Does knowing how to play Chess well help to understanding Forex Strategies?
I have read somewhere that some of the best Forex traders are great at Strategy games like Chess.
Any comment out there?
I have a huge interest in this subject and can talk about it for ever (how long a thread do you want, here? 
).
I think that being proficient at chess probably confers a [I]slight[/I] advantage to understanding forex trading strategies and maybe even to understanding the practicalities of their execution, but I think the reason for that is probably an indirect one, not really attributable to the “fact” that learning and understanding chess actually trains the mind/brain in a way that’s directly relevant to trading forex or to forex charts.
Undeniably there’s an element of “pattern recognition” in the acquisition of both chess competence and forex trading competence, but that perhaps relates more to “people being good at one sort of pattern recognition also being good at another sort of pattern recognition” than to any “intrinsic” similarities. Bill Hartston and P.C. Wason have discussed this quite a bit in their little book [I]The Psychology of Chess[/I] (an outstanding read, especially the chapter on de Groot’s research). They do actually mention traders, in there, somewhere.
I suspect that the bottom line, here, is that chess and trading both appeal to people who like maths and are to some extent mathematically orientated …
Different branches of maths, though, in my opinion. Chess is more “spatial reasoning” and forex trading (or any kind of financial trading) is more “probability and statistics”. In my opinion. But they’re both “maths”, so there’s some overlap of people interested, I don’t doubt.
Now, if you’d asked about backgammon (or even bridge), instead of chess, I think the correlation is much, much more direct and relevant, and I feel [I]sure[/I] that people who can become really good backgammon players have the ability to become really good traders, too. And (which is a slightly different point) that learning and practising backgammon to a “professional standard” can be [I]highly[/I] useful to aspiring traders.
Thanks for starting this thread. I hope others will also have some perspectives to offer … 
AH!
I was reading what Dr Lexy was saying about her backgammon playing and
I recalled that just recently I was watching this interview
Giovanni de Francisci: The “unconventional” hedge fund investor - Opalesque TV
where this Italian investor talks about how he likes to choose his funds
by visiting managers at their home and challenging them to a game of backgammon…
If you click on the link you will see listed below the video the point (with timings) and
description of the section where he talks about how a fund manager’s way of playing
backgammon shows how he/she will manage his/her fund…
Interesting…
Thanks [I]very[/I] much, PMH. How interesting!
I appreciate very much indeed (and strongly relate to) what he says there - between 6.30 and 11.15 minutes on the video. I don’t doubt his claim at all. Most perceptive of him … 
You are very welcome,
I love the OpalesqueTV series,
Thank for the info, Lexys and PMH,
I also see that music is like trending (and math). The 5 wave than reversal pattern, is like the 5 measure in a song before the chorus. I should start playing backgammon again.
Might has similarities forex with chess, we need use strategy and also keep calm minds to running strategy to become winner, and as trader will always carefully to manage all game, and forex also need calm minds and far away from emotion, might trader will faced with mistake but they can take lesson from these mistake
No problem…
There are a lot of mathematical elements in music,
and it would be an interesting discussion to have on BP,
however there are as many types of music as there are of
trading (or more); some musical forms are indeed more
mathematically structured than others - take the architect
Iannis Xenakis and his stochastic principles adopted in his
musical compositions, or Schonberg’s twelve-tone serialism,
or Norgard’s infinity series, to name a few - but in the end
it is hard to make exact parallels and to see how learning
one art form (e.g. music) could benefit another (e.g. trading)…
Over to Dr. Lexy 
Indeed … the two seem to go together, in many respects. Very much so.
Not so much, I’m afraid. My interests are far more early-to-mid 20th Century rather than mid-to-late/late, like your own.
My knowledge of Schönberg, in particular, apart from having heard rumours of something to do with a “12-tone scale”, are limited to a wonderful story about him in Harpo Marx’s autobiography (honestly) about the violin-case he carried with him everywhere in Hollywood that he was asked out for dinner, after his emigration to America. (It contained a little net, and table-tennis bats and a ball, because “people here have such big dining tables, and you never know when you’ll manage to get in a quick game, after dinner, so it pays to be prepared”. True story, apparently!!). 
Forex and chess are a good combination, I’m not sure how they can relate but I definitely like to pass time playing lightning chess on the Free Internet Chess Server whilst trading.
Chess generally has long been used an excellent mental exercise that trains thinking ahead and pattern recognition. As such it can be quite helpful to a trader, I think.
I would like to think that they both use the same neuro path ways. The same brain muscle or Strategist thinking in patterns.
I was just reading a book about poker and three thing stuck out that relate to trading. In poker you should 1. Bet Max on a winning hand 2. Fold early if you have nothing. and 3. You won’t win every hand, even a number of them in a row. In trading I hear 1. Let winning trends run. 2. Exit a losing trend early, use a well define stop loss and 3. Everyone has losses, even a number of them in a row. So knowing poker strategies can help with dealing with trading.
I don’t think that there is any similarity in chess and trading, I think trading is pretty tough task than chess and getting success in chess does not mean that we can get the success in trading, there are different scenario in the both chess and trading.
Chess is a very clever game. But I think you should not compare it with trade. You’ve got to know a lot more than playing chess
Short answer? No.
I play quite a bit of chess and poker online - not very good at either but I’ll say this: If chess does help you in any way just “knowing” how to play chess would be nowhere near enough to be of any benefit.
I reckon, you would need to be pretty much a top-level player i.e a player with an OTB rating of 1800+ to identify or derive any benefit (if any). Why? At this level you would be expected to have a deeper understanding of the game and within the context of the game you’d likely possess superior tactical awareness, processing/calculation speed and such-like plus your pattern recognition skills should be reasonably well developed. Without which, I’d say. you wouldn’t quite be in a position to make any meaningful value judgement.
On the other hand, the similarities between poker and trading are numerous and almost immediately apparent.
For example, bankroll (money) and risk management are crucial to your success, so is knowing when to “hold 'em” (let your winners run?) and knowing when to fold 'em (cut your losses short?). You need to be able to read your opponents (the market) and to some degree anticipate their (the market’s) next move. “Tilting”* in poker (akin to “revenge trading”) points to lack of emotional control which is similarly a recipe for disaster.
This Poker vs Trading Infographic sums it all up pretty neatly.
But again knowledge of the rules and the ability to play the games in question do not necessarily translate to the skill required to perform at a high level. And it’s these particular skills (winning skills) that are of value and are potentially transferable.
Hedge Funds are apparently tapping into this potential:
[B][U]Why are Hedge Funds Hiring Poker Pros[/U]
[/B]
So, in my opinion, while you’re a mediocre to average chess or poker player, the benefits or added value these games might offer - when it comes to trading - remains almost purely of ‘academic interest’.
Just realized that I somehow missed the word “[B]well[/B]” in the OP’s question: “[I]Does knowing how to play [B]chess well[/B][/I][B] [I]help[/I][/B]…” I read, “…[I]Does[/I] [I]knowing how to play [B]chess help[/B]…” [/I]Big difference. My mistake, so if by “well” you implied an OTB rating of +1800, I apologise profusely.
Also I’ve just read this rather interesting study: Does Chess Need Intelligence? – A Study with Young Chess Players and discovered that there is no correlation between visuo-spatial ability and chess skill.
[I]
Subsequent research confirmed that intelligence and visuo-spatial abilities are rarely, if ever, correlated with chess skill among adult chess experts. Djakow, Petrowski and Rudik (1927) tested eight grandmasters—including several world champions and some of the best players at their time—with a number of measures of general intelligence and visuo-spatial memory. They found no differences between this highly talented group and a control group of adult non-chess players. Lane (an unpublished study, D. Lane, mentioned in Cranberg & Albert, 1988, p. 161) found no association between chess ability and performance on a visuo-spatial task (the Guilford-Zimmerman Spatial Visualization Subtest, Form B; Guilford & Zimmerman, 1953).[/I]
Chess is a cool game I like it and it definitely helps to build a strategy in the game and at auction
By the way chess is developing well the logical thinking and it is learning you to predict the behavior of the opponent for several moves ahead. I think for Forex it would be very helpful especially versatile thinking which is used in chess, so I think it may be able to help you in trading.
That is my opinion as well. Still, actually learning about Forex trading would probably be more beneficial to a trader. Playing chess is a side exercise, if a good one.