Ouch, Erik, how do you feel after having read these posts? ;)
Am I addicted to Chess?
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Oct 24, 2008
0
#23
The answer is yes. But so what? Join the club! Admit your powerless, then enjoy.
I was not addicted to chess before I was playing on this site. Now I'm addicted but I like it 
Its like AA, your only addicted if you go to meetings.
Chess is like morphine to me. It takes me to a warm fuzzy place where the stack of bills become temporarily meaningless and all of life's problems disappear for a while. I am luck in regards to my wife's consideration of my constant playing. In fact, she was the one who came up with the idea behind a trend analysis study I did to answer the question regarding why there is so much cheating in chess these last few years. While she is very supportive , I do recognize that man cannot live on a diet of 64 dark and light squares. Thus, I balance my time out.
I can understand your point completely. We ended up in Hawaii once and were walking along the beach for a romantic evening stroll when we came upon a bunch of chess games being played. My first instinct was to run across the street to the ABC store, buy some Rum, and then jump in the trenches for a lat night marathon of blitz. However (and I would do this for no one, not even my mother), I found out when they played there, took my wife's hand and continued our walk. Of course, that action allowed my to spend as much time playing chess the rest of our trip.
I am such an addict that when I go on tour with the band, I'll plan it around which city has the best chess clubs. It's all about the game. Again for me, the game literally saved my life, through drug addiction, near homelessness, broken hearts, cancer, you name it. That's why I tend to treat it with such respect and it's the only place where I (no pun intended) keep my over inflated, jumbo size ego in check (I'm also a novice player even though I've been at it for a while).
Oct 24, 2008
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#27
If you find that you are addicted to something and you don't want to be, then maybe it is time to pick up a new hobby. Life is way more exciting when you have many things happening in your life (that you control of course). In fact they say that doing something new is good for your brain as it creates new neural pathways.
If you love chess so much, then maybe playing face-to face with someone may be better sometimes? Surely there is a chess club near you? Sitting at a computer all day is never beneficial. Go and do more fun stuff in life!
Chess is great , addictive , yes me too.
Chess is stuck with me, I'm like a stalker. I base computer purchases on their compatibility with chess programs I want. I judge a coffeeshop by its chess friendliness. Bookstores without a good chess selection suck. I can't get away from this game, love it or hate it. I have finally submit to its wishes and started my trek toward Master.
Tween wrote:
If you love chess so much, then maybe playing face-to face with someone may be better sometimes? Surely there is a chess club near you? Sitting at a computer all day is never beneficial. Go and do more fun stuff in life!
As sad as it sounds Tween, there's no club ANYWHERE near here (don't even think there's one in Melbourne AT ALL!!!) so it's not so simple. My sis in law gave me a small chess computer to play on my own but I found that boring...
The way I see it, visiting this site is like taking my brain to the gym to exercise it train it & put it into action. YES! I'm addicted but not concerned or worried about it.
I go through stages with it. About a year ago I was a regular on GameKnot and RedHotPawn and I'd have over 100 moves to make every time I logged on. It became all-consuming, so I quit for about a year - it was getting too much.
I'm now back, exclusively on chess.com (just purchased a subscription) and I'm determined to keep the number of games manageable - don't know how long that will last, though :)
I gave up smoking crack because it was taking away from my chess time
I am sure I'm addicted. I used to play on another site that had bullet. I was putting all of my time into these one sec/move games. I know once I starting hiding and lieing about what I was doing, it was addiction. I decided to quit (five years later). Maann. I have had "relapses" where I will join for a one week trial.. and I find that I will play 200 games a day until it runs out. So now, I play here, and try to limit it to ten or fewer games. I log on all the time to see if its my move... but I guess now I'm addicted to logging onto Chess.com and not chess.
Oct 29, 2008
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#34
I am very addicted to chess also. When the phone rings i dont have time talking and playing chess at the same time. I love this game since i was first introduce in the 7th grade. Pick it back up at 23 and now 10 yrs later i still love this game. now all i have to do is find a chess club
You just found one ! Welcome to a global club.....
Well, if you're going to be addicted to something I can think of worse things. Everybody is so worried about addiction but what is so important in life that you shouldn't do the things you like? After all we're all mortal. So far as I'm concerned I'm very happy with my addictions, which include, but are not limited to, breathing, eating, sleeping, playing chess, etc.
In fact what your wife is saying to you is, "I don't like it when you do something other than paying attention to me!" Of course, you shouldn't point this out to her! Fortunately I'm a bachelor, as you can probably tell.
Oct 29, 2008
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#37
paul211 married?? I'm pretty new to the game, but even I'm wise enough not to "ask her if there is anything that you have forgotten to do and if so is it postponable?"
On a good day I might get twenty extra chores, on a bad day I'll be told the twenty I haven't noticed and get told to do them straight away :)
I have an addictive personality, at various times in my life I've probably drunk too much (that wasn't necessarily an addiction to alcohol, more the alcohol came with the addiction to barring and clubbing, I used it as a way to escape from what I was meant to be doing as with other addictions), smoked, played online games too much, played chess too much, coded too much. However, I'm now (very) happily married despite the chores, and as long as I put aside plenty of time in the early evenings for my lovely lady I can still do the rest in moderation. I find if I do it this way I do everything in moderation, which makes it a lot easier to take breaks from stuff. I know I'm always going to have some sort of crutch, it's just who I am, but I'm lucky that none of them are that serious (on the smoking issue, I'm not suggesting that smoking isn't bad for you, but I keep within 10 a day, which isn't as significant at my age).
I tried to play checkers, but it was so boring, no offence to checker players. The truth is that that game wasn't complicated enough for me. I like rules, I am addicted to them. Chess takes way more skill because there are different pieces and they all move in different ways, it's not just a battle of attrition to see who can keep more checkers than the other player then wear him down. When I was little I was so addicted that I played myself in my closet. I got pretty good, but I don't recomend it. Today, I just logged on a couple minutes ago to move a piece in a game I havn't bothered for 2 days straight. I think my addiction is less severe, but I still take a chess board to school, lol.
Oh, and for those who won't admit it, it looks like de-nile is not only a river in Egypt...Sorry, I had to say it.
Hugh_T_Patterson wrote:
This is a great topic. I am totally addicted to chess. Here's why. I used to play when I was much younger and lost touch with the game after I became a musician. I got back into it years later because I was was at a point in my life where I needed a a foothold on sanity (I was going through cancer treatment and needed something to take me away from the brutal treatment). Chess is a place I can go to when I need to get lost from the pressures of life. It's like a drug to me. I love the game on so many levels, especially the learning process. Learning the game is an on going thing and I don't mind the losses I suffer because I can learn from them. Fridays and the day i lounge in bed and play chess all day. It's great, I shut the world out and play chess. I love the challange and the reward for lessons learned well. I am a chess bum and a chess junkie. I put off my PhD program for another year because I'd rather improve my game. Hell, I schedule shows with my band around chess. I'm into the game hook, line and sinker. I hav a serious hess addiction.
Really nice .I am addicted to Chess and playing from 1972 onwards.I have missed many promotons in my career because of chess preparations .But in OTB tournaments i blundered and lost many games after getting great opening advantage.But I am proud that I am able to help the junior players because of my profound knowledge in chess theory."Chess like music,like love gives happiness" as quoted by Tarrach.
I am addicted and completely love the game. It has pretty much consumed my life..I tell my girlfriend that I am doing work or am busy all day when I am just playing endless games of chess. I am in a masters program and am on academic probation because of my addiction.It started last year and I have tried to cut it out completely but have failed too. I don't know what the solution is. Since I have started playing chess I also have noticed I think more methodically in other aspects of life. I am treating my studying and everything else as a chess game, hence If I feel like Im not playing well in chess I cant really get anything else accomplished. I just have to go back to playing more until I am satisfied and then I can move on to something else. I am a perfectionist and combined with chess this may be a bad recipe for an addiction.
I'm not addicted, I could stop at any time I want. I just don't want to stop...
Yeah ? When was the last time you went a whole day without making a move ? I think you are in denial......that's the first stage of addiction......only once you admit your addiction will you be able to start treatment..........:)