Today, more and more schools around the world are teaching children how to play chess. But you don’t have to confine your child’s chess lessons to the classroom. If you want your child to learn to play chess, sign up for a free copy of a Chess Teaching Guide for Teachers and Parents by Grandmaster Susan Polgar.

What are the benefits of playing chess?

Playing chess can help you improve your analytical thinking skills, confidence, and overall health. Murray Thompson, of Flinders University in Australia, carried out a study on whether playing chess improves scholastic achievements, measured by an increase in IQ levels. He concluded that IQ increased as a result of playing chess due to the concentration and logical thinking that players use when planning and making their moves.

Several studies conducted among schoolchildren found that children who learn chess in school develop strong verbal, intellectual, and numerical abilities. For this reason, countries such as Armenia, Norway, and Spain teach chess as a compulsory school subject. Chess in the Schools teaches inner city public school students how to play chess as a means to improve their academic performance and aspire to better lives.  (To watch a video of an interview with the chair emeritus of Chess in the Schools, Lewis Cullman, click here.)

Another study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that when people 75+ played chess and other intellectually stimulating games, they were less likely to develop dementia than their non-game-playing peers.

Chess can also teach financial skills

Apart from all of the intellectual benefits that chess provides, you can also apply chess logic and strategies to improving your personal finances. The book Rich As A King, which I wrote with Grandmaster Susan Polgar, explains how the wisdom of chess can make you a grandmaster of investing. This book isn’t intended only for chess players. It is meant for all people who want to improve their personal financial situation.

If you haven’t yet done so, get a copy today and improve your strategic thinking skills both on and off the chessboard.

Douglas Goldstein, co-author of Rich As A King: How the Wisdom of Chess Can Make You A Grandmaster of Investing, is an avid chess fan, international investment advisor and Certified Financial Planner (CFP®).