Every child over six years of age in Armenia is now required to learn chess in order to foster intellectual development and the government has invested nearly $1.5m!
Armenian chess grandmasters are honored and celebrated regularly beating Russian, Chinese and American top players. In Armenia chess players are sports stars.
Chess teaches children to concentrate, strategize, take responsibility for their actions and is a much useful activity than video games or television. Children socialize in a civil and disciplined way : they shake hands at the start, and during long hours of playing, it's reasonably quiet.
Chess draws from brain power, not experience - it's not like writing a biographical novel. So if a child is great at seven, they could be a grandmaster by the time they are 13.
Chess is great for such masterminds as a Mentalist Derren Brown who Plays 9 Chess Games simultaneously and keeps them up at night thinking...