I am bored with Chess

I am bored with Chess. I want to quit now, and move on to more active sports involving more human interactions than just making dumb static moves. I know, some people consider Chess players as smarter, but it's not Rocket Science, and besides you are not making any contributions to the human race by playing Chess. There is life beyond the 64 squares, which is much more entertaining and challenging. The general rule that "practise makes you perfect" does not applies to Chess play and an average player will always remains average without any vertical growth in terms of his ratings unlike other sports. Chess is a passive game, and I am tired of making mental calculations game after game, with no future in sight.

I would better save Chess for my older days laden with passive social life, when I have nothing else to do except to wait for eventual mate/death.

Yeah, definitely stop playing if you're not enjoying it. But then again, you could always try your hand(s) at chess boxing?? :) Josh Waitzkin quit chess and got into some kind of martial arts, apparently he got quite good at it too.

Still, that's a pessimistic view of chess. The platitude "Practice makes perfect" is stupid and inaccurate, but it fits chess much more aptly than it fits, say, playing the piano. (I speak from experience.) Chess is more mathematical and cut-and-dried than most things about which people try to use that tired phrase. In general, the saying should go, "Practice makes permanent." It's certainly more apt concerning music and sports this way.

Chess is much different. You can practice tactics, and you will in fact become better and better with practice. You can memorize openings (granted it's not the ideal way to spend the time), and as long as your memorization technique is good, you will definitely learn and memorize those openings.

If you don't want to play chess anymore, then I certainly wouldn't want to stand in your way. Your decision is respectable; not everyone has to play chess, and as drieper said, sometimes quitting is for the best. I just don't think chess is an old man's game through which one passes the time waiting to die. Personally, my chess skill has vastly improved in the time I've studied it. It's not true at all that the average player remains average. Most of the titled players are not prodigies; they just worked really hard to get really good.

Is chess a worthy contribution to humanity? Some can see that it is. The same can be said of music and sports as well. Chess players, musicians, and athletes aren't curing cancer... but that's all right. But if chess is not your way to contribute, then good luck in other pursuits.

I think I may have a similar complex. Years ago, I got creamed by my chess computer on level 3; these days... let me put it this way: only yesterday did my computer finally manage to snap its 80-plus-game losing streak against me on its highest level (72). Still, after all my vast improvement, my rating still languishes between 1500-1700 on this site (and much worse in blitz: 1250-1350. Ugh!) I look upon ratings such as yours (2167 in turn-based) with longing and even some jealousy! The improvement process is slow indeed, and I've felt like this before... diminishing the worth of the game. But I try to be patient and hang in there.

'S a hobby, mate.  If it isn't your ball of wax, best move on and get started on the novel or homeless shelter or contemplation of loftier thoughts.

I'm a big fan of chess as a daily mental exercise, a big fan of sport as a daily physical exercise, and a big fan of my work as a means to financial and social ends.  Chess is just a delicious part of this balanced breakfast.

Find your own balance.

Mana, what's wrong with taking part in other activities as well as playing chess. Playing chess and being interactive or contributing to the human race are not mutually exclusive. Most normal people have more than one hobby or activity that they are involved in. Get a life! Chess can still be part of it.

take up checkers.

Chess is bored with you.

I know the feeling well i played in my teens and reached a competent level then i gave it up so 40 years later i then take it up again now i find it a strugle but  win or lose i do enjoy the game so i plod on hoping to once again to reach a decent level

Perhaps, all the people who are trying to defend Chess as their passion should acknowledge the ground reality that Chess is not appealing to most of the people, considering the numbers of fans and media attention to other sports like Soccer, Football, Baseball, etc. Also, the better half of the population i.e. women specially tend to think Chess as a psych-game, just to be used when your neurons arn't firing in sync, as modern medical research has shown.

What I asked for was that is there any innovative ideas by Chess.com to make playing Chess more interactive for "not so serious" players like animating moves more in tune with the fighting spirit (say, a knight vandalising the pawn), pop-up messages suggesting the book openings you are making, giving incentive if you have made the best available move, giving you scores for every move, etc.

Chess is a great hobby, but not at the cost of sacrificing your family time, not wanting to be disturbed when you are engrossed in a (live) game. What the people in their recent comments are suggesting is that Chess can improve your thought process, I get this point. But, tell me how many top Chess players have become National leaders, or have worked for a World-wide humanitarian cause.

Do you think Anand or Kramnik or Kasparov, etc would do great, if made Head of the UN Security Council, or any other global organization whose decisions have world-wide implications?

Chess is good for your self esteem.... And it improves your concentration too. I think it's perfect if you are feeling anxious or something, it makes you more focused, the 15 minutes you spend in a chess game, you are absorved completley. Plus it improves your memory and your brain seems to be faster after it as well. It makes you "wake up" mentally... anyone get what i'm saying? 

It makes you more intelligent too

Sounds like someone is rationalizing. We all know you are quitting because you suck.

Live and let live. Perhaps you're expecting too much too fast or it's just not for you. Either way, you are free to choose your hobbies.

By the way, I heard a quote which made a lot of sense to me. It goes something like: perfect practice makes perfect. If you're practicing the wrong way, it doesn't matter how much you do it, you still won't improve. But that's a moot point in your case anyway since it looks like your heart just isn't in it anymore. I've been there.

You may be jumping the gun with quitting now.

Try playing for a few more months, establishing a lot of friends, then announcing that "you have to leave," then arrange a long and public tearful goodbye with cyber hugs and everything, then wave from the caboose as the train pulls away from the station, then return shortly thereafter with a very similar nick and explanation for how it's okay for you to be here now.

You can then repeat the whole thing, believe it or not. Just be patient, young spider.

you sound like you were forced to play chess. like someone is forced to have piano lessons.

I have chosen to play chess and if you think chess is to serious and not funny you should come to the club there I am playing we have great fun every thursday. for me chess is everything I seek but ok sometime it can also be a curse.

Because I as a human cannot rest till good becomes better and better becomes best. I am very ambitious and therefore in the limited amount of time I have been a member I have tried over 6000 puzzles in tactic trainer.

but I still advise you pick up chess once a while maybe you will enjoy chess eventually.

You are the same person who posted "Chess and Life Relations" in the forum less than two weeks ago, where you said this:

"I learn't playing Chess when I was 8, but i played only for short span, with intermittant gaps of many years. Only recently, I have become a Chessholic. I mean Chess and Life, intermixed so beautifully by interpolating the Chess rules, strategies, tacts, positions, ranks, files, etc."

And now this:

"I am bored with Chess. I want to quit now..."

...and:

"I am tired of making mental calculations game after game..."

Hmmm.... Anything you wish to do well, is about patience. I don't think it's about giving up and calling it stupid.

LOL

You might give the Tactics Trainer and/or the Chess Mentor a try. Or even the Videos. Of course at 72 maybe I prove your point. But I like the many dimensions of Chess.Com. Sorry you don't.............

@devoid, @bobbyDK, @trysts

My father taught me to play Chess when I was 8 years old. I enjoyed playing Chess then with my father, because that time Chess taught me many more things than just Chess tactics and strategies. The greatest gift that Chess gave me was that it brought my father closer to me. I still remember, how He was amused when I played "Bc4". Perhaps, players who have taught Chess to their children can understand this situation more accurately.

Yes, this post is influenced with the forum topic "Chess and Life Relations". I am not saying that I can't excel in Chess with practise or whatever. I, now, want to play Chess in "real" life, with real pieces, and I want to "WIN". I firmly believe Chess and Life are related, and I am not quitting Chess, but I am just quitting the 8x8 board.

I want to see all you guys on the larger life boards, and pls "don't sink my battleship"!!

i'm bored with this thread.