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A number of schools have introduced chess as part of the regular curriculum, arguing that the game builds skills that transfer to academic subjects. Advocates point to studies suggesting that students who learn chess show improved performance in tasks requiring planning several steps ahead, since the game requires players to consider the consequences of a move before making it. Skeptics counter that much of this research fails to isolate chess as the cause, noting that students who choose to play chess may already differ from their peers in ways that affect academic performance, such as having more support at home for structured extracurricular activities. Even proponents concede that more rigorous, long-term studies are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.