It helps teach you that your plans are never infallible, somebody always knows more than you and helps stave off Alzheimer's
Is chess useful for anything else than chess?
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good!
Just think how many times you've heard or read "It's a real chess game," related to things which have nothing to do with chess: politics, business dealings, athletic contests, etc.
Playing chess, especially losing at chess, can promote good sportsmanship and teach you respect for others. Reading books on chess improves one's memory and analytical skills. Teaching others to play can be very satisfiying and rewarding. Any mental excercise such as chess is benefical to people of all ages. But I have to wonder a little about these forums...
How nice to hear about people's stories and their reasoning for why chess is GOOD!
Personally for me Chess acts like tonic, keeps my brain active and helps me improve my concentration levels in other fields as well. Most importantly I find so many better players (so many youngsters less than half my age included) than me that helps me maintain my competative spirit without losing heart.
Kasparov has written a book on this topic!
I think that chess teaches you different skills as you improve. For a very early beginner, chess teaches you visualization skills. For an improving beginner, chess teaches you patience and carefulness. For an intermediate player, chess teaches you deductive logic and creative problem-solving. I'm not sure what chess teaches an advanced player, because I haven't gotten there yet!
Maybe it is pointless for grandmasters to spend much time in front of a chessboard.
Can it be that they take the step from being a genious to become "a bit weird" because they play too much?
Yes! Thats the one, but I haven't read it...:(
Anyway, I am sure it is very interesting for every single chess player in the world (except Kasparov...;)
Hey Luke, it is actually prooved that using your brain a lot can prevent alzheimer later in life...
redearth329 wrote:
I think that chess teaches you different skills as you improve. For a very early beginner, chess teaches you visualization skills. For an improving beginner, chess teaches you patience and carefulness. For an intermediate player, chess teaches you deductive logic and creative problem-solving. I'm not sure what chess teaches an advanced player, because I haven't gotten there yet!
Good summary, readearth329! (though probably futile resistance to this topic straying OT!) Familiarity with the domain of chess helped me to assimilate concepts in other fields. For instance, the mathematical ideas of symmetry, combinations/permutations and probability.
Virtually any human activity can be deconstructed into what appears to be an absolute waste of time. We'll all met the sneering jackass who says, "What differences does it make? In the end we're all dead."
Many posters have identified improvements in reasoning skills, development of patience, etc. For me, the big life lesson of chess was to learn that the other guy has a plan, too. The other guy has a say in how this drama unfolds. That's been a big help over here in Iraq.
In the end, though, I think Chess should bring us pleasure. If it doesn't, you shouldn't play. If chess isn't a sport, it is surely an art (how about that for a new thread?). How useful is art? I don't know. But I do know that I wouldn't want to live in a world without Mozart or Rembrandt or Kasparov.
As for the grandmasters, they have chosen chess as their livelihood. Only they can tell you whether the effort is worth it. But the same question could be posed of the 3rd chair violin in a small city orchestra. Is pursuing your art worth it? I suspect that for those who have the passion, the answer is a resounding yes.
Well said Dreadnought - but who says chess isn't a sport? They play it in the Olympics and, for a professional player, physical and psychological conditioning are as important as study. You don't think all professional athletes study their sport? Then you're simply ignorant.
The truth is chess is the most sporting sport. What other sport bosts such a wealth of information designed to help its participants, and much of it free? It is also free from drug use and it is very difficult to cheat (but not totally impossible). What other sport is actually played, not watched, by hundreds of millions, worldwide?
Oscar Wilde once wrote "A man can be forgiven for making a useful thing, as long as he does not admire it. The only reason for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely."
In a time now gone, this phrase was often with me, inspiring me to seperate in my mind those things that had practical value, that did something from those whose purpose was simply to be, so they may be looked at and appreciated. Chess is one of those few strange things that inhabited the fuzzy limbo between the extremes. A well crafted set is aesthetically captivating, as is the flow of the game itself, shifting positions coaxed gracefully by deft hands; even the interplay of thought between the players, though invisible, is a thing of beauty in itself. And yet chess is sooo useful...
...for one thing, when I moved in to my current home, the first thing I did after assembling the dining room table was to unpack my favourite set and set it careful in the centre. If I hadn't, my girlfriend would have covered it with horribly practical things like university work, a computer maybe or even (heaven forbid!) place mats or some such tat. In a sweet twist of irony, the chessmen were laying claim to space on & off the board...
...yes chess is beautiful, and sometimes I like to spend time appreciating beautiful things. During such times, a flat wooden board can be invaluable as it helps me to keep stuff from getting all over the floor. You either get this, or you don't. ;)
Also, chess keeps kids quiet. No parent will tell you that ain't a useful thing. My 18 month old son has been "playing" the game of "tee-yess" for a few months now, basically just moving the men around the board, occasionally clinking two together, or emulating other actions he has seen me perform whilst looking at a position. It's very cute, but what amazes me most is he has never thrown the pieces across the room, or walked on the board, and as soon as a piece falls over he stands it straight back up. This sort of behaviour is unheard of among children; its as if even an innocent child is somehow intrinsically aware of the reverent awe of the game. I'm just dreading the day coming when he can consistently mate me in 12.
Of course chess has benificial effects on you brain, reasoning, logic, creativity, intuition, memory, deduction, calculation, visualization, planning and more - all these things are practiced when you play chess, and if not you're playing it wrong! When the baby came along, I got a bit of a shock. Something happens to your brain; between the sleepless nights and the hormones bouncing off the walls, and adjusting to massive responsibility and NEVER HAVING FIVE DAMN MINUTES TO YOURSELF TO CONCENTRATE ON ANYTHING, your brain goes to mush. For me, it was like having my IQ square-rooted. I couldn't code anymore, cryptograms I could previously have cracked in my sleep were unbeatable all of a sudden and my attempts to help my girlfriend with her maths homework were simply embarrassing. Hell, I was even getting pwned by n00bs on the Wesnoth servers. In short, my geek powers had been revoked. It was a depressing time for me.
About 6 months ago (ish) I dug out the chess books again and started studying the glorious game once more. At first, my feeble mind reeled - it was harder than before!! But of course thats just chess; and sure enough, within 6 weeks or so I suddenly realised that my brain had woken up again - the geek was back! So I guess I have always owed a large part of my mental capacity to the game (as well as many fond social memories).
To summate: Hell YEAH chess is useful!
"who says chess isn't a sport? They play it in the Olympics"
Just to clear up some confusion. . .
Chess isn't an Olympic sport. Chess however has its own Olympic-type national team format (officially since 1927) called the Chess Olympiads (see: http://www.olimpbase.org/ ), played every 2 years. However, the Olympic committee does recognize chess as a sport and FIDE as an International Sports Federation (see: http://www.olympic.org/uk/sports/recognized/index_uk.asp )
lotsoblots wrote:
I have to say that this has developed into perhaps the funniest thread I've read this year.
Thanks, guys.
It was very funny, but i think all the Luke posts have been deleted
I've played Chess for 22 years I learned a great deal about the World I live in and the People in it by carefully observing all of my opponents and figuring out what makes them tick.
Chess trains People to think strategically in all aspects of their life School, Business, relationships and it improves memory and discipline.
bobsterlobster wrote:
It's not a game, it's a whole way of thinking about anything you care to apply the principles of the game to.
Nice touch with the small letters bobsterlobster, really adds the emphasis to a point that deserves it.