I have my personal opinion about this issue but... what do you think about being patriotic playing chess? I just had a look on the groups and many people seems to be too concerned making their country teams. Shouldn't we have learnt already that such behaviour denigrates a game with much higher intelectual level than a simple nationalist act? I would like to know your opinions about it.

No bro...it's just the excitement of being in a group becasue not all members of a particular group have met personally.Patriotic? In my opinion....i don't think so. Its just the urge of being in a group were people enjoy the game that you love.It gives one the guts to role forward becasue he has somebody at his side. Sometimes..."Us" men, tends to be a bit "cocky".(I hope i did chose the correct term.).Its like making a group for players who prefer to play as white and players who prefer to play as black. People will still join the group black or white side, because of the feeling of belongingness (is this english?) and ther belief in strenght in unity.

I personally see Chess as a way to unite countries, but that's just me

I liked that!

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Couldn't disagree with that

Einstein:

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!"

and

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

However, I can tolerate in some senseless infancy:

Aussie Aussie Aussie!!! :D

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!"

and

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

wow!

Those are some nice quotes.

i agree, those are good quotes. i wish i had one...but  cannot remember any. at least not any that have anything to do with the subject. patriotism is not a bad thing. its love for your country. the bad thing is they way in which this term is used by man.

anyway, i just cannot make a connection between chess and patriotism. i dont see it. it is palpable in olympic games, world cup soccer(especially world cup soccer).

this is chess and eventhough this is a war game, which ironically is strongly associated with the concept of patriotism, it is a board game, a mind game.

i dont believe this game can awaken the patriotic fervor in the masses. if there is any patriotic sentiment it will not go past our chess world.

Patriotism in chess?

  Of course, the whole cold war between the US vs USSR was fought over a chessboard for partiotism for each others country....Still is...

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

That's a good point about patriotism in chess. I wonder whether is still ongoing though. I think that when patriotism imposes over the game strategies all its beauty is lost. Maybe that should be made the topic for another post... what is more important, to win or to unfold the beautiful complexities of the game?

Many chess players since very early days played for the countries other that they were born. German Jacques Mieses and Austro-Hungarian Isidor Gunsberg played for England. Another Austro-Hungarian, Wilhelm Steinitz, came to represent the USA in his later years. Russian Empire-born Alexander Alekhine, Savielly Tartakower and Ossip Bernstein played for France; Szymon Winawer and Akiba Rubinstein represented Poland; Efim Bogolyubov emigrated to Germany as early as in 1914; Aron Nimzowitsch represented Denmark; and Paul Keres played for the independent Estonia before it lost its independence to Soviet Union. Salomon Flohr from Czechoslovakia and Andor Lilienthal from Hungary emigrated to Soviet Union and assumed Soviet citizenship in late 1930s. Now it's largely the same picture: a lot of ex-Soviet players represent countries all around the world, from Israel to Slovenia and USA, for instance.

The real "patriotic" years in chess were, surely enough, the Cold War years. Before and after that, though, there was a lot of player migration.

Just so you know, the only reason people are creating national teams are for the chess.com world league.

I think it's true that the official Soviet approach to chess was very much about prestige, proving the superiority of the system, etc. A kind of 'patriotism'. I'm not so sure it's true about the USA. We can think about Bobby Fischer as a heroic individual taking on a massive tyranny, and all that, but in 1972 the US government was simply embarrassed by his pre-match behaviour. One US ambassador said that if they'd wanted someone to represent the USA to the world, they wouldn't have picked him to do it. And the rest of the story was a tragic waste of course.

"Imagine a world without countries."

Nations are an abstract concept anyway.  I guess it hails back to being territorial when we were monkeys.  So much for evolution.

Some chess.com GROUPS have become personal fiefdoms, instances of TRIBALISM - an urge even more primal than PATRIOTISM. There is an inherent contradiction in the GROUPS approach, in my opinion; symbiotic in nature, they tend to be more parasitical than mutualist  http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/group-hysteria

The nation-based groups have been created specifically to provide a league of teams. Yet there is, at best, lukewarm enthusuiasm for achieving fair contests between the teams.  (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/help-support/first-come-first-served-team-chess) 

The code of honour we are encouraged to adopt - seems to be this: 1.Country  2.Group  3.Team  4.Chess.    Wilfred Owen wrote   (http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html) that if we could see at first hand the misery arising out of such nationalistic conflicts ... 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  
To children ardent for some desperate glory,  
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est  
Pro patria mori.

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/dulce-et-decorum-est

Nothing wrong with a patriotic tournament as long as the majority of tournaments do not evolve in a feud over countries as it then becomes fanatical and one could loose sight of playing chess games and the end result could end up in hostilities for fighting countries, let's try keep it at an honorable challenge level and enjoy the opportunity to be able to offer country challenges.

There are WAY too many people on this site who consider their rude, ignorant, and just plain stupid behavior as being patiotic toward our flag with the pretty stars and stripes and pretty colors.

I'm sorry, but the internet, this site included, belongs to the world. Some guy is sitting on a computer in his own country has every right in the world to speak his own language with another person on this site who speaks the same language. There is NOTHING patriotic about demanding this site be english only. Its nothing but pure bigotry.

It is due to these issues that, if you look at my profile, it says international. I no longer advertise I am american, as so many ( certainly not all) of my " fellow americans" are working so hard to make this country something to be ashamed of rather than proud.

I'm not against 'groups', but not at all a fan of excessive patriotism or nationalism (and the like) for any reason, much less chess.  Pride is one thing, but it so often leads to 'better than some other group' and 'expected behaviors and beliefs which are enforced', that more harm than good generally results.