I feel like this must have been discussed before, but I think this would be an interesting experiment:

Assemble a group of people (say 50), and give them all the same 30 minute-1 hour introduction to go, then have them play a series of games against each other. Compare results to some other test generally thought to be a measure of some sort of "intelligence" (see disclaimer). Of course, there would be several variables to consider, and the number of games/size of board would matter.

It would be interesting to see whether (and to what extent) the results correlated, and then think about why or why not.

Anyone heard of this being done? I feel it must have been done before, perhaps with chess. I imagine it would work well with, particularly in the West, because almost no one has ever heard of it and the rules are pretty simple. There might be a cultural/demographic considerations in the teaching method, but, other than that, it isn't really language or background dependent.

Obligatory disclaimer: I know there are several definitions of intelligence, and they are often disputed, etc. My intention isn't to start such a debate, but rather to discuss an interesting idea.

For IQ/Intelligence tests relying on abstract thought, 3d/spatial awareness, and mathematical aptitude, I would think the correlation would be high.

I think you might want to have people solve problems instead of play each other, so you have a more absolute scale to compare against. If Alice beats Bob, that doesn't tell you much about how strong Alice is because you don't know how strong Bob is. But if Alice solves some tsumego, that has a definite "difficulty".

Or maybe a computer program that has an unchanging (& well known) strength?

Having them play enough games against each other, if their scores on some other test are compared would still provide useful information.

I like the go problems idea, too. It would be interesting to compare that against game performance, too.

A computer is unlikely to respond to moves equally (it's response to Bob's move might not be as strong as its response to Alice).

Man, I wish I were still in college-I'd find some excuse to do this.

I'd certainly enjoy reading about which DDK problem stumped the most geniuses.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Another proposal: take 10 teachers and let them teach Go to beginners, whose beginners are better after an hour of teaching is the better teacher.

More serious: The order of players may well depend on the type of teaching they are exposed to and which type suits them best. That is where intelligence testing originally comes from, determining what pupils have to study more - but that way it may tell you as much about the teaching as about the pupil. Only later it became the mysterious reified intelligence, the GoR of ordinary people, we know nowadays.