Sure, playing chess needs intelligence, dedication, and good chess players are smarter than an average person. But it’s waaaay exaggerated in movies. I’m a math researcher, and in any movie, my department will be full of chess geniuses. But in reality, only about 10% of them even play chess.
I’m really at a lose about how what you wrote addresses their analogy. You just say that you don’t buy it and that the basics should draw you in.
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to like chess. I don’t particularly like chess, but I know the basics and know that I have to play a lot of games to get to the enjoyable part. In that way, their analogy is apt.
I’m not the guy you’re replying to, but it is a bad analogy since learning to read a language leads to more exciting things, even if you don’t enjoy reading books. You can communicate, do science, watch movies with subs etc. But learning chess does not make you good at anything else. (Tbh, I’m speaking out of my ass here, and will stand corrected if presented with research showing otherwise.)
That’s part of my point. If we were talking about painting then the skills might well be useful for other stuff, but everything I’ve read says that it’s just a game. It doesn’t build other useful skills.