I remember Spassky once saying after losing a tournament game to a lesser player (whom he called an idiot) he made himself give up smoking.

Have you been emotionally devasted by losses, driven to tears or have you made others cry because of a win in a tournament?

What are great examples of emotionally devastated chess players following a loss?

I'll have to admit, I drove a player to tears once.  I threw a chess king on the ground breaking it at a tournament after losing a tense game. 

I once cried after a game on Chess.com because it was so easy to win, so easy to mate, but alas, I missed it and lost the game on time. What was so sad was that I deserved the win, but anything goes in blitz...

Maybe off-topic, but remember that even Ivanchuk missed simple mate in 1 against Anand! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSPhginkNQ

nigelzub, great picture for the topic!

I take my losses pretty hard especially because as an improving beginner I usually blunder, although I am getting better. 

I don'y mind losing per se, but if I blunder the game away it irritates me. 

It SHOULD irritate you... no one should EVER blunder. CHESS is LIFE ! ! ! and just ONE blunder and you're dead . . . in life,  so go, and blunder no more. 

or just play for fun.

That's so cute!

I made a kid cry when I took his rook on move 9 when he tried to play a smith mora gambit vs my sicilian. 

So, did you pick up that there may have been a tactic there for future draws? :)  (and don't tell me that a 7 yr old can't be sharp)

Read the story of Johannes Zukertort's encounters with Wilhelm Steinitz over the years.  Wilhelm Steinitz was the greatest of his era, but even he eventually began faltering against the next coming generation of chess masters.  Dr. Zukertort was a great player himself, but he could never best Steinitz.  There were four landmark matches between them all throughout their chess careers, the final one being late into Steinitz's life when he wasn't as strong as he used to be.  However, even as he weakened, Steinitz continually proved himself more than a match for Zukertort.

In each match, Zukertort was beaten like a dog.  His last thrashing caused him to become deeply depressed, and both his mental and physical health began failing.  His doctors told him to give up chess, but he insisted that he had to keep playing to meet his financial needs.  As far as I know, he never recovered before he passed away.

I recall a few years back, there was this kid that was the best in his entire school at chess (both his parents were IMs). Although I learned chess as an adult, I had this knack for beating child prodigy players, mostly because I would play strategy based openings while they were used to tactical open games. So every time I played this kid, I'd always beat him. Finally in one game, he had me on the ropes. I was lost, but kept fighting in the endgame until he got confused and couldn't figure out the winning technique. Eventually he was forced to accept the draw, and he ran out of the hall crying.

Later on I faced him again in an open tournament, only this time I held the advantage the whole game and forced a won position. He tipped the king, shook hands, and ran off balling again out of the tournament hall. I never felt bad about it, because the kid was a little arrogant jerk to his schoolmates whenever he would crush them at chess. He'd gotten WAY too confident he could beat anybody, so it was a good lesson for him. In our last game, I won again, only he'd gotten a little older and knew it looked bad to cry, so he was able to handle the loss with dignity.

My own personal heart-breaking loss was when I choked a won game to an opponent that was rated 300 points below me. I was in position to play a speculative sacrifice that would have actually won the game for me had I played it, but I trusted his weak rating would allow me to not worry about the sacrifice and just grind him down in the endgame. It turned out to be a horrible mistake, as I proceeded to make a blunder planting my rook on the wrong rank in retreat. My opponent then summoned up the skill of an expert and played the game of his life to force a lost endgame for me. I was absolutely disgusted with myself, while he was pumping his fist in elation. It would end up being his best win of all his tournament games. Thankfully I came back with a vengeance the next tournament and won with a clean sweep of all wins.

I once played an opponent who got very nervous during a game, and went through all kinds of contortions. He later ended up on a psych ward. Another became indreasingly distraught as his position deteriorated. When he got mated he broke down, started shaking and cried...this was an adult, not a kid. In a local tourney an expert was playing IM Igor Ivanov. The expert was ecstatic as the position seemed to offer  little more than a draw. Then Igor uncorked a sac and reeled off a series of devastating moves. The expert was shaken up for weeks over the loss. The last I heard he had in fact given up chess. Finally it was not the loser, but the mother of a kid who became furious at the opponent who had the audacity to beat her little precious. The kid took it very well, it was the mother who was the poor sport here.

I  know of only two matches bewteen Steinitz and Zukertort, the one in 1872 and the WC match in 1886.
When were the other two? 

Since Zukertort died in 1888, only two years after the championship match, I'm unsure how he could have played Steinitz in Steinitz' later life? Also, Zukertort who was only 5 years younger than Steinitz wasn't in a biological position to be the next generation from Steinitz.

Steinitz totally dominated Zukertort in 1872, but not so much in 1886 and it's been suggested in that WC match, that clocks, which were still an innovation, were very much in Steinitz' favor. 

Once I played this guy on ICC (not to make chess.com look bad :P) in 1-minute, and I was down on time about 24s-12s, even material. He blundered his queen the next move, but I was still in trouble with 10s on my clock. I played down to 4 or 5s, when I realized I had to start blitzing like mad just to win a game up a queen. I premoved and checked him so much that eventually he lost all his 15s compared to my 4s and timed out.

He immediately sent me a tell: f you

I laughed at him, then apologized for it: sry... :/

He said: is that real chess?

Then I said something that set him off cursing at me: it's not chess, it's bullet :D

Well, this isn't much of devastation, more of getting very angry.

Would anyone here have such a reaction to this?

Back when I still played bullet before quitting it because it's slop instead of chess, I played a guy twice in two-minute games.  I won both, and he left.  I was searching for a third game and I clicked on another of his seeks by chance.  He said the following before aborting and leaving.

"u r cheater"

Well, I'd say that's just frustration :P