Hobbies Better Than Chess

What other hobbies do you chess players participate in? What can amount to the same or similar joy that we recieve from chess?

Music.  I find that it's equally boundless in it's beauty and complexity and that no matter how good you get there's always something new to master.

Yeh, I've been meaning to buy a Violin for a long time. I think I will before Christmas.

Watching UFC.  UFC is like chess, but the stakes/consequences are much higher for the competitors. 

Fly fishing is religion. Chess is merely an active hobby.

Ultimate fa$%#ot cuddling.

I'm a huge nerd and I play MMOGs. I'm playing EVE online right now.

As for how they (chess and MMOGs) compare in enjoyment - well, they are just different. I wouldn't enjoy either of them as much if not for the other.

I would love to be able to play the flamenco style. I heard it at an italian restaurant the other day and I was almost intranced.

For me it's reading and playing the guitar. I'm in a different place when I do either of those, or playing chess(although I am horrible at chess).

Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy - Tarrasch

Although I love and appreciate chess, I think that music is a far more potent force, allowing greater creativity, a broader concept of right and wrong, and it is ultimately what unites people of all walks of life together.

GO BACH!!! woooooooo!!

penspinning, not many people even know what it is :P

Hobbies and hobbies, I roll my thumps and scratch my ballsack, might not be counted as hobbies but I enjoy it.

I play tennis, cello, I use computer science to write fun programs, I mess around in linux, I play lots of board games (settlers of catan, puerto rico), I build weird things, and I'm a math and physics major.

Chess is great. It's something, one of the very few things, that really has a one to one correspondance between what you put in and what you get out of it. No luck, no one else's fault but your own.

i'm a musician, and i find that it's pretty rewarding.  i also weld, 4x4 off-road trails, camp, fish, play with nitro RC cars, play pool, i like the Wii, and i write a lot.  :)

Better than chess? LIES! FOUL LIES!

...on a more serious note, I personally read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, if that counts as a hobby.

Say that to Anderson Silva's face.  Then read some of Reuben Fine's writing on the psychology of chess. 

Flamenco guitar is pretty damn awesome.  I took lessons for about 8 months and got to see Paco Pena and his troupe perform when I lived in Ohio.  Then I moved to a state where there are no flamenco (guitar) teachers...depressing.  You really have to be immersed in it to learn those complicated rhythms and accompany dancers and singers, e.g. live in Spain.  Impossible to learn on your own. 

are you a ubuntu fan?

I don't know if eating counts, but yeah. Isn't it crazy how a big meal can keep you occupied till you're done? There are so many people who just make food for a living because eating is so great.

Video games are a big hobby, but lately because of chess my interest in them has declined a bit.

Tennis and Poker.

I've been a professional musician since before I started college, and have been playing chess even longer than that.  As I'm 47 now I've been at both things for quite a while.  I can tell you that I've noticed a very interesting pattern in my life for decades now.   When I'm playing a lot of music (these days I play mainly jazz piano and bass and guitar, but I also play several other instruments) I tend to not play a lot of chess.  However when I'm not playing much music my chess activitey goes WAY UP.   I believe that, for me, it must somehow be the same part of my brain that gets excersied for these two avocations.  When I play jazz it is structured but highly improvisational.  Since I play speed chess almost exclusively (I stopped playing swisses and such 20 years ago) it is also highley structured and improvisational.  Do you think I'm onto something here?

yeah but....