Of course, the abilities measured by IQ tests do seem to play a role early on, and it seems that children with higher IQs will play chess more capably in the beginning. But what Bilalić and his colleagues found was that among the children who played in chess tournaments—that is, the chess players who were devoted enough to the game to take it to a level beyond playing in their school chess club—there was a tendency for the ones with lower IQs to have engaged in more practice.
