Chess addiction

Problem is not spending time on the internet or doing something else like posting in a forum (moreover I am doing it to kick off the habit so I guess my wife will even be a bit happy about that). Once I go in the "chess mode" I don´t come off of it. 

Thanks for the constructing advice! :)

Even better than the drinking advice! I think people have falsely praised you for your "witty" comments way too much. Just saying. 

For 3 years, I played chess compulsively. I delete and recreated new characthers many times. Sometime, I would play 12 to 16 hours of chess in a day. I agree with Wilbo, the blitz type of game is just very addictive because of the stress of always being short on time. Playing blitz, I would start sweating and feeling animated to the point that I would slam my desk and throw stuff around when I lost. Going to the gym after, I would lifting heavier as if I got a shot of testosterone.  

This is really having a life out of control. I would stop at 2 am, run an hour out to drain the stress and go to work at 8h completely worn out. Ultimately, I had to disconnected from the Internet altogether for a year and a half. I still go sometime to the Library play from time to time, but the library close early...    

The funny thing is that the first 2 years I played aorund 1700 and at the end I could play only 1400... If you think that I am an isolated case, think again, because I have seen some players always on this site with increadible amount of games.

I used to be a compulsive gambler which has similar 'patterns' as a chess addict.  I don't doubt that anything can be addictive.  I used to be hooked on video games too in my late teens / early 20s.

Now though, all I do is play chess and sometimes a bit of Dwarf Fortress, Football Manager, or Civilization. Games today are so in depth that they required way too much of a commitment of time to actually enjoy.  So, I have settled in on a few.

But chess... oh man.  The thrill of sitting there for 10-15 minutes (I play very slow chess so the moves drip off my brain like honey from a tongue).  When I spend 10 minutes on a move and then see the magic that lies ahead it is A BIG RUSH. 8) I absolutely love it.  It reminds me of the rush playing blackjack and getting that blackjack when you up your bet suddenly.  Whatever.  Gambling got really not-fun really quick.  I hate it now. I haven't even bought a lottery ticket in ages.  And this december is 20 years not betting.

But the parrallels are there.  You move, you get a jolt of reward from the brain.  Only in chess I get something for it instead of a 47% chance of winning more than I spend (presuming perfect play in a 6 deck shoe shuffled at ~33% deck remaining). However gambling and even video games got really annoying when they ceased to be fun.  Which was largely because of the negative things they were doing to my life.

Chess though is different. I care a lot about my rating so I don't play when I'm too tired and I get mentally exhausted and have to stop and take a break every now and then for an evening or maybe just an hour. 

I also read chess books a lot.  Yet here I am struggling to keep a 1200 rating. 8)  Oh well. I play chess b/c i love chasing my rating and hacking my brain.  Its that "Oh wow! A forced mate!!!  Is it true? Let me re-check that....  Yes, it is!"  When that happens its just so beautiful to see.  Really. I'm still waiting to get my windmill just one time. 8)

Edit: I'm also a big family man - 5 kids in 7 years of marriage (do the math, its fun).  So I have a busy busy day.  Yet I find the time for chess.  I guess in addiction your addiction finds time for YOU. I also have accepted that its futile to think that I'll ever know everything I would like to know about chess.  I'm 42 and I don't have those 1st 40 years to do over. ;-) Even if I did I doubt with the explosion of literature I could complete what I want to learn in 5 lifetimes. So....  I'm enjoying the process of getting started on those 500 years of learning I think I need to do.  One day I may finish. If so... what a shame it will be.

If you are addicted to chess then you are insane because addiction will, sooner or later, result in insanity.  I think there might be a few GM's, past and present, who can attest to this.  Have you tried underwater basket weaving?

AWSmith61 wrote:

I used to be a compulsive gambler which has similar 'patterns' as a chess addict.  I don't doubt that anything can be addictive.  I used to be hooked on video games too in my late teens / early 20s.

Now though, all I do is play chess and sometimes a bit of Dwarf Fortress, Football Manager, or Civilization. Games today are so in depth that they required way too much of a commitment of time to actually enjoy.  So, I have settled in on a few.

But chess... oh man.  The thrill of sitting there for 10-15 minutes (I play very slow chess so the moves drip off my brain like honey from a tongue).  When I spend 10 minutes on a move and then see the magic that lies ahead it is A BIG RUSH. 8) I absolutely love it.  It reminds me of the rush playing blackjack and getting that blackjack when you up your bet suddenly.  Whatever.  Gambling got really not-fun really quick.  I hate it now. I haven't even bought a lottery ticket in ages.  And this december is 20 years not betting.But the parrallels are there.  You move, you get a jolt of reward from the brain.  Only in chess I get something for it instead of a 47% chance of winning more than I spend (presuming perfect play in a 6 deck shoe shuffled at ~33% deck remaining). However gambling and even video games got really annoying when they ceased to be fun.  Which was largely because of the negative things they were doing to my life.

Chess though is different. I care a lot about my rating so I don't play when I'm too tired and I get mentally exhausted and have to stop and take a break every now and then for an evening or maybe just an hour. 

I also read chess books a lot.  Yet here I am struggling to keep a 1200 rating. 8)  Oh well. I play chess b/c i love chasing my rating and hacking my brain.  Its that "Oh wow! A forced mate!!!  Is it true? Let me re-check that....  Yes, it is!"  When that happens its just so beautiful to see.  Really. I'm still waiting to get my windmill just one time. 8)

Edit: I'm also a big family man - 5 kids in 7 years of marriage (do the math, its fun).  So I have a busy busy day.  Yet I find the time for chess.  I guess in addiction your addiction finds time for YOU. I also have accepted that its futile to think that I'll ever know everything I would like to know about chess.  I'm 42 and I don't have those 1st 40 years to do over. ;-) Even if I did I doubt with the explosion of literature I could complete what I want to learn in 5 lifetimes. So....  I'm enjoying the process of getting started on those 500 years of learning I think I need to do.  One day I may finish. If so... what a shame it will be.

I have managed to be absolutely chess free for 6 weeks! I realized i will never be good at chess unless i study chess and spend hours regularly improving tactics. Thats just not possible at my stage anymore 34, with wife n a kid and a full time job. So i decided to quite chess. I just cant take repeated defeats and therefore play until i win. Better i use my time somewhere else. Lets see how much more i can maintain this record. 😊

Chess is addictive because its a waste of a real live. The waste in chess is time.   It is a game that take you away from family and friends. There is no real social, emotional or intellectual benefit to it at any level. I play it mindlessly. Time to stop.

Reduce time on it.

Many people aren't addicted to chess. They're addicted to wins

I can totally relate with that feeling. The endorphin rush.. It was under control until I started playing bullet and blitz. It's starting to distract me from work and relationship. I think I need to start going cold turkey. At least it's not my cigarette addiction. Wish me luck, man.

Do you know the story about Marcel Duchamp, actually an artist, who develop a passion oder perhaps even an addiction for chess? It is told that once his wife - frustrated with him playing almost all the waking time - glued the pieces to the board. But - as you can see in the foto - he then found a girl friend who shared his passion. Perhaps an idea how to solve the addiction problem?

Robert Desjarlais, Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard (2011) offers an interesting discussion of chess addiction. In the course of the discussion, he mentions: http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2009/01/blitz-addiction.html

I'm not sure I play as much as some on here, but I definitely have a problem. I set my mind on a certain rating and the more I try the more I fail, until I'm falling into ratings territory I thought I'd left behind years ago, so I may play more and the cycle continues. And my wife gets mad at me, my son plays by himself, I don't do other, more constructive hobbies. It's really making me miserable. I've quit before, then I get sucked back in. I've 'quit' so many times that I don't even try now because I know I'll just start up again. I've even closed and reopened my account. The most interesting apart of the Marcel Duchamp story, aside from the naked lady, is that his career in art ended prematurely, and after that all he accomplished was playing a bunch of games. I feel like that to some extent about parts of my life. Why can't I just play a couple games after my morning coffee? Does anyone manage to do that? 

When you start smoking your chess board. You know you have a chess addiction.

You can try with following steps. Instead of blitz, play rapid or longer games. 15/10 for example. Play a single game and analyse it, even if the game ended with a blunder on move 4. 

Start a blog or a thread about chess addiction, where you share your stories and how are you dealing with it. There you post some of your bad blitz games where you was not able to stop playing. And you show the games from the player you are trying to get, playing 15/10, analyzing, focusing on the game and not in the rating. If you improve your game, well, you improve your rating.

 Make a list of mistakes, trying to find patterns in your games. 

If you want to play nevertheless blitz, establish in advance how many games you are allow to play, like 4 games, write down on a piece of paper. If you play more than 4, you are not allowed to play blitz for 1 month. Write about these things in your blog or thread.

if you are interested on a book on a former chess addicted: All the Wrong Moves, I enjoyed very much the audiobook (Audible). I felt as he was talking about my own experience.

Good luck and keep us informed, and thanks you for your honesty!

I guess it depends on the personality how to deal with a chess obsession. Somebody might try to fight it by a rational argumentation,  an another one might try to develop new kind of interests. Perhaps one strategy is to play till you get sick of it. But if chess really starts to ruin your life, it is propably reasonable to analyze the underlying reasons. I have started to play just a couple of months ago, but at times I have already got the feeling that I am myself becoming a piece in the game and cannot get out anymore. It some kind of stubborn ambition. One reason could be that my work is intellectually not very challenging,  and I am looking for a compensation. This has happened above all with blitz because I feel that my performance is too bad, and I cannot admit that I simply lack the routine with openings and so on. But then again, after having played 10 blitz games, it often starts to feel a kind of boring, like a light nausea. Now I am playing only online but I am planning to become a member in a chess club. I have the feeling that the socializing around the game might give it a meaningfull context and also some balance,  compared to the situation where I play at home alone. It would be nice to play a game in the spirit of friendly competition and then analyze it afterwards together face to face. Anyway, the first step towards a solution is to recognize that something is wrong. Perhaps it is also usefull simply to talk about this. 

I think I'm addicted I'm seeing chess in everything. I was watching a yt short and my mind just went like "QUEEN TAKES G7 PAWN". I just started on Early January Its march 1st today, what should I do?