Why do we play chess?

Chess originated as a war game. It is an adult, intellectualized equivalent of the maneuvers enacted by little boys with toy soldiers and has, throughout history, appealed to diverse peoples. It was played by the contemplative Hindus, the holy warriors of Islam, the chivalrous knights who were allowed to visit ladies fair in their boudoirs to play a board, and by the rambunctious sea rovers who had carried the game to Greenland (perhaps even to North America) by the 12th century. Dr. Karl Menninger, an aggressive Freudian analyst, once declared: "It seems to be necessary for some of us to have a hobby in which aggressiveness and destructiveness are given opportunity for expression, and since I long ago gave up hunting (because it is too destructive), I have found myself returning more and more to the most ancient of all games."

The players and their seconds now gathered in Reykjavik for the world championship match are neither shadowy nor unreal-looking men, and they are only occasionally unhappy. The same is true of the millions round the world whose imaginations have been fired by the battle of the giants, Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. They gather in chess clubs, if they are seasoned aficionados, or in front of the TV in the corner bar, or around a transistor radio if they are out in the boondocks. They scream instructions, encouragement or abuse at the contestants with all the futile energy of spectators at the World Series. The psychology of the Johnny-come-lately fans is much like that of the masses of men and women who take up any craze, and much of their enthusiasm will be evanescent. Far more complex, however, are the psychological bases of the quiet passion that has prompted countless millions to play the game through the centuries—and the unquiet passion that turns championship contenders into egomaniacs and monomaniacs.

You don't say.

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,910405,00.html