Should Presidents Be able To Spot Three Move Forced Checkmates?

[21times20]

what i want to know is why david sklansky thinks that the president's mental ability has any impact whatsoever on the actual governing of our country

[DblBarrelJ]

I think the question should be, should Presidential candidates be able to beat Sklansky heads up for rolls in NL Omaha8?

This seems to me to be a vadid test.

The religion thing I can at least see OP's rationale, even though I disagree with his point. This on the other hand, I do not.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

DS,

I think they should be able to do something harder than three moved force mates. Those are a piece of cake.

[bigpooch]

[ QUOTE ]
Anybody who learns how to play chess and has a few hundred games under their belt should be able to solve just about any three move checkmate puzzle in a reasonable amount of time. You don't have to be a master or anywhere close to it.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you say "just about any", it would be incorrect; I would
simply point out several (if not most) mate in three
problems found in the FIDE albums. Also, some mate in two
problems are not easy for experts or masters, but if a
"reasonable amount of time" is about an hour and you change
"three" to "two", a chess player who is almost about 2200
FIDE strength (not a master) should be able to solve most
"mate in two" compositions.

And no; presidential candidates are already subjected to
scrutiny by the media, and even being incompetent in
several areas has not been a major obstacle for any
candidate to become president.

[ChrisV]

I agree with thylacine that being good at abstract reasoning doesn't necessarily make someone a good President. A good President is someone who is skilled at management, so that they can get good people in jobs where they are needed and are good at taking advice. The major failures of the current administration are largely as a result of nepotism, cronyism and a failure to consult widely before making decisions.

[uDevil]

Given present circumstances, forced stalemate seems a more appropriate test.

[andyfox]

All other things being equal, yes. But in the real world, all other things are rarely eqaul. Von Neumann wanted to nuke the Russians because he said it was inevitable they would do it to us. He was wrong. Dangerously wrong. If I were to find out that Truman and Eisenhower were unable to pass your chess test, I would still have preferred either of them to Von Neumann. And it isn't close.

[Lestat]

Here you go again over emphasizing intelligence as if it were some panacea for all the world's problems.

It would be nice if the president could spot a forced checkmate 3 moves ahead, but certainly not necessary. Yes, intelligence is always a plus in any field, but the presidential office requires more important aptitudes then raw intelligence. This should be obvious.

[pokervintage]

[ QUOTE ]
But if we assumed they did, isn't it clear that those candidates who had the greatest difficulty with these forced checkmate problems, to the point of not being able to do many of them, almost automatically disqualify themselves from being as good a president as those who can do these problems and are otherwise qualified?

[/ QUOTE ]

Learning to perform forced check mate problems does not mean that a person has anything more than a workable long term memory. There is a step by step procedure that one can follow for solving these type of problems. Learning it does not indicate the extent of ones reasoning ability. Sklansky misses the fact that great leaders, presidents, surround themselves with smart people that can do forced chess and other problems for them.

If you want to use this chess test as a measure to judge the potential of a president then make every one on his team take the test, not him.

pokervintage

[bluesbassman]

Yes, I agree that a certain minimum, measurable level of analytical ability is necessary (but not sufficient) to qualify a person to be a good president.

I also agree that if the person holds certain beliefs/ideas, we may infer that he or she does not meet that minimum requirement. I would assume everyone here would agree with that, though we might disagree on where we should draw the proverbial line.

For example, if the candidate could not do basic grade school math (like operations on fractions, percents, etc), or believed astrology is valid, surely we would agree such a person is disqualified. I would also put someone who rejects evolution in the same category, though some of the creationists here would probably disagree.

Finally, I think the specific test Mr. Sklansky proposes is probably too weak to be meaningful, though I might be biased since I'm an avid chess player and those puzzles seems trivially easy to me.