How can chess, a game, help someone become a better investor?
The kind of thinking involved in winning a chess game is also extremely useful for many other aspects of life, including planning your finances. This is because both winning at chess and financial planning require tactical skills and similar behaviors.
Fundamentally, what separates a good chess player from a great player is the ability to create strategies and to adapt them to changing circumstances. Both chess and financial planning require good lateral thinking skills and the ability to make rational decisions. However, the similarities run deeper than this. Successful investors also manage to adapt their strategy to changing (market) conditions.
Building wealth requires the ability to observe and examine the financial world and know when to act, react, or sit still. Just like winning at a chess game.
These ideas are so critical to the average investor (even if they have no interest or experience with chess) that I teamed up with Grandmaster Susan Polgar, one of the most talented and successful chess players in the world. Together, we wrote Rich As a King, a book that draws on the core strategies of grandmaster-level chess players and teaches you how their skills can guide you towards financial growth. The concepts addressed in the book include strategy, pattern recognition, efficiency, precision, and planning.
For more advice on how to use chess skills to become more successful with your investments, click here. Or sign up for the Rich As A King blog.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, investment advisor, is the co-author with Grandmaster Susan Polgar of Rich As A King: How the Wisdom of Chess Can Make You a Grandmaster of Investing.
Douglas Goldstein, CFP®, is the Director of Profile Investment Service, Ltd., which specializes in helping people who live in Israel with their US dollar assets and American investment and retirement accounts. He helps olim meet their financial goals through asset allocation, financial planning, and using money managers.
Published October 19, 2014.