement is pattern memory rather than reasoning, and a player can get better by recognizing positions without thinking harder about anything.
TransferWill what you practise here work outside the game?42weight 30%
Transfer is the lowest score here, at 42, and it is the point most worth taking away. Well-designed studies with active control groups find that chess lessons do not measurably improve school mathematics. Players get better at chess and at chess-shaped thinking. Anyone who claims chess raises general intelligence is going past what the evidence actually shows.
PracticeDoes the game make you use that skill again and again, as it gets harder?95weight 25%
Practice is the highest score here, at 95. A single game is dozens of the same decision, games are short enough to play several in a sitting, and there is no ceiling: a player can play the same game for sixty years and still be improving. Almost nothing else in the catalog offers this much repetition of one kind of thinking.
Where it has been used in teaching
Documented cases of this game being used with learners. Each one links to its source.
StudyItalian primary schools (study led by University of Liverpool researchers) · Primary school · 2017
Researchers ran two randomized experiments with Italian elementary schoolers (233 third/fourth graders; 52 fourth graders), comparing 25 hours of chess instruction against active controls (checkers, Go); the study found no significant advantage of chess instruction over the other games on math problem-solving.
StudyUniversity of Liverpool · Primary school · 2016
A meta-analysis pooling published chess-instruction-in-schools studies to test transfer to academic and cognitive skills concludes that positive effects shrink sharply once studies with a properly active control group are isolated, tempering claims about chess programs' cognitive benefits.
School programChess in Schools and Communities (CSC) · Primary school · 2024
The UK charity Chess in Schools and Communities has supported over 3,000 state schools with chess lessons, equipment and teacher training over 16 years, reaching around 25,500 children a year; it also runs chess programs in libraries, prisons and hospitals.
Research-backedPublished research has studied this game, or the exact mechanic it is built on.
This is one of the few Research-backed entries in the catalog, and the independent evidence is cautionary rather than supportive. Sala and Gobet's 2016 meta-analysis pooled twenty-four studies and found small to moderate effects of chess instruction on mathematics and on cognitive ability, but almost none of those studies used an active control group. Their own 2017 experiments, which did use active controls, found no difference in mathematical problem solving. Harvard's Center on the Developing Child lists chess in its executive-function activity guides for seven- to twelve-year-olds, and an expert-reviewed list at Understood.org names the No Stress Chess beginner set. Strong evidence, small effect.
Editorial assessment - not a measured scientific effect.
Fit
80/100
Transfer
42/100
Practice
95/100
Why it makes the cut
The oldest and most-played strategy game in the world needs no case for being a game first.
Research-backed
Research-backed, and the evidence is cautionary: a meta-analysis found small effects of chess instruction that shrink to nothing in experiments with an active control group, while a UK charity's program documents wide classroom use.
Any standard set works; the FIDE handbook has the official rules free online. No Stress Chess adds cards that tell beginners which piece to move, then fades them out.
Age guidance
Ages 7-99
Topics
Logic & strategy
Play styles
Multiplayer, Strategy
Tags
2 players · 10–60 min · Abstract strategy · No reading · Clubs everywhere
Planning ahead and resisting a tempting move are inseparable from playing well, and a single game gives dozens of turns at that judgment, but well-designed studies find no measurable gain in school math.
