What Is Chess?

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29th June 2009, 02:52pm
#21
by wiseguy00
Ireland
Member Since: Mar 2009
Member Points: 228

Chess is war, and the players are the generals. 

29th June 2009, 02:59pm
#22
by StarJock
Phoenix, Arizona United States
Member Since: Oct 2007
Member Points: 202

Chess is a mistress to your mind, that beguiles you with her beauty and mystery. Once she seduces you, there is no way to get free; you just spend the remainder of your life trying to understand her secrets.

29th June 2009, 03:00pm
#23
by oinquarki
The Finest City In The United States
Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 3933
StarJock wrote:

Chess is a mistress to your mind, that beguiles you with her beauty and mystery. Once she seduces you, there is no way to get free; you just spend the remainder of your life trying to understand her secrets.


 I think that's the deepest answer so far.

29th June 2009, 03:08pm
#24
by idosheepallnight
United States
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 1514

Chess is like getting the hugest moaner.

29th June 2009, 03:12pm
#25
by HiggsBoson
West Chicago United States
Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 90
Crazychessplaya wrote:
HiggsBoson wrote:

Chess is a kind of poetry, written in the language of logic by the hand of mathematics.

I can look at my pieces in the middle game and I can tell how I'm doing by how "pretty" my side looks. If my pieces are beautiful, I am usually on my way to a win. If they are ugly, I am losing. I'm really not all that good of a player (it hurts to admit). Like Salieri in Amadeus, I can see great beauty in chess but I am cursed never to create it myself.

Chess is agony. Chess is ecstasy.


 Oh, and can you tell us then what is not so pretty about this equation?

 


It is an ultraviolet catastrophe? ;-)

29th June 2009, 03:15pm
#26
by Crazychessplaya
Warsaw Poland
Member Since: May 2009
Member Points: 1539
HiggsBoson wrote:
Crazychessplaya wrote:
HiggsBoson wrote:

Chess is a kind of poetry, written in the language of logic by the hand of mathematics.

I can look at my pieces in the middle game and I can tell how I'm doing by how "pretty" my side looks. If my pieces are beautiful, I am usually on my way to a win. If they are ugly, I am losing. I'm really not all that good of a player (it hurts to admit). Like Salieri in Amadeus, I can see great beauty in chess but I am cursed never to create it myself.

Chess is agony. Chess is ecstasy.


 Oh, and can you tell us then what is not so pretty about this equation?

 


It is an ultraviolet catastrophe? ;-)


 Right. Just checking...

29th June 2009, 03:24pm
#27
by kirkland
martinez Ga. United States
Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 237

wow nice equation ha ha ha ,, anyway chess to me is enjoyable it takes me away from my daily life of problems and what not a hobby one in which id have more fun if i could play better and really i could sit around for hours with a couple of beers some music and a friend really you know what i mean

29th June 2009, 03:33pm
#28
by CPawn
Sacramento, California United States
Member Since: Aug 2008
Member Points: 777

Its a great game that teaches valuable life lessons

29th June 2009, 03:35pm
#29
by bomtrown
Baltimore United States
Member Since: Mar 2009
Member Points: 518

In Chess for Zebras, Jonathan Rowson said something to the effect that chess is so interesting because of the properties/characteristics of the game COMBINED WITH the properties/characteristics of the players.  

That said, people can exist without chess, but chess does not exist without people. Therefore it appears to be some kind of exercise in creative human mental computations, but I don't know. I am NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO expert.

29th June 2009, 04:08pm
#30
by Ringwraith2021
United States
Member Since: Mar 2009
Member Points: 359

chess is changing- there is nothing to describe chess, other than a wooden board with 64 squares. it is perhaps the most different and changing game- no two positions occur twice

29th June 2009, 04:14pm
#31
by benedictus
Buenos Aires Argentina
Member Since: May 2009
Member Points: 777

A fun game...

29th June 2009, 05:48pm
#32
by 17000mph
Ganymede International
Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 455

Chess is a game, the format of which serves for people to engage in the desperate human impulse to momentarily conquer that which will never be finally conquered, a set of additional and familiar dimensions, simultaneously subjective and objective, as elusive as the ever receding horizon. For some, the days follow the game...for some, vice versa.

29th June 2009, 06:52pm
#33
by ACQ
Nine Mile Falls, WA United States
Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 90

Chess is the multi-tool of mental maintenance.

29th June 2009, 07:10pm
#34
by ivoryknight71
United States
Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 170

"If chess is a science, it's a most inexact one. If chess is an art, it's too exacting to be seen as one. If chess is a sport, it's too esoteric. If chess is a game, it's too demanding to be just a game. If chess is a mistress, she's a demanding one. If chess is a passion, it's a rewarding one.
If chess is life, it's a sad one. " -- Unknown

 

By the way, I like the responses in posts #3,4 and 10-14. Great!

29th June 2009, 08:47pm
#35
by guildwars
Canada
Member Since: Mar 2009
Member Points: 165

chess is all about playing guild wars...

29th June 2009, 11:14pm
#36
by -MICKEY-
Grand Bahama Bahamas
Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 2757

The black and white is the weave of Space and Time. That's why we all gravitate to it.

1st July 2009, 07:35am
#37
by Garymossu
Brooklyn United States
Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 267

Didn't Bobby Fisher say,

"Chess is life."?

1st July 2009, 07:44am
#38
by jchurch5566
Ohio United States
Member Since: Nov 2008
Member Points: 2129

Hi guys,

Chess is a game, which is very much 'puzzle-like'.  It is frequently a hobby.

Watch your backrank.

1st July 2009, 09:24am
#39
by caltaj
New York City United States
Member Since: Jun 2009
Member Points: 1

"where a gnat may drink or an elephant may bathe."  indian proverb on chess.

1st July 2009, 12:05pm
#40
by paul211
Canada
Member Since: Mar 2008
Member Points: 1810
Crazychessplaya wrote:
HiggsBoson wrote:

Chess is a kind of poetry, written in the language of logic by the hand of mathematics.

I can look at my pieces in the middle game and I can tell how I'm doing by how "pretty" my side looks. If my pieces are beautiful, I am usually on my way to a win. If they are ugly, I am losing. I'm really not all that good of a player (it hurts to admit). Like Salieri in Amadeus, I can see great beauty in chess but I am cursed never to create it myself.

Chess is agony. Chess is ecstasy.


 Oh, and can you tell us then what is not so pretty about this equation?

 


 One of many equations on the origin of human life in the universe.


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