Pros and cons of chess

Given that many of us here devote or have devoted a fair amount of time to playing chess, I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion on the pros and cons of chess (compared to other ways to spend your time). I imagine other people will be able to add to (and maybe disagree with) my lists. It might be amusing (and challenging) to compile everyone's ideas into two complete bullet lists. My initial lists are pretty much off the top of my head, based on what I have learnt over the years, but I am sure there is much material out there that could be used to consolidate some aspects.

Pros of chess

• The rules are precise and unambiguous
• The objective is clearly defined
• There is a cozy familiarity about the game, particularly the openings
• There is a boost to the ego from winning
• Chess permits precise analytical thinking (though for practical purposes, mostly there is some intuition in deciding which lines to go for)
• Chess is an old, well-established game, with a rich heritage and place in popular culture as "the" mind sport
• Chess is mental exercise. Mental exercise (including chess) is now known to be good for the health, especially in the elderly.
• Chess can be inexpensive, compared to most hobbies (especially online, or friendly chess)
• Chess can promote social interaction, whether it be local chess club enjoying a drink together or chess.com, with its rich and varied community
• Other chess players are of above average intelligence, which makes them more worth knowing. (?)
• Chess can be an enjoyable obsession

Cons of chess

• Chess serves no real purpose outside itself
• Chess uses time and effort, and displaces other activities which might be better than it in some ways
• Chess is inherently unconstructive. While the theory can be intellectual and academic in nature (though inherently unimportant), the purpose is fundamentally to defeat the opponent. It is possible that chess causes unconstructive patterns of thought by a process analagous to transference. i.e. in chess you are fighting alone against an opponent, so other things can seem like that even if they are not, which can be unhelpful. Of course, there are ways in which this could be considered a pro - perhaps in certain areas like business the fighting aspect of chess could be well-channelled. [This point is based both on my own experience and what I have observed in others]
• Very few chess players can earn money from chess, especially with the large number of GMs in the world these days. Professional chess has very limited income streams from non-participants. Of course this is not a con at all to most people, who play chess as a hobby and have no interest in chess as a career
• While some types of chess are cheap, playing in frequent OTB tournaments is expensive and takes a lot of time, with a large impact on the rest of ones'  life.
• Chess can be obsessive, which can be damaging to other areas of life.

What would you add or change to these lists?

[EDIT: response to a post deleted when an account was closed]

Interesting response (though without any constructive content).

I infer that you reject discussion of how playing chess compares to other activities and, feeling uncomfortable about this, wish to take a shot at me. Not an uncommon pattern.

Input is very welcome from anyone more open-minded.

Tonydal, to be fair to you, please explain in what way I would be wasting my time (say, compared to you)?

Like any activity that we devote ourselves to for a long period of time, our brains and bodies gradually adjust to perform better at it, even at somewhat of an expense to other, more basic functions.  For example, piano players try to equalize the strength of their fingers so that they can play fast note patterns more smoothly.  This goes contrary to the normal structure and function of a human hand, which should have the 2 and 3 fingers (index, middle) stronger than 4 and 5.  I have heard that as a result some pianists have slight difficulty holding or gripping certain items.

This goes along the lines of your con #3 above.  To a seasoned chess player the good move choices are usually obvious; we see the good responses our opponents have to our moves and try to determine our own move to adapt to that.  We have to make the assumption that our opponent makes rational decisions.  Here is where the analogy to life breaks down.  As an economics major friend of mine said, "Economists are always right, it's just that they assume people make rational decisions."  We tend to assume that other people will make decisions that are in the best interest of themselves, and of course that is often not true.  Sometimes emotions cloud judgment, sometimes investors panic, sometimes people jump into something without analyzing it beforehand, somethimes people do analyze it beforehand but fail to consider a particular factor that would radically change their position.

Food for thought, because I am pressed for time and cannot elaborate:

• Likewise, there is a tendency among math/science people to support libertarian systems.  I think it is easier to for us to understand societies when we deconstruct them and consider each individual as responsible for themselves.
• The simplest proof that chess conditions us is that being a good chess player does not automatically make one a good go player, even though a similar skillset is required.  Our intuition gets accustomed to processing chess-style formations, but even though go is even more formation-based, we must learn these patterns by practicing go itself, not just chess.
• When I first read tonydal's comment, I laughed.  I think it is a wry observation about what we are doing here.  Of course, to be an NM he must have 'wasted' a lot of time on chess, so he can't think that wasting time is such a bad thing to do.  Don't take his comment to poorly.

Lots of interesting points, balidid. You could be right about tonydal's comment: I took it as a snappy putdown, it could have been tongue-in-cheek. Tone can be so difficult to read on the internet without an appropriate smiley for punctuation.

Your second con is too vague and could really apply to anything people do. Do you really think people can use ALL of their time optimally EVERY day?

No, not in practice, even if this concept could be adequately defined. Nor did I say so. Nor does that observation prevent my second con being relevant. Please do make it more precise. This way of thinking of time as a resource is a very well-established one, relating to the fundamental concept in economics called "opportunity cost", which addresses when one choice displaces other possibilities (originally the choices were how one spent money, but time is a more fundamental limited resource).

A laboratory mouse was once interviewed and asked whether he got fed up of running mazes every day.

He raised his head with a look of incredulity and said "are you crazy? Haven't you seen the cheese?"

It doesn't really matter what anyone does with their time if the individual is happy doing whatever and it harms no one who cares?

My point is that number two is not an inherent flaw in chess specifically, unlike some of the other cons you mention. It is something you could say about any pastime and is therefore a sort of non-point.

Unless you mean that people get addicted to chess and spend too much time on it to the detriment of other things in their lives.

Interesting list, Elroch. But I would drop this altogether:

"Other chess players are of above average intelligence, which makes them more worth knowing."

That's just silly.

That seems perfectly a perfectly reasonable point of view, alanb123. Everyone is free to live their life as they themselves wish.

dominicbody2 is correct. Con number 2 is relevant to any activity consuming time and effort. Again thinking of this in terms analagous to ecomonics, chess has a "cost" of time and effort. This is indeed a con, just like a con of any purchase is its cost, even if it is good value. So the point justifies its place on my list.

trysts, while I put a question mark on this bullet point to indicate my doubt, I am not sure if you are disagreeing that chess players tend to be intelligent, or that intelligent people are more worth knowing. My view is that chess players are often intelligent in other ways, that I find it interesting to know intelligent people to discuss things that they are well able to do, but that I don't think unintelligent people are necessarily not worth knowing.

I just this minute read today's Dilbert cartoon, and it seems uncannily relevant (even if it is not particularly helpful to my main idea).

I'm disagreeing with both points because the word "intelligent" is undefined. Can't find a consensus on it, so that "bullet point" remains meaningless until defined...

I've seen many threads on here about "is chess a waste of time."

I suppose you can make the argument that it is, but then what leisure activity isn't? If you enjoy it, who really cares? Now I suppose that if your chess is negatively impacting other areas of life, such as your career or marriage, then that is different, but that is true of anything, not just chess.

I liken my chess habit to most men's golf habit, except it is cheaper, and not as good exercise.

Insight from someone who has only studied chess for about a month now:

Chess is a game, it's not meant to directly provide anything constructive. You can derive a number of positive things from the act of playing it, perhaps applying chess principles or concepts to the business world, but weighing the pros and cons of chess seems like an exercise in futility...

It does teach you to think strategically, to analyse problems...this approach can then be applied to other areas of life.  Definitely a worthwhile mental excercise, Elroch.

Not exactly true...someone can be doing something that makes them happy right now, but will soon make them very unhappy. Video games might make someone very happy at the time, but they make look back and say, "Damn, I wish I hadn't wasted so much time on those games."

trysts, it's true that "intelligent" is impossible to define in a very precise way, like other adjectives like "fit" and "strong". The common difficulty is that all these concepts refer to a large number of related concepts. It would be wrong to define strong by the ability to do a particular type of weightlifting exercise, for example, but there is no set of exercises that one could suggest that would be better than another list.

But all these words describe useful "fuzzy" concepts relating to a large group of better-defined but less important things.

Especially if you spend a significant amount of your time itemizing pros and cons.

Clearly a sign that he needs to pay closer attention to these forums.

The word is vague, so define it yourself. Cmon, Elroch, have some guts

Even if you accept that chess players are on the average, of above average intelligence, which I'm not convinced is true, I'm not sure that necessarily translates into "more worth knowing".