Fighting Fire with Water

If you love chess, it might be because you grew up with it from a young age. Perhaps the game was introduced to you by a parent or family member. You remember how they told you to put away your tinker toys, your legos, your Barbies, and other toys, and took the time to teach you this ancient game. Perhaps you learned that it was a serious game, one that takes concentration and strategy.

If you are like me and learned this way, and playing a game of chess with a friend can turn you into a very serious, intense person navigating a world where your training and wits can help you win. If you are a person like this, you might take offense to someone who interrupts your thoughts with careless, irrelevant, and sometimes offensive chatter.

“Idiot”

“F&%* u”

“Play faster!'

“Resign.”

These kinds of insults, (and those less tame) are not just the effort of a limited mind to express itself, or a way to try to psych out their opponent, but signs of complete lack of respect for the epic game of chess. What do you do when your concentration is interrupted with chat like this?

The best of us ignore it completely, disable the chat and move on, unfazed.

Sometimes though, even the best of us cannot ignore such disrespect and sublime impudence. We lash out in retaliation. (Then you hear from us in support, because the abuser reported you for abuse!) It's a Catch-22.

If you recognize yourself amongst this group of people, who cannot stand to sit idly by and let someone on the other end of the greatest game ever created make such comments. Please know, you aren't alone.

I think what we need is either to ignore people who are abusive completely, or completely confuse them with creative word shields. In researching this topic, I found a member of our site who uses creativity to fight back against abuse.

Here's an example of one of some comments and this ingenious rebuttal - read from the bottom up:

My question to you, Chess.com, by being creative and confusing those who like to be abusive, could we squelch out the flame of abuse before it becomes a wildfire?

(Image source credit: http://www.bitsofwisdom.org/2011/03/22/fighting-fire-with-fire/ )