[melonpapes]

Sunfan

Sorry but I'm failing to see how that doesn't just boil down to fast thinking and the ability to move the pieces, except for maybe the fact that memory has to be factored in, in the case that the other player might cheat. Surely thinking slowly isn't a benefit, so being quick thinking as well as forward thinking to all the possible moves of your opponent, seem to be the major "physical" factors to chess, besides moving the pieces. Am I missing something here? I put physical in quotes because I hesitate to call these physical traits, maybe extensions of mental ability, but traditional physical training will obviously have no great return on the ability to play chess. When I say speed, I mean movement speed and the endurance to keep that speed, not the speed of which one has to move an object on a board. Likewise, speed does not factor into Snooker at all for this reason. There is no benefit to being fast in Snooker. Likewise, the only benefit (as I see it) to being fast in chess is to execute the action of moving your piece to where you wish it to go before expelling too much time. This naturally ties into and correlates with being able to think quick.

I should clarify when I say "think quick" I mean in the context of a chess match, I.E. being able to analyze the board and its possibilities, sometimes many moves in advance, as well as analyzing your opponent, their strategy, and sometimes even their past strategy if you have that data available.