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

Life ruined many with death

Cause and effect people. Are people like this attracted to Chess, or does chess cause people to be like this.

Given that millions of people play chess every day without these kinds of issues, it seems likely that there is no correlation. Rather people who happen to be very focused (even OCD) may be good at chess.

magnus seems pretty sane to me

I dont worry, there are legions of crazy ones who dont play chess

The point is, these were the people who made chess their life and played it day in and day out. And these players represent the small percentage of the chess playing population who reached the pinacle of the game and it seems like there is a pretty high percentage of ruined lives among these strong chess masters than anywhere else.

It can also be seen that these players had a perfectly normal life until they picked up on chess, thus it is clear that it was chess which destroyed their neurons making them go crazy.

There was an article written in 2014 which supports my very theory, lots of chess can shrink your brain - Beware, playing lots of chess can shrink your brain!

Beware, your brain might be on the shrink right now. So, don't spend too much time on chess, pick up a new hobby.

Why would you say that there is a bigger percentage of ruined lives among chess players? There is the same exact percentage of addicts in all fields of life. Do you really say that Tal wouldn't have been a chain smoker if he wasn't playin chess? Or he wasn't going to be an alcoholic? That's a really really far stretch.

Did you even read what you posted? The second paragraph actually explains that brain shrinkage is not even a problem whatsoever.

Ok, how many world champions has chess seen so far and among them how many are/were drug addicts or chain smokers or are/were mentally ill?

Excluding the world champions since 2006 because they are still pretty young, the number is 13. Among which clearly 6 match the description (I migh have missed a couple more players), so that's nealy 50%. Isn't that a pretty big percentage?

If you read the full article, they say that since brain science is still in its infancy, a clear conclusion cannot be drawn as to whether brain shrinkage can be good/bad. For all we know, it can very well be bad for you.

The article also says this - "Also, cortical thickness shrinks with ageing and tends to correlate with a loss of cognitive performance."

You're stretching facts to suit your point of view. The fact is that Tal smoked and he died because of it. The fact that he was also a chess player is completely irrelevant. I play chess, and I smoke. So when I die of cancer, will you make a post about me that chess ruined my life? Of course not. You must understand, the percentage of addicts/drug users/mentally ill people is the same in all fields. Yes, these particular people made it to the top and became world champions in their field. The fact that they're addict is irrelevant to that. People like to mistify famous people and make them out like mad geniouses. Nonsense, all of it. Fischer would've been the same person in an office, and Tal would've smoked the same amount as a construction worker.

Dude, you posted this link with these exact words:
"Beware, your brain might be on the shrink right now. So, don't spend too much time on chess, pick up a new hobby."
And then you admit that the article does all hell to actually explain anything. Yes, who would've thought, the world isn't black or white, there is no clear answer, blablabla.
So much for supporting your "theory".

If I say that too much golf is bad for your health, and I put up two examples of golf players with terrible backpains, and two who is perfectly fine and then shrug my shoulder saying that golf researching is still in its infancy, that's not supporting my theory in any way at all.

Boy am I ever lucky to be so bad at Chess !!! I mean look at that poor Cabablanca, never worked a day in his life, poor chap. He ate great food and went out with cute ladies, very sad that. He was wearing a $ 1500 dollar suit when he passed away ( way back when $ 1500 dollars was a lot of money ). Boy the story of his life sure makes me very very sad   lol. 

No, what I'm saying is - it is scientifically proven that chess shrinks your brain, we're pretty sure about that, we're just not sure that it is good or bad for us yet. For all we know, it might be bad for us because the neuron count in our brain decreases when our brain shrinks. The article also states that when people age, their brain shrinks and this is attributed to loss of cognitive abitlites further supporting the argument.

Bobby Fisher, Paul Morphy and William Stienitz all showed signs of mental illness in the later stages of their life. Really, it's not very complicated.

And neither of them went mentally ill because of chess, mate.

Tal, Steinitz, Fischer, Alekhine. That's four.

You say most champions were mentally ill or addicts. That's just four out of sixteen.
The rest seems completely normal, aren't they. So where are we again?

You wouldn't be talking like this if you knew about statistics.

Look, mental illness is not a very common illness like blood pressure or diabetes. It is a very rare condition that affects 1 in a 100 or so, and if you're seeing 4 of you 13 world champions exhibiting that then it certainly means something. Then again, you can choose to ignore these facts completely and state your own argument that chess and mental illness has no correlation whatsoever. I'll leave it to you.

Let me quote you, my friend:
"Ok, how many world champions has chess seen so far and among them how many are/were drug addicts or chain smokers or are/were mentally ill?

Excluding the world champions since 2006 because they are still pretty young, the number is 13. Among which clearly 6 match the description (I migh have missed a couple more players), so that's nealy 50%. Isn't that a pretty big percentage?"

 

You're switching your points each time they're challenged.
So is it 50% or 4 out of 16? Because that's 25%.

500,000 Chinese lives were saved on this day.

But there isn't even a strong correlation.
The number of mentally ill/drug addicts/alcoholic is completely the same in all fields.

For every insane chess champion, there are 10 who are completely normal.
For every drug addict musician, there are 50 who live completely clean.
For every alcoholic, there are 100 that would never touch a beer.

 

There are only about 1400 chess grandmaster in the whole world. Are they all insane, or drug addicts, or mad geniuses? Of course not. Most of them are completely normal, average guys, who enjoy watching TV or reading a book every now and then, and lead completely normal personal lives with wifes and kids.

I know it seems so romantic and mystical that geniuses must be completely insane, but it's simply not true.

There is a few nutcase every generation, but they're the exception, not the rule.