We invest billions in "brain training" games and learning Latin, believing these difficult tasks will make us smarter in general. We are wrong. The concept is called "Transfer of Learning," and the scientific reality is depressing: getting good at Sudoku only makes you good at Sudoku. It does not help you manage your finances or learn a language.

"Chess Masters Can't Cook" explores the cognitive barriers that prevent skills from transferring between domains. It explains why experts in one field can be completely incompetent in another and debunks the myth of the "general genius." However, it also offers a solution: the specific teaching methods (like bridging and abstraction) that can force the brain to apply old knowledge to new problems. Stop practicing the wrong things and start learning how to learn.