6 masters who proved that chess kills your brain and your life - YOU ARE WARNED

You, sir, tell me Capablanca died a wastrel that never trained in his life, yet he died analyzing a chess game? I am stumped.

Even regardless of most of these stories being false ("Assassinated Alekhine", "Steinitz left to the dogs" - what the heck?), you are making a very weak case here, OP. Sure, some champions had a lot of problems in their non-chess life... But then you have titans like Lasker, Botvinnik or Kasparov, who managed, aside from chess, to commit to many other activities very seriously (Lasker was a full-time mathematician, Botvinnik worked as computer scientist, and Kasparov did a lot in economics and politics), excelling in all - and ending up being exemplary individuals.

Nitpicking like this is not a way to make a sound argument.

The key is obviously a balanced life.  We can say the same about numerous other people in different areas - the lesson remains the same - focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else and you'll likely live a much shorter life.  The end.

It doesn't even make sense for someone to dedicate his life to chess, that in it, is a sign of insanity.

I heard a quote: "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid".....oh wait, it is because my mother used to be the account at the insane asylum, and a nut said that to her one day....she had some great stories to tell....

And the OP has left us ( I hope he is okay  lol ).

lol, this is a good case of mixing up correlation and causation. You are stating that chess makes people go crazy, without enough evidence.

Idiotic assumption!

You are assuming that the people mentioned here were genius... being good at chess only means u are good at chess, it doesn't mean u are intelligent.

Yeah,like there weren't other factors in their lives that were causal......What a stupid thread.

"ExploringWA" has it right!

Yes, there are many great chess players that went crazy. But if you look at the fields of science and mathematics, the number is much higher.

I think they died because of cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol, they all were doing this except Bobby Fischer. He declined all the medicines which he didn't have

True

Magnus Carlsen.  Widely regarded as the greatest player in history. He often arrives at the board smelling like Fruit Loops & Slim Jims. Breakfast of champions he likes to say. Gets many of his chess ideas while reading the back of cereal boxes. Could've been the youngest champion in history but stuck to his principles & withdrew from previous championship cycle. Likes long walks on the beach at sunset while practicing Norwegian rap. Often times that ain't just orange juice at the board. Hangovers are his other favorite pastime.

ummm I'm pretty sure a lot of it is wrong

     Morphy never regarded chess as a serious endeavor, saying it wasn't an appropriate career for a gentleman. He only played in the 1857 American Chess Congress and went to Europe to play in 1858 because he was too young to take the Louisiana state bar exam when he graduated from law school. He did not continue a chess career. His legal career was interrupted almost before it started by the Civil War. After the war he practiced law for a while but when most of the "clients" who came to him were more interested in getting him to play chess with them than taking their court cases, he cut back to serve only family and friends.

     His "mental illness" has been greatly exaggerated. Not being taken seriously as a lawyer, being thought of mostly as a chess player, and a years-long feud with his brother-in-law over his father's estate made him short-tempered and impermissibly impolite (for a high-class Southern gentleman) when these topics were brought up. His mother and sister did try to have him committed to an asylum, but that was to keep him from showing up for a duel to which he had been challenged--they knew that someone frail, sickly (he needed help getting into and out of his chair during his match with Anderssen), barely five feet tall and and 100 pounds was pretty likely to be killed. In any event, the director of the asylum talked to Paul for a few minutes and refused to admit him because he was obviously perfectly sane.

     The myth of him roaming the streets as a beggar and dying impoverished is total bs. His house, still standing in the French Quarter of New Orleans and now a fine restaurant (Brennan's) was a large mansion. The family tomb was endowed with enough funds that it is kept up in pristine condition today, 140 years after his death. He spent his days in fancy cafes and restaurants and had a box for every performance of the New Orleans Opera. Estimates (admittedly difficult to be accurate due to insufficient data) of his net worth are all above $1,000,000.00.

     And of course the fact that his chess career lasted only a couple of years, and that chess was never of very great importance to him or took up much of his time, makes any suggestion that the game had any serious deleterious effect on his mind totally ridiculous.

Honestly I agree; chess can make you go crazy.