Online chess in large quantity is a nocive game

Chess is the ultimate game of egos, with complete information the goal of any game is to prove that you're better. That you're the one. That you matter you too.

The rating system is like the currency we use to feed our egos, we give some of our lives to the sole purpose of proving we can do it. We hide our real intentions by saying we play for fun, we may even manage to convince ourselves.

- where is the fun in those thousands of hours sunk into training?
- where is the fun in all those painful games where you won only because of your opponent's mistakes?
- where is the fun in that constant search of a bigger rating?

I once thought I liked maths, when I started chess if felt like math, I tried to solve every problem like I would solve an equation. For in the end the only thing that mattered was the result, the method could be insanely beautiful, it was never a match against the solution. The correct one.
As I graduated (and as the solutions became much less important than the methods) I realized I didn't really liked math, what I liked was taking pride into doing something difficult, nothing but a vain effort to prove what I was worth.

Would we still be playing chess for no money if our self-confidence was over the roof? I doubt it.
I've read that quote the other day:

"If you choose not to find joy in the snow you will have less joy in your life but the same amount of snow."

Is it really healthy to tie a part of our happiness in that pitiless game?

Chess is mental torture - Garry Kasparov

Chess is a wrestle of the brains.
Chess gives us the opportunity to practice problem solving skills.
The best part of chess is the skill wrestling phase.

Enjoy what you like about the game and accept what you dislike about it. If you cannot accept it, then create or play a variant that others will enjoy with you. Making a smile helps to make friends. :)

@HommeSaoul This game shows our ideas and actions. It is not a game that is harmful or heartless or pitiless.
Ce jeu montre nos idées et nos actions. Ce n'est pas un jeu nocif ou sans coeur ou sans pitié.

The heartless part is joining and leaving without greetings.
When I'm playing chess on the internet, it feels a bit like going to work and not talking to anyone.
The only time it truly feels like OTB is when I'm playing with a friend.
The more you play with the same opponent, the more it feels like OTB.

If you like chess, play chess. If you like sex, find a women. If you like drink, find a bar.
No one care what you like.
Do whatever you like.
If you dont like anything at all, find a doctor or psychologist.

chess is an invention to make people think they are doing something clever, when they are really just wasting their time
it is a really good way to waste time

@HommeSaoul entertaining read!



searched your games and like your repertoire choices against 1.e4, the french and modern.
as a modern specialist i feel the need to point out 4...Nd7 pretty much "refutes" the london as a weapon against 1...g6, as we strike 5...e5 with tempo, followed by ...Nh6, ...O-O, and a pleasant choice of hunting bishops on g3 with ...Nf5 or attacking with ...f7-f5. Happy hunting.

#4 is right
#5 Has apparently figured out the meaning of life but refuses to tell us.

@HommeSaoul If you decide to go full edgelord and write your idle musings about the meaninglessness of existence, do it on some teenage suicide prevention forum. Jesus Christ

Couldn't agree more @CT-ART

I guess we have different point of view @Toscani, I see your point, if you put the effort it can be a very social game. It depends on what you really like, I don't think I'd still be playing chess if it was only for the social aspect.
No I would contact friends or try to make new ones by doing more physical activities. But that's only me and I never went OTB, so that's probably bound to change.

Thanks for the advice @irvinechesstrainer, I'll try to not forget it.

@Morozov I barely said that online chess can be harmful, if for you it equates that I'm suicidal, maybe you should review your life-priorities. Also you can very well find life meaningless and still love it, I'm sure a lot of people do.

BTW I noticed that "nocive" didn't exist in English, the correct term is "harmful", sorry for that.

There is beauty in chess.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

@HommeSaoul

Once you discover and appreciate the creative beauty of a well crafted chess-argument, you can never look away again.
After all, what's better than producing tactically justified, fundamental impact?

Definitely not 'competition'... ...not by a long shot.

Chess is an OBJECTIVE debate, with an OBJECTIVE judge, where:
-no P.A.C.
-no slant
-no spin
-no slander
-no bought-and-paid-for, half-truth-misrepresentation of history/present/future
-no deafening, filibustered, one-sided, imposed battery of vested selective memory
-no vested embarrassment
-no vested hypocrisy
-no cover-up
-no shouting-down
-no flippant misrepresentation of the facts/cause/consequence
-no distraction
-no redirection
-no deflection
-no denial of fact
-no appeal to emotion
-no appeal to bias
-no strawman
-no argumentum ad populum, or any other logical fallacy, or magical, ad hoc, self-declared privilege, can save your position from the pseudo-arguments of your past moves.

The joy and beauty of chess is found wholly, and solely, between the communication of the possibility, the wonder, and the complications of the chess position on the board, and the ensuing ingenious and elegant debates that chess players carefully craft, and argue their way through, as the game proceeds.

'Competition' has absolutely nothing to do with why chess is completely great.

The chess board is the only spot on planet earth where we find proof of objective truth/information itself/reality.

'What you say', doesn't go. Reality is not subject to your ego.
'What is', goes. Reality is subject to itself.

There will be no 'closing of the eyeballs' or 'plugging of the ears' on The Sacred 64.
There will be no self-centered privilege or power to flippantly ignore or mute the arguments of your opposition.

In the domain of chess, that kind of misbehaviour is always punished and never rewarded.
In the domain of chess, you will not argue raw-stupidity and still expect to walk away with the win because of it.

I think it's one of the main reasons that so many people eventually find that they can't stand the game.

**Anywhere else, people can engage, blast off with the jibber-jabber, not have to listen to anyone else, and move on with their day, comfortably and complacently convinced that planet earth was created primarily for them.

Chess, objectively and inherently, batters that kind of self-delusion to absolute smithereens.

In this sense, HommeSaoul, apart from a bad ride with lysergic acid diethylamide, 'chess' is actually one of the most ruthless ANTI-EGO mechanisms that mankind has devised.**

The chess board is the only spot on planet earth where we see absolute justice flawlessly served.
What kangaroo courtrooms purport themselves to be, The Sacred 64 actually is.

Infatuated 'truthseekers' / 'studiers of information' / 'students of understanding' / 'natural born scientists' are the kinds of people that are prone to find a lifelong affinity with chess. Very few others.

Therefore, when the first thing someone focuses on is the competitive aspect of chess, with the assumption that it is the primary motivation to play, then I suspect that they have yet to play, much less enjoy, a single, actual, chess move.

After all, even a cursory glance in GK's direction will thoroughly slam the "competition-incentive" door in almost anyone's face who knows what they're looking at.

You will have to either find a better reason to sit down and play, or you will have to find yourself something else to invest in.
Playing for the "competition of it" won't get 99.9% of chess players very far.

Sooner or later, you will need a new and better reason to line up the pieces.

Keep us posted, we're interested to see which way that you will develop.