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.
Oh man, I would love competitive tabletop games, where the goal isn’t to min/max your build, but to min/max your build after being given a brand new system and 45 minutes to read the rules.
Lol, I can relate. My friends are always surprised how good I am at a game when I’m playing for the first time (mostly card games, and board games). But I quickly get bored, so never get to be actually good at any of those.
Same with language. I can pick up a little bit of any language fairly quickly, but to actually learn it, I basically need to be forced e.g. live in a place where most people don’t speak anything else.