Why do you play chess?

Simple questions don't always receive a simple answer! ;)

I am just curious to know, with all the chess players out there, what makes each one different?

Why do you play chess? Is it because you love wielding your queen as an instrument of destruction, do you love the strategical, positional play - or are you a tactic fiend who loves a punt - someone who will unhesitatingly sacrifice?

Myself, I do love a bit of a sacrifice - but it has always been about the thrill of the hunt (attacking the king) and the types of characters you meet playing chess. So, why do you play this great game? 

Because it's like war without the spilling of blood. It's the ideal game for a strategic pacifist. 

poor social skills

@DrSpudnik... XD
I must also add that to my list haha!

that and latent hostility.

It's the least harmful of my addictions.

chess is a limited subfield mathematics

plus, I enjoy mocking computers by creating studies

I don't play chess.

I made a mistake.

I only play chess with my grandchildren to make them better players.

really? which subfield, then

I play chess because it forces you to think, learn, rethink, relearn, and think again. If you push yourself to think enough you will win. All this thinking hurts.

I'm interested in who my opponents are but have stopped using chat as I think it can be used (purposefully or inadvertently) as a psychological weapon. Part of the battle is against the personality/ attitude of the opponent.

Hence I play chess because I'm a thoughtful masochist and paranoid opponent.

Field theory (abstract algaebra)

If you think of pieces as mathematical objects, piece movements as operations applied to those objects and the board (including the side of the board where captured pieces rest) as a mathematical field (such as groups, rings, etc, only somewhat more complicated than taught in school), then you may get the different look on chess. :)

By the way, consistent with this view is the following observation:

Chess puzzles can be translated as math exercises.

Chess studies can be translated as math problems.

Chess fundamental studies (e.g. KNN vs. KP) can be seen as math theorems.

Cheers

Is this precise? How do you do this exactly? I dont think you can realise the space as a field, you need lots of generators. Do you work over the polynomial algebra in 64 variables x_11 up to x_88 each corresponding to a square?

I know then that, for example, if I is the ideal generated by all squares of variables and products x_ij x_kl where a queen can move from square ij to square kl then the top degree of the hilbert polynomial of the quotient is equal to the number of ways of placing 8 queens on a chess board with none of them attacking each other 92 i think.

I have no idea, on the other hand, how you could formulate a problem like KNN vs KP etc. I'm not sure this is possible?

Habit.

I don't play chess because I am happy. I am happy because I play chess!