The Dark Side Of Chess
Yeah, I woke up in the middle of the night
And I noticed my girl wasn't by my side
Coulda sworn I was dreamin' for her
I was feenin' so I decided to write this blog (JK) 😅😅
Was just playing around. So guys, do you know any dark side of chess?. If yes, never mind; let's discover more in this blog, as chess is a very engaging sport and has many good factors. But we aren't going to talk about them in today's blog. But we can see them in upcoming blogs. Today's sole focus will be on the dark or bad side of chess. First of all, by dark side I do not mean that the game chess is very bad or we shouldn't play it. Don't get offended because many of us like it, me as well 😂 😂. Let's get started.
Table of Content
As most of us will agree on this, chess is the best game ever, if you know how to play 😅. But sometimes it becomes brutal or totally frustrating; sometimes we come across a point where we think, Okay, this is enough now. For example, losing a game that we were entirely winning. Chess is a fabulous game, but beneath the polished white and black board lies a dark realm. Which no one speaks about or rarely speaks about, but I will be covering some of those. This blog doesn't discourage anyone from playing chess, but in fact quite the opposite. Every coin has two sides; by knowing the unknown side, we can bring kindness, spread awareness, encourage players, and build a better and healthier chess community.
For many chess begins as hobby, or many tries chess just to give it a try, which I also did, an idea given by a friend, but sometimes the game chess becomes very obsessive. The reason being, The desire to improve, the grinding for elo and ratings
There are many real life examples about this
Bobby Fischer
Many of us know Bobby Fischer, the legend of chess. But some of you might not know his story. So Bobby Fischer was very obsessed with chess; he started playing chess from a very young age. After winning the World Championship, he withdrew from public life. His obsession led to paranoia and isolation. He stopped playing for decades and was eventually exiled from the U.S. for violating international sanctions. Bobby Fischer exhibited strong paranoid tendencies, believing he was the target of conspiracies and that people were out to get him. He frequently expressed distrust of the media, government, and even fellow chess players.
Bobby Fischer - perhaps the greatest player in the history of chess, certainly the most charismatic and controversial - has died of kidney failure in his adoptive home, Iceland.
Chess is Life
~ Bobby Fischer
Okay, now comes the most loved and most interesting topic about the chess.com community: times when famous chess players cheated. The reason behind the cause of cheating, as per me, is because of the above topic, "Chess obsession." The players who had cheated in the past would have done this because of obsession toward chess.
Causes:-
Ego and Elo—many of us want to defeat our opponent. Imagine you have lost to a weak/strong chess player; your ego hurts. That's the reason the player wants to defeat his opponent very hard and uses the method of cheating. Whether using chess engines like Stockfish, Leela, etc.
Prizes and money: the second most famous reason for cheating, as per me. The prize money tempts the players to break the rules. Cheating becomes a shortcut to recognition and reward, bypassing the long, difficult journey of honest improvement.
Let's see some of the famous cheating moments of grandmasters. 😜😜
The most known legendary moment of all time, the one and only
Hans Niemann and Magnus Carlsen
The incident began during the Sinquefield Cup in September 2022, when Hans Niemann defeated reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen with the black pieces, when he was just 19 years old. It was a rare achievement; Magnus withdrew from the tournament, which he never did before. Soon after some weeks in an online chess tournament, Magnus and Niemann got paired again 😅. You won't believe what Magnus did; he just simply resigned just after the first move (Magnus for some reason). On 24 September Magnus issued an official complaint accusing Niemann of cheating. In response, Niemann responded that he cheated when he was 12 and 16. But he also denied that he didn't cheat on OTB tournaments. Now this was global news and concern; Chess.com also took part in this case, investigating it. Publishing a 72-page report alleging Niemann likely cheated in over 100 online games, including some with prize money. However, the report also stated there was no definitive evidence of cheating in his over-the-board career. This topic is so huge that a special blog can be made on this controversy. This was just an example of cheating; just think, what if Magnus didn't suspect Hans or didn't withdraw from the tournament? Let's proceed to the next section.
Chess frustration One of the points that can be considered in the dark side of chess is that during playing the game, we are focused on the whole game just to win the game and defeat our opponent. Surely it increases our focus, but it also affects our mental health, as mentioned in the "Chess obsession" topic. Just imagine winning a whole game and losing it by just moving a wrong piece considered a blunder. Let's start with some examples, recent ones. Let's take Magnus again 😅 😅. In the game between Gukesh and Magnus at Norway Chess 2025, in round 6 Magnus was in a very comfortable position. Most of the chess experts predicted Magnus as the winner after move 43, but at move no. 56 Magnus blundered. Giving a solid win to Gukesh, because of frustration Magnus bangs the table, as many of us have seen that epic moment, I would say. As clocks tick down, even elite players can miscalculate. Under severe time pressure. The worst part? Chess has no undo button. Once a move is made, it’s made. That permanence is part of what makes the game beautiful—but also brutal. You have to accept your errors, live with them, and move on… while trying not to repeat them.
Chess is mental torture
-Garry Kasparov
It is mainly the irreparability of a mistake that distinguishes chess from other sports… Just one mistake and the battle is lost.
This shows how brutal chess can be or how it affects people's mental health or life.
Ways to deal with chess frustration
1) Take Breaks When You Need Them
2) Analyse Games, but Don’t Overanalyse Yourself
3) Stop Obsessing Over Your Rating
4) Talk to Other Chess Players
5) Accept That Frustration Is Part of the Game
It only takes one bad move to ruin 40 good ones.
- Bobby Fischer
The reason why I put engines on the dark side of chess is because of their nature. We can say, as in modern chess engines like Stockfish (famously known for being used by cheaters 😅). Leela Chess Zero and these engines have revolutionised the way we analyse our chess games. Helping both beginner and professional improve faster than ever. But there's a catch: what started as a tool for learning has now become a weapon for cheating. I listened to this somewhere, but I am unable to recall where and by whom; it was like, "Engines are killing the soul of chess." Players like Hans Niemann use engines as a tool for winning a chess game 😁😁. They may be used in a browser on another computer screen or also can be used in another hidden browser or on the same computer screen. Let's take some examples again to understand about the dark side of engines easily.
• The Mechanical Turk
We can say the OG AI of history 🤣🤣. For those who don't know about this, don't worry; just read, and you will know about the A.I. of history.
In the late 1700s there was a strange innovation that fooled the world, named the mechanical Turk, which was made in 1770 by Wolfgang Von Kempelen. It looked like a life-size wooden man dressed in Turkish clothes and a turban, as we can see in the image. Seated behind a cabinet on a table in front of him, there was a chessboard. To spectators, it seemed like magic. The Turk could beat most human challengers, even outplaying historical figures like Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. But beneath the mystique lay a dark truth: it was all an elaborate hoax. In fact, it was a mechanical illusion designed to impress the Empress Maria Theresa.
A man inside the machine: Yes, you heard it right. The mechanical turk, wasn't a true automation, but it was a human chess master hidden within the cabinet, nearly suffocating. The illusion was maintained through clever engineering; panels opened to reveal machinery, while secret compartments concealed the operator. The name of the operator was Johann Baptist Allgaier. He was a German-Austrian chess master and theoretician. He was also the author of the first chess handbook in German—Neue theoretisch-praktische Anweisung zum Schachspiel.
Mechanical turk vs Modern engines
The metaphor remains powerful: machines may look intelligent, but there are often humans pulling the strings, whether behind a curtain or a keyboard.
Today we have modern engines like Stockfish, Leela Chess Zero, and Alpha Zero. These engines are so powerful that they can calculate millions of positions in a few seconds (isn't that interesting 🤔?). But the questions raised by the Turk still feel familiar today about honesty, credit, and how much we really trust the machines we create.
Cheating in online and over-the-board chess using hidden engines.
Dehumanising real talent in favour of AI analysis
There are many more examples that show the dark side of engines (I had included one more example of Chess Terminator also). But it vanished somewhere. In revision also it isn't there, but no worries, one example is enough. Because of a shortage of time I wasn't able to write that part; sorry for that. These were some dark sides of engines.
These were some dark sides of chess. It depends upon us how we pursue something. Chess is a beautiful game—rich, challenging, and timeless. But like anything humans touch, it carries shadows too. Deception, pressure, obsession. Recognising the dark side doesn’t ruin the game. It makes it real. By seeing it clearly, we can protect what makes chess truly worth playing: honesty, creativity, and the joy of the fight. Remember, we should not play any game just for winning, but we should rather enjoy it. We should find the beauty of the game and admire it.
You may learn much more from a game you lose than from a game you win.
-José Raúl Capablanca
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Thanks for reading. 😊😊
