History Main / SmartPeoplePlayChess

* The English dub of ''DigimonAdventure2'' explains that one of Ken Ichijoji's many genius-level talents is "playing a single game of chess while everyone watches." [[hottip:* :The clip is, of course, set in a park with a ring of chess tables. Ken is, as the narration states, playing one game, while the single occupants at all the other tables turn to watch.]]

* In ''{{Pi}}'', Max and his mentor play Go, sometimes called "Chinese chess," which factors into several mathematical and visual motifs.

* ''{{Killer7}}'': Harman Smith and Kun Lan play chess while not engaging in their neverending conflict.

** But then again, you have Jose Capablanca, who managed to secure a Cuban diplomatic post (even if it was primarily due to his chess skills, some level of social ability is needed to both get and keep a political patronage job) and Paul Morphy, a talented attorney who resented being unable to start a successful law practice because of the attention drawn to his chess ability.

* ''CodeGeass'': Lelouch Lamperouge is introduced by having him win an unwinnable (in a certain time frame) chess game. Needless to say, he is the second smartest person in the entire world of the series. ''The'' smartest guy in the world is a brilliant chess player, too. Don't look too closely at how they play, though; it's been outright admitted that the people who made the show at best only have a cursory knowledge of how the game works (enough to get the pieces right and that's about it).

* All of the live-action ''[[Film/XMen X-Men]]'' movies have scenes of chess. The first two feature Professor Xavier and Magneto playing against each other as a metaphor for their struggle over the future of mutantkind.

** Lex Luthor's introduction in ''Superman: Red Son'' has him winning fourteen simultaneous games of chess on his coffee break, while also reading Machiavelli in the original Italian and teaching himself Urdu by tape "to keep my mind occupied".

!!Examples

* In GundamSEEDDestiny the evil {{MasterMind}} of the series (YourMilageMayVary) Gilbert Durandal is often time seen playing chess while imagining [[{{ISeeDeadPeople}} ghostly apparitions]] that talk to him. Or during a FlashBack. Usually giving him something to do during an {{Exposition}}.

* Taken to extremes in {{Cerebus}}. Suenteus Po, an old wise philosopher, has grown so weary of the world that he hides in his small apartment and plays chess against himself...''for decades.'' All of which seems to have been a way to protect his secrets from the {{big bad}}, who can read minds. When she tries to read Po's mind, she sees chess...and ''nothing else''.

* Cluny the Scourge, in {{Redwall}}, makes a vow to himself to learn to play chess while his XanatosGambit is falling into place, going by the logic that since his real-life tactics work so well he'll be unbeatable. He never does get the chance to try, though.

* In {{Peacebreakers}} by Mindy Mackay, [[MagnificentBastard Isabella Sordeno]] is shown playing chess, as is her brother and two of her minions. Subverted when accomplice [[spoiler:Jackson]] becomes the only one to beat her since her ascension to {{Chessmaster}}, as he is characterized more as reckless than intelligent.

* In ''{{Heroes}}'', Sylar manipulates Danko into cooperating with him while toying with the pieces on a chessboard.

* On the WizardsOfWaverlyPlace episode "Make it Happen", the Russo's kids have to choose an alternate career in the case of they don't become wizards. Justin's first idea is to make money by travelling the world defeating robots at chess.
* WhiteCollar frequently depicts Neal and Mozzie playing chess. An oddly organized pursuit for anarchistic Mozz.

* Miles Edgeworth of AceAttorney fame has a chess set in his office. Phoenix notes that the problems he sets up tend to have the red side utterly dominating the blue side, if you get my drift.

* Discussed in the {{Insecticomics}}. While trying to dissuade a Mary Sue from shoehorning her way into the Decepticons, Kickback uses Dreadmoon as an example: he's both intelligent and extremely good at chess, but this doesn't make him a genius tactician in real life.

* In ATrailerForEveryAcademyAwardWinningMovieEver , the smart glasses-wearing best friend is shown at one point studying a chessboard from board level shifting angles as he did.

* As [[Wu-TangClan RZA]] discusses in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut69WcBvR3c#t=6m18s this interview]], the [[http://www.hiphopchessfederation.org/ Hip-hop Chess Federation]] clearly believes in this trope, using chess as a tool to teach strategy, life-planning and impulse control.

* {{Subverted}} in the ''{{Simpsons}}'' episode "The PTA Disbands": Bart is seen in the park playing several games of chess at once; he loses all of them. A parody of a scene in ''Knight Moves'', OrSoIHeard.

* Lex Luthor's introduction in ''Superman: Red Son'' has him winning fourteen simultaneous games of chess on his coffee break, while also reading Machiavelli in the original Italian and teaching himself Urdu by tape "to keep my mind occupied".

** Similarly, one issue of MightyAvengers shows Herc's TeenGenius ally Amadeus Cho -- described as the 7th smartest person in the world -- defeating [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot The Vision]] at chess.

->'''Barclay:''' ''(after analyzing a chess game and making the next move)'' Checkmate in nine moves!\\
'''Troi:''' I didn't know you play chess.\\
'''Barclay:''' I don't.
-->-- ''[[StarTrekTheNextGeneration Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', "The Nth Degree"

** There's also the part where the example that popularized it used chess.

** Breda is always shown consistently winning every game of strategy, be it chess or a simple childrens card game, in both the first anime and the manga.

** Lex's introduction in ''Superman: Red Son'' has him winning fourteen simultaneous games of chess on his coffee break, while also reading Machiavelli in the original Italian and teaching himself Urdu by tape "to keep my mind occupied".

** Herc's ally [[TeenGenius Amadeus Cho]] is seen defeating [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot The Vision]] at chess in one issue of MightyAvengers.

** [[FridgeLogic Or maybe]] it was J.K. Rowling's way to show that he isn't as dumb as people would assume (in-universe and in the fandom).
** It's also averted at the same time by having [[TheSmartGuy Hermione]] not know the first thing about chess.

** Ironically, the book covers make repeated use of chess motifs.
** c) And why is playing chess a ''bad'' thing, ''especially'' if it's shorthand for intelligence?
** It's Twilight. Intelligence is not something the series likes making prodigious use of.

** His games of chess are particularly cruel as well, and he plays them in such a manner that he nearly {{Mind Rape}}s his opponents. [[EmotionEater Gives him a meal to boot.]]

* Appears regularly in many of the live-action ''StarTrek'' television shows:
** In the original ''[[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'', Mr. Spock would often play 3-D chess when off duty (usually against Captain Kirk). One episode has Spock discovering that the ship's computer was tampered with when he managed to beat it at the game.
** On an episode of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a brilliant tactician defeats Data at a chess-analogue game. In the rematch Data defeats him by using RealLife anti-computer tactics.
*** In another episode, Troi beats Data at 3-D chess. (To anyone who understands chess strategy or game theory, this scene (mentioned in more detail on the StrawVulcan page) is a massive WallBanger, as Troi extols the virtues of "intuition" in a game that is fundamentally brutally mathematical, and at which Data would likely have an unfair advantage.)
***In yet another episode, after Barclay's encounter with a Cytherian probe, he gains an understanding of chess as a residual ability from his period of super-intelligence.
*** In fact, the trope is in general averted in TNG; the game of choice for the senior officers on the Enterprise-D was poker, where strategy is equally important but more based on social engineering than memory or decision trees.
** In ''[[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Star Trek: Deep Space 9]]'', Benjamin Sisko has a 3-D chess set in his office.
** ''StarTrekVoyager'' also had ''[[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Kal-toh kal-toh]]'', a Vulcan strategy game. It was played by Tuvok, Harry Kim, Icheb, and simulations of Socrates and T'Pau. Harry once called it "Vulcan chess", a comment which Tuvok dismissed.

** It's then reinforced at the end of the episode with Claudia making the first move in a reset board and looking to Artie for his responding move.

* One of the biggest upsets of last century was when champion chess master Garry Kasparov lost a chess game to computer Deep Blue: it was seen as a moment when humanity's intellect could not longer match that of a computer. Of course, computers had been doing complicated stuff humans couldn't hope to do before that, but the fact it won at ''chess'' was what was significant.
** Deep Blue did beat Kasparov, but that doesn't make it better than him. There's a lot of controversy over the games it played with him.
*** To give a small example, in the last, crucial game between Deep Blue and Kasparov, Kasparov made a big, well-known blunder on his 7th move, one he must surely have known about. It's such a massive mistake that some people go so far as to saying that he must have deliberately played to lose (for money or other reasons), as they other explanations simply aren't enough.
**** There is an argument that says IBM substituted a move found by human grandmasters for a blunder that the computer would have made. Kasparov requested to see how Deep Blue calculated the move, but IBM refused and took the computer apart after the match.
*** People who actually understand the inner works of computer chess consider this just so much sour grapes on the part of human chess players. Chess is fundamentally about optimizing decision trees in one player's favor, and the biggest advantage of strong chess players is a large memory to hold several different short to medium-range outcomes in their heads at once. A human can't hope to compete with a supercomputer on memory. (It's also worth noting that Kasparov is a bit cracked, and people who believe one off-the-wall thing (in Kasparov's case, a rather bizarre rewriting of history called the Fomenko New Chronology) tend to readily believe other off-the-wall things with little difficulty or questioning.
** While in many other games (not only random -- starting with Go) computer have to have handicaps (viewing players board etc.) to not lose.

**Interestingly the examples used, Fischer, Kasparov and Alekhine while strange, and in some cases border-line insane, are geniuses. And not Chess Geniuses, but Geniuses who happen to play chess. Fischer in particular has demonstrated remarkable abailities in other fields (i.e.Near-Perfect memory, a gift for languages).
** [[MadScientist You'd think people]] [[TVTropes that come here]] [[MagnificentBastard would know that]] [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate intelligence does not]] [[DumbIsGood guarantee good morals.]]

* In a video on Cracked.com parodying tropes used in OscarBait trailers, the smart glasses-wearing best friend is shown at one point eying a chessboard from board level shifting angles as he did.