No, I'm not asking how to play chess, and I'm not asking how the pieces move, etc. I know all of that. I'm not asking about combinations and tactics, etc. And I'm definitely NOT asking whether chess is a sport or not. Do NOT mention any of those aforementioned things - they have already been discussed.

So, what is chess, really, to you?

Is something that make your brain go crazy with all these combinations!!

A five letter word that is easier spelled than played.

a portal to another world!!

It's just a square chequered board with some funny wooden figurines standing on top of it, man.

I'd say it's an inaccurate, simplified, limited, and extremely formalized and organized representation of war: war has no such rules as chess, no such organized pieces and may have as many new forces added as wanted (quoting indirectly from another thread). It is, however, a representation of war - that must not be forgotten.

I would not be surprised if warmongers used to consider potential defenses for their kingdoms, territories, etc., using different set-ups with pieces like those we see in chess. Of course, not 8x8 boards, but creating models of their land (i.e. maps) and setting up certain pieces to identify different types of soldiers or defenses for potential attackers, etc. Later, they may have begun trying out different attack simulations and this would eventually turn into chess.

Just thinking outloud. =D If I'm even slightly correct, I'll actually be amazed.

I thought you wanted to know what chess is to me.  (Surely not war.)

For me personally it is a way of life.

stwils

A waste of time,albiet frustrating one.

Life Style.

An exercise in humility.

An excuse for being insane.

A hobby that often borders on obsession.

An escape.

A hobby and an opportunity to help others in their game.

Chess is: Never the same thing twice.

Baldassare Castiglione's writes that gentlemen are
"to be meanly seene in the play at Chestes," at the beginning of his
The Book of the Courtier (1528, English 1561 by Sir Thomas Hoby),
but chess should not be a gentleman's main passion.

"And what say you to the game at chestes?
It is truely an honest kynde of enterteynmente and wittie, quoth Syr Friderick.

But me think it hath a fault, whiche is,
that a man may be to couning at it, (One may be too cunning = skilled at it)
for who ever will be excellent in the playe of chestes,
I beleave he must beestowe much tyme about it,
and applie it with so much study,
that a man may assoone learne some noble scyence,
or compase any other matter of importaunce,
and yet in the ende in beestowing all that laboure,
he knoweth no more but a game.

Therfore in this I beleave there happeneth a very rare thing, namely,
that the meane is more commendable, then the excellency."

I took this from the Wikipedia, entry Chess.
Bold font and parenthesis are mine.

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.

It's a game. Like Connect Four.

Chess is not about some cool looking checkmate. It is not about an aesthetically pleasing position, nor is it even about winning or losing. No, the heart of chess is born out of the struggle of opposing ideas.

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