Is it possible to teach animals to play chess?

[Uri Blass]

There was a discussion about the question what is the maximal ability of humans in chess.

I claimed that there are a lot of humans who cannot achieve even fide rating of 1650 and in response somebody said that he disagree with me and claimed that it is harder to learn language and write sentences than getting 1650 in chess.

He also claimed that he believes that there are even smart monkeys who can get level of fide rating of 1650 but agree that not every monkey.

I claimed that it will be interesting to see him teach one monkey to play chess and he replied that it is not important for him so
I asked how much money do we need to pay in order to see a monkey play chess and he said that he believes that 10,000$ can be enough.

I wonder what is your opinion about it.

I cannot say that I am sure that it is impossible to teach animals to play chess.
I do not plan to pay 10,000$ for this purpose but I think that I will not have problem to be part of many humans who agree to pay a prize of 10,000$
for the first human who teach a monkey to play chess.

[Vinvin]

I found these 2 pictures but no details :

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/ne ... /613500246

And a discussion here : https://www.chess.com/forum/view/genera ... thing-else

torrubirubi
Jul 30, 2017
Chimps, perhaps, I think orang outans have some advantages over chimps. They can focus longer on a task, and they can focus better when facing a problem. This has perhaps to do with the fact that they rather heavy and almost fully arboreal. Because their weight they have to think how to navigate through the branches. Chimps are lighter and do not need such skills. But I think both chimps and orang outans would be terrific, talented chess players, as both species have a sense of orientation which is probably more developed then in average humans. The problem is that apes simply do not have the motivation to learn chess.

[MikeB]

There was a discussion about the question what is the maximal ability of humans in chess.

I claimed that there are a lot of humans who cannot achieve even fide rating of 1650 and in response somebody said that he disagree with me and claimed that it is harder to learn language and write sentences than getting 1650 in chess.

He also claimed that he believes that there are even smart monkeys who can get level of fide rating of 1650 but agree that not every monkey.

I claimed that it will be interesting to see him teach one monkey to play chess and he replied that it is not important for him so
I asked how much money do we need to pay in order to see a monkey play chess and he said that he believes that 10,000$ can be enough.

I wonder what is your opinion about it.

I cannot say that I am sure that it is impossible to teach animals to play chess.
I do not plan to pay 10,000$ for this purpose but I think that I will not have problem to be part of many humans who agree to pay a prize of 10,000$
for the first human who teach a monkey to play chess.

I would start with tic tac toe ...

[mmt]

I would bet against it. This is impressive though: