No, but long-windedness often does.
Does chess drive people mad?
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i agree with the above. chess is very demanding. when i play an OTB tournament I am normally completely finished by the 6th round and playing the last rounds is a real challenge.
sometimes, even after playin blitz for the entire day, i would have a headache and would keep seeing patterns.
nigel short is right. chess is very very unhealthy if it becomes a lifestyle.
More importantly, do people drive chess mad?
Which one of these guys is a chess player? You get two guesses.
I am not sure i can tell...
"I explore this at length in King's Gambit. But I think the reverse is quite likely—that chess keeps mad people sane; that it gives certain socially maladroit people a self-contained world in which they can shine and feel good about themselves. Morphy and Fischer's behavior became truly bizarre only after they retired from the game. Their fate should not stop anyone from playing chess anymore than Van Gogh's hacking off his ear should deter people from becoming painters or Mark McGuire's alleged steroid use should discourage children from playing baseball."
(...) Chess is apparently as hard on the body as it is on the mind. Researchers at Temple University found that a chess master expends as much energy at the board as a football player or a boxer and that blood pressure and breathing rates rise considerably during a game. "Chess is very unhealthy," explained Nigel Short, the top British player of the twentieth century, when I visited him in the Athens apartment he shares with his Greek wife. Short was speaking from more than three decades of experience. During his world title bout with Kasparov in 1993, Short ate normally yet lost ten pounds—7.5 percent of his body weight—in just the first three games. "What could be more unnatural," Short said, "than sitting still for four or five hours while your heart is racing sometimes at 140 beats per minute? There's no outlet for all the stress. You can't punch the guy, kick a ball, or run laps." Illness during games is not uncommon. Even Kasparov himself, arguably the best player in the history of chess, has broken out with fever blisters in the heat of battle.
Most of the world's top players have strenuous exercise routines to balance their sedentary chess playing. Bobby Fischer worked out regularly long before it was fashionable, and Kasparov pumped iron, swam, and rowed as part of his chess training. "Your body has to be in top condition," Fischer said. "Your chess deteriorates as your body does. You can't separate mind from body."
Paul Hoffman (http://thephtest.com/kings_gambit.html)