In the poll the person who has shown the most intelligent feat is itachi without a doubt.
The thing with shikamaru is that although a genius i do not believe he is smarter than kakashi, itachi and minato is certain situations.
Example against temari, everything was planned and with that beat her very convincingly.
Against hidan, asuma and the other two protected him whilst he he was able to decode hidan's ability.
Again hidan part2, he already knew of his ability and came up with a strategy to defeat him. In all these situation's he hasnt been pushed. He has either had background info already or somebody is protecting him whilt he does the decoding. He hasnt been in the type of situation where itachi, minato and kakshi has been in where they are in the heat of a battle and able to make quick decisions.
In such a scenario i cannot see shikamaru's being able to in a heat of battle whilst at the same time trying to figure out his opponent's technique. Could argue because he isnt strong enough to keep up with the strongest of opponents whilst figuring out how their technique works, but my point still stands.
People also fail to mention others like, tsunade, sakura, kurenai, neji.
Medic ninjutsu is said to require quiet a high degree of intellect and thats what sakura and tsuande do well in. No different to genjutsu which kurenai does well in without the help of a doujutsu. Also neji whom i need not explain.
There are different types of intellect examples are calss exams which people like sakura, tsunade, shikamaru, ino and kurenai would do well in.
There are things like planning, which tobi is a master of, kabuto & oro, shikamaru and skikaku, minato and itachi (minato's and itachi's both gambled. Minato's gamble is paying of but naruto couldve easily become like gaara in part 1 if it wasnt for external circumstances which he had influence on. Same with itachi his gamble isnt paying of due to external circumstances)
In battle intellect; Itachi, minato, shikamaru, kakashi, sasuke, naruto
There are out of battle research and experiments which, kabuto, oro, itachi have
Basically what im trying to say is that you cannot measure. Sakura would wipe the floor with naruto when it comes to exams with little effort, but naruto has a superior battle intellect than sakura. Simlarly tobi has better planning intellect feats than itachi, but he had to threaten kabuto to tell him the weakness of edo tensei. Itachi already knew the weakness of edo tensei. Tobi hasnt shown us any intelligent battle feats, whilst itachi has shwon us a boat full
Also people need to realise that intellect has very little to do with kg and everything to do with brain power. You can have as many sharigans as you want, even if they are implanted on your arms, if you arent smart, you arent smart.
Its criminal to say that all the intellect itachi has shown is because of his sharigan, because that is obviously wrong. The man know things that nobody else knows but can also somewhat predict future events. How he knows that kabuto would likely has sm, is beyond me. He knows of the land of the white snakes. Other planning feats are implanting amatersu to activated upon contact with tobi's sharigan. Also implanting ka into naruto to activate upon the sight of sasuke's eyes. Both these planning feats failed due to external circumstances that has very little to do with brain power because after all no matter how smart you are you cannot tell the future
