Is Chess an Oedipal Game?

When Freudian theory was still popular in psychoanalysis, a lot was published on the idea that chess is an Oedipal game, in which males act out their suppressed hatred and jealously of the father and symbolically 'capture' the mother.  The game represents this by having as its ultimate object the destruction of the King/father, but it avoids confronting this theme too directly in a way that would alarm the conscious mind, since the King is never actually captured and taken off the board, as all the other pieces can be, but only checkmated.  The desired 'mother' is the most important piece on the board, being either the strongest ally against the father if it is your own Queen, or the most desirable thing to capture from the army of the opposing King/father.

So what do others think of this theory? 

Not laughable at all. A lot of scientific research has been caried out about this specific topic. Here are two examples:

"Twenty-six adolescent boys, regular participants of chess clubs, were compared to a matched control group of 26 non-players. Two cards of the Blacky Test, four fable completion tasks, and three Thematic Apperception Test cards were administered, and indices were constructed to measure three aspects of oedipal dynamics. Chess players displayed significantly more jealousy regarding father's relationship with mother, and significantly more castration anxiety. No significant difference was found in expressions of father-son aggression. A composite index also showed greater preoccupation with oedipal themes in chess players. The results are seen as supporting the psychoanalytic view that oedipal motives contribute to interest in chess."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S014019718180036X

"On 18 October 1963, Time photographer Julian Wasser took a photo showing Marcel Duchamp playing chess against a totally naked young woman, Eve Babitz. This image became iconic and combines three subjects that were central in Duchamp’s artistic work: art, chess, and eroticism. Using a psychoanalytic approach, I will argue that the chess game, the position of the two characters at the center of the image, and Duchamp’s work of art itself – Le Grand Verre – placed in the center of the photo, refer to the Oedipus complex."

https://www.academia.edu/7418309/Duchamp_Chess_and_the_Oedipus_Complex

I actually think this is the main reason people can have such an emotional reaction when playing chess, and why you get a lot of jerks on here. 

People still take freud seriously?

hm i think chess is indian game

I think it is more similar to a strategic war game, with emphasis on pattern memorization and recognition.

wait what does that word mean?

it is

Quite plausible, and Freud knew what he was talking about. Jim Morrison of The Doors was referring to the Oedipus complex in "The End" if I'm not mistaken. The fact that chess may have originated in India, and is a game reflecting strategy on the battlefield, is not directly relevant to this issue, albeit probably connected, in a Freudian way hehe

Marcel Duchamp knew how to play chess in the best possible way, lucky guy!

Published research doesn't make the theory credible today. It just means that Freudian's theory was used as an analytical framework at the time the paper was published, and journals were willing to accept work based on it. Is there anything from the last 5 years? I presume the theory has its opponents, what do they say? The OP suggests that the theory is no longer popular, presumerably for good reasons.

So capturing the king is too direct as it may alert the conscious mind. In its place, checkmate is representative of the destruction of the father.

However this same analysis isn't extended towards capturing the enemy queen. When it's the queen the motivation associated with "capture" is affection.

It also says the queen has dual representation. The player's own queen is an ally against the father and the opponent's queen is to be captured.

However this same duality isn't extended towards the king. The opponent's king is certainly the target of destruction, but the ultimate piece worth protecting of your own is the king.

So it's just as easy to argue the opposite i.e. chess is a game where the highest ideal is the father, who you protect at all costs, including sacrificing your mother (the queen).

It seems an obvious ad hoc sort of reasoning where out of many reasonable interpretations of chess, the one that was chosen was for the purpose of fitting a pre existing idea.

"Indices were constructed to measure three aspects of oedipal dynamics."

In other words they constructed their test such that false positives were to be expected... i.e. aggression towards a father figure that manifests in the semiconscious mind of the average non-chess playing person could certainly be interpreted through a Freudian lens, but for a chess player it could be something heightened only after chess is learned and have nothing to do with Oedipal affections.

To account for this, a better procedure would be to administer the test to 50 non-playing students. This would establish a baseline. Then select 25 of them at random and have them play and learn chess regularly before testing again.

I tend to believe it is. 

In answer to the OPs question, I think the theory is ridiculous. The fact that the first paper has only been cited twice since 1981 suggests that the rest of the field thinks so too.

^Exactly this.

Start with a theory, then work backwards to find evidence that fits the theory. That's basically this thread.

I could argue that chess represents anything. Like I don't know... the weather?

In the same way that a storm hits, so too do the chess pieces clash during conflict. There are calm positions and destructive positions, just as there are sunny days and natural disasters.  Some people carry a particular playing style with them, in the same way that one location carries certain weather patterns with it. And so on...

I can literally invent any analogy I want and say that the game of chess was designed to symbolise that particular idea.

I suppose not, sadly.

It's psychology 101.

Male toddlers want to have sex with their mom and kill their dad.

The female version is the Electra complex.

To Freud everything was about sex, and a personality was pretty much set in stone by age 5 or 6.

He was a nut job coke addict, but basically came up with the idea of the unconscious so, you know, sort of founded modern psychology so he's worth an historical footnote or two, but not much beyond that (because yeah, all the specifics are crazy).

Llama, joder, I was not referring to myself. Back in my time you just had to know those things in school.

Legit reporting you for being 12.

lol, not really, but kids are annoying