Chess does it keep you sane or drive you mad

That's a good question. I took up chess only recently and I am far from being a young man so I knew coming into chess that any improvement I might make would take some time. I really enjoy playing but the fact that I keep losing is getting hard to take. So I can see how playing chess can be both maddening and satisfying. My Best - JD

Chess is a microcosm of society.  You meet all types.  So yes you will get those that obsess over the game.

I think it is both instead of one specifically...like the song from papa roach

Neither...but it has led me to the conclusion that human beings are cruel,selfish,arrogant,crazy,egotistical,helpless mortals who have not yet attained enlightment and seen the light of the truth.

When i win is good when i lose you gonna see me when i lose my queen xD

Keep me sane?

• Not really, it's a challenging hobby, no more.

Get upset?

• No! Life gets bigger after a certain stage. Parenting being one of them.

The above post is a great perspective. I like chess but I've never seen it as anything more than just something fun/interesting.

Plenty of things higher on my priority list.

Sane, of course! Chess has a very precise logic: you can't push your way through by logical fallacies, like most people in life do, and you will be severely punished if you try to. So playing/studying chess regularly develops logical thinking, hence improving your sanity.

Of course, same goes for any discipline requiring precise intellectual thinking: math, physics, programming, engineering... You make a mistake in chess - you get punished by the opponent. You make a mistake in programming, and the program generates an error. You make a mistake in math, and the numbers don't add up. Chess is like this, except your opponent is also prone to making mistakes, so it is more akin to an intellectual duel, than an individual intellectual process.

Compare this to, say, politics or journalism, or just everyday arguments between people, where pressing on feelings and emotions is more important than saying anything even remotely resembling a sound argument - and you'll get the point.

I think the fruitcakes were likely to have been fruitcakes before they got into chess.

I coached a high school chess club and also coached varsity sports teams, I had socially awkward kids in all of them, but chess seemed to attract more - I think because socially insecure people don't want to be put in a position where they can be teased or worse and chess requires less interaction than most other team sports.

Some were so insecure I had to institute a "Positive Attitude Rule" where no teasing was allowed when a player lost a game or made a bad move.

We fielded a strong team that was County Champions most years and always ranked high in the state. But that alone didn't help these kids become better adjusted socially.

Because I coached a Fall Sport, all athletes from the Fall teams knew me as a coach and some of those who didn't play a Winter Sport came to chess club after I began running the club in December - I had an assistant who ran the club during the Fall.

When the socially-popular Quarterback from the football team sat down with the socially awkward "nerd" and asked the nerd to teach him to play chess, that raised the social status of the nerd and a real positive change in self-image occurred.

When some popular kids joined the club, that also brought in a few cheerleaders, etc. and raised the status of the chess club even more.

A lot of the kids who were fruitcakes coming into our chess club were no longer fruitcakes after a year or so in the club.

So that's why I think chess is beneficial mentally and drives you more to sanity than insanity.

I agree with all your points except #3.,

Playing chess does not make you a nut job.  If you had mental issues, they were there before you started playing chess.  There was a guy playing in Reno that wouldnt stop talking during a game.  Someone next to and across from him asked him repeatedly to stop talking.  So what does the guy do?  Stop talking? No, that would be to easy, and make to much sense.  He starts gesturing wildly with his hands, and mumbling.  Later he thretened to kill a kid, and was acting like a luntaic at the craps table.  Chess did not cause these things.

Once I showed up to my otb drenched in sweat and carrying a basketball. The td said to me after that no one in the history of the club had a 6 foot 4tall man ever walked in with a basketball. Some kids looked awestruck but he said I looked so cool. 

What? Don't no one play some b ball before they game?

I find it depends upon distractions. it's a game that requires thought. if you're constantly nagged as you play, then the corresponding poor move causes distress. That's not the chess mind, it's circumstance. so I suspect it's an easy target for your current mood when, more realistically, something else is at foot.