Einstein called chess a waste of time, what do you think?

Judging only by that game, neither was anywhere near 1800. More like 1200 to 1400 than 1200 to 1500. Having been a club player/ first team captain for many years, I can more or less recognise their level of expertise, which seemed approximately equal. Well, maybe Einstein is 1400 maximum and lower boards club second team material, which isn't bad for a beginner, and Oppenheimer 1000 or 1100.

for him it is a waste of time

One thing I sometimes notice is that my head feels kind of tingly after I play a game of chess. I think that this is good because it feels like blood was circulating, more than normal. I think that this would be good for a person's brain, kind of like exercise.  

i agree

Life itself is a waste of time, well unless there is an afterlife & this is some type of school

Einstein was right, as usual.

i agree, me and Einsty, great geniuses of our time, always think alike.

To answer this question simply, it depends.

If you're not making a living off it, yes its a waste of time. Or is it? Some might have this opinion. some might say if you're enjoying playing chess then it's not wasting time.

There's no correct answer. Einstein had his opinions on chess because of his interests lay elsewhere, and had major projects and theories he worked on. Chess by comparison of course would seem like a waste of time.

But ask this question fo Magnus Carlsen and you'll see the difference in the answer.

Einstein was a genius, but that doesn't make him qualified on deciding what is and isn't a waste of time.

@1020
Einstein was friends with Lasker and played with him in Berlin. He was not bad at chess.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1261614 

But he certainly wasn't up to strong club strength. Looks more like a 1400  - 1500 FIDE, according to that game, and Oppenheimer was weaker.

Like he was right about quantum physics, tying his shoelaces and sex with his relatives?

i like this. 

there is no definitive answer, but this comes close.

you seem to hate him for some reason.

that he was with his cousin is irrelevant in this discussion. 

it is well documented that his intellectual development was slower than most. it's as if you are trying to question his genius. 

as one not considered a genius (feel free to make your jokes here!), the genius of my fellow al cannot be denied, regardless of who he was in bed with, or, how much cocaine he did, or...

Yes , it is true until and unless u can earn some money out of chess either by winning prizes in tournaments or coaching 

Depends on the life style, Einstein was a busy man. Most people have some free time and you gotta have some activities. Activities that keep you physically and mentally active are good, chess is one of them.

Unless someone has already covered this possibility, does it have anything to do with time being altered by the speed you are travelling?

No

You're reacting emotionally, where you should just use your head. It isn't irrelevant to this conversation, if his word can't be trusted.

<<In 1912, he began an affair with his cousin, Elsa Einstein Lowenthal. Mileva, Einstein wrote to Elsa in 1913, is ''an unfriendly, humorless creature.'' In another letter, he wrote: ''I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire. I have my own bedroom and avoid being alone with her.'' In 1914, he and Mileva separated, and eventually Mileva had a nervous breakdown.>>

He was very violent towards her. There's evidence for that in letters and their separation agreement in which he promised to pay her the Nobel Prize money and not be violent to her if she kept to a list of conditions, which included not talking about the part she played in the theories of relativity. It's no longer easy to find reference to these letters and other evidence online because there's an entire industry devoted to cleaning up his image from that of a malicious and unpleasant bully. He refused to have anything to do with his son, who was a cripple. Then there's a niece who is said to have committed suicide because of being forced into sex by him. Around 1950, my father knew physicists who had worked with Einstein and they didn't like him.

I don't hate him at all but I think people should know the truth about him and not hold him up as some kind of paragon when in fact he was a bit of a monster. No point in wasting emotion in hating people or in accusing others of hating people, for that matter!

More from that New York Times article:

<<By Einstein's own later account, his marriage to Elsa became one of convenience as he pursued a number of love affairs with young women. In the 1920's, Einstein and Mileva achieved a reconciliation of sorts. ''You have proved that you know what you are doing,'' he wrote her after a vacation with the children in 1921. Their letters show a mutual concern about his own bad health, about Hans Albert's search for a job, and about Eduard, who was gradually descending into mental illness.>>

He was such a deceitful person that it's his statement about chess that should be irrelevant. That's a very whitewashed account indeed and who wouldn't be mentally ill, if, as a tiny child, they had to witness his constant cruelty to their mother? I know it's a newspaper article but it's based on documental evidence which was freely available up to around 15 years ago but which is now difficult to find.

"I must even confess that the struggle for power and the competitive spirit expressed in the form of an ingenious game have always been repugant to me"
http://philosophyofscienceportal.blogspot.com/2008/05/einstein-laskers-and-chess.html