Coming back to this topic because I am now running both the chess club and the go club at my high school(I’m mc2006, changed my username). There are about 5 people from chess club whom I convinced to join go club, and I will say I noticed that they seemed to grasp things faster and had better reading ability and pattern recognition(understood ladders instantly, etc). Additionally, those who had higher chess ratings exhibited stronger tendencies to pick things up quickly(could be my confirmation bias though). At the same time, these are also the same people who get good grades/are nerds/smart people(who else would play chess and go in high school). Therefore it’s hard to say whether it was playing chess that granted them this superior learning ability, or just their natural intelligence/superior dedication.
Also, a quick update on my own ratings/ranks. I recently became 5D AGA, still 2D OGS(don’t play much online anymore), I’m also 6D in the Taiwanese Go system but I feel like those are inflated. 2200 chess.com, 2300 lichess, and 1900 OTB(OSCF). I’m probably better at go these days.
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