The Dangers of Chess

I’ve recorded thousands of chess videos if one counts all the live streams. Last month while I was at a chess tournament in Sitges, I recorded the most important one, which had been on my mind for quite a long time, and so I wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

It also, oddly, proved to be one of the shortest I’ve ever done, and it’s, as far as I can remember, only the second video for which I’ve written out a full script, which I followed about 90-95% in the recording. I’m putting the script below for those who prefer to read rather than listen.

While chess has given me so much in life (see my other video on the subject), I have also suffered in some ways, and witnessed many others suffering because of chess.What chess player has never asked themselves during a game “why am I playing chess?” What chess player has never suddenly come to their senses in the middle of the night, dizzy and miserable from unsuccessfully chasing their lost blitz rating points online for hours? Chess players have cried, stabbed themselves in the head with pens, kicked holes in hotel room walls, and driven others insane with their long-winded laments about games that got away. So I wanted to discuss with my dear fellow chess players the major dangers of chess. By doing so, I think we can dramatically improve our chances of avoiding or mitigating them.

There are, as I see it, three major dangers of quite different origin, allowing chess to trap several different personality types.  One comes from our ego, another comes from our pleasure, and another from our inquisitiveness.

The first danger is wanting to win every game and be better than every other person. There exists both healthy and unhealthy competition in this world. The competition in chess appears to many to substitute for the question of “who is smarter?” You put two brains together, and you find out which one is better. This engages the egos of a lot of people. They want to prove their greatness, their superiority. These players become wrapped up in their results and ratings, often comparing themselves endlessly to other players, records, etc. Generally only one player per ten years will have the opportunity to prove their superiority, potentially leaving millions of chess players to be tormented by their disappointed hopes and wounded egos.

This kind of suffering is even available to those who are less concerned with being better than others, but simply compare themselves to themselves, strive to become better, and to do their best. Even with that healthier parameter, you will find many falling into the trap of raising their expectations at every good sign, and then being disappointed when their best performance ever does not become their new normal.

I have often walked about a chess tournament and reflected on how chess appeared to be a negative sum game. You might have a thousand players in a tournament, but only ten or so exceeding their expectations, a few dozen meeting them, and 900+ who are somewhere between disappointed and despondent. In many ways, a healthy does of optimism can help a player’s performance. But our miscalculated expectations— in many cases spurred by the ego, the wanting to be great— set us up for disappointment. And thus the mass of chess players roils with displeasure, with jealousy over others’ accomplishments, with “if only” stories of missed greatness and stolen chances.

There are two steps we can take to reduce this mass suffering. The first is to thrash our ego by recognizing the equal value of our opponents. Like us, they are lovers of the game, who have spent days and nights chasing the truth of positions, who have fought for their favorite openings, who have placed their hopes in cunning traps, and worked and sacrificed to get to the board where we meet them. The universe is generally indifferent whether you win or your opponent wins, and you should be more or less indifferent as well. Play your heart out for the win, bring the best of yourself, match it hopefully with the best of the adversary, enjoy a fruitful focused time together, and then who cares who won? Your opponent’s happiness and success are just as valuable as yours.

The next thing we can do is to manage our expectations. This is a very valuable tool throughout life, not just chess. Disappointment equals reality minus expectations. If you set your expectations low enough, you can not suffer disappointment (except in the case of ceos and heads of state, who will “slither under no matter how low you set the bar”). You can have ambitious hopes and goals, but at the same time reasonable expectations to protect yourself from suffering.

The second danger is the pleasure we get from chess. This can be a dopamine hit from raising a puzzle or blitz rating, or the joy of watching the poetry in motion of well-coordinated pieces, or the enjoyment of the sensation of flow when our focus is pure. Chess offers a lot of pleasure, and anything that offers pleasure has the danger of being addictive. Of course, I am not quite from the school of thought that all pleasures should be avoided. Chess, love, discovery, great food, a high… for all we know, the enjoyment of these things may be the purpose of life. But I think it’s useful to have control of ourselves and enjoy responsibly.

I think most dangerous are the quick hits from blitz and bullet games or puzzle rush. We can see that these are the activities in which people frequently get trapped. It’s more rare to hear someone say “I played more classical games than I had intended to, I wanted to play a weekend tournament, and before I knew it my month had disappeared.” But blitz and bullet players will often play much longer than they intended to, and feel regret afterwards.

Here are my proposed remedies to the addictive pull. One: ensure that you have more than one source of pleasure in your life. It is natural that when we find one person who completes us or one activity that makes us happy, that we run with it. But it is a mistake to create such an over-reliance, as that person or activity may not always be there, and we may become one-dimensional. So diversify. If there are other things you can imagine enjoying, then a chess addiction can’t take as strong a hold. Next, slow down the time controls you play. You will be moving closer to doing something hard and rewarding, and farther from easy hits. In other words, you will be building up some skills and positive character traits, and not falling into weakness. This will allow you to respond better to any adversity you face. At the same time, for various practical reasons, it is harder for classical chess games to invade every minute of your day, steal your free time for reflection, keep you from focusing on other activities because you can only think about the next chance to slink away for a few minutes to hit one. And my third suggestion is regulate your time. Set parameters for yourself, the way a parent would for you if you were not an adult. The way a child is told “you can watch one movie this weekend” or “you can eat two cookies for dessert.” This is your job now, to lay out these parameters for yourself in your life. And if you set them, and then find that you can’t stick to them, then you know that indeed you are struggling. Strengthen your resolve in the face of danger, and talk to friends.

The third danger is the rabbit hole of inquiry which chess presents. Most humans are naturally curious, and chess offers an essentially infinite area of study for us. You can play, analyze, solve puzzles, read books, study courses and videos, and discuss ideas with other enthusiasts. Personally, I could never reach a point where I would have exhausted the questions I have about chess. On its own, the existence of chess ensures that I could not be bored in a thousand years. But like satisfying our ego or appetite for pleasure, satisfying our curiosity can cause us to disappear into chess, and lose other important aspects of life. One educational framing of chess is that it develops in us skills and qualities which we can then apply to other fields. But what if we stay stuck in chess, and never apply ourselves to anything else? What use then are these skills?

Two remedies present themselves: the first, one I love, is periodic analytical check-ins on what you are doing with your life. What are the things that are important to you? Is there anything you want to do with your life that you are not yet doing? What’s keeping you from doing so? This obviously can help beyond chess, but is one way to notice if we have fallen into the trap of “too much chess” crowding out the rest of life. The second is similar to the remedy to dopamine: figure out some reasonable time limits in advance, and then stick to them.

To every one of you: from our shared love of chess, I feel a sense of kinship and affection for you. I hope that you are enjoying our game to the fullest, and I hope also that you will successfully navigate the three dangers! Till next time! David