Is Chess a waste of time for non-pros?

      Last year I got interested in chess.  I re-learnt the rules, learnt some tips, started playing online. I read the history of the game, biography of world chess champions.
  
    I have finally come to a conclusion that Chess is a total waste of time for people who don't take it as a career/profession. For people(players, coaches, Arbiter etc) who choose the game as a career,spending time on openings, Gambits, endgame does not seem to be a waste of time. For them chess joins the category of all professions from Wall Street to Hollywood .  But for others, I don't think chess is a useful hobby/pass time.

What people generally say in favour of Chess.

1. Chess is an intellectual game:- In Chess, Analytical thinking,Problem solving, Memory, concentration, Foresight, Tactics, Strategy are involved. Chess is like an exercise to the mind/brain. It can improve our I.Q.

My Statement:- Although the theory is intellectual  and the game has a glorious history, the question of whether it makes a person smarter in general or smarter at just chess is still debatable. Remember, there are people who don't play chess or even hate it, yet they make their mark in the world.

  My conclusion is that Ches makes a person smarter at chess and probably smarter in general for kids(at the brain development stage). When one becomes an adult and got mind maturity, playing chess does not seem to have effect on his/her I.Q.
      Now I understood, in Chess what matters most is the memory power of a person than any other intellectual traits. In short, if you want to be a top rated chess player, you should be a human database of chess games. As Kasparov said" A grandmaster needs to retain thousands of games in his head, for games are to him what the words of their mother tongue are to ordinary people, or notes or scores to musicians.."

(ii) Chess teaches life skills:- From chess, one can learn how to think/plan ahead, strategic thinking, foreseeing the problems and getting adjusted to future consequences,long term thinking, sacrificing short term benefits to achieve long term goals, time management,etc.

My Statement:- The analogue of "Life imitates chess" or vice versa is simply absurd.  Life has many twists and turns. Games like football, hockey etc teaches like skills much more than chess. In football one has a clear cut goal(Goal scoring), how to pass on the ball from one team mate to another(Planning/Strategy), Tactical/short-term gains(corner, free kicks), which opponent player will get the ball next(foreseeing), Time management, working as a team(Team spirit), etc.

           I think it is a propaganda by chess coaches, who say that they not only teaches children chess skills but also life skills.

   I found some links with regard to my opinion.

main.uschess.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=17341://
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/is-chess-a-waste-of-time-a-call-to-action2

BOTTOM LINE:- Everyone has the right to choose his/her career/profession. For people(Chess players, coaches, Arbiters,etc), chess is a career and they make money and a living out of it. Spending time and energy on chess give them monitory benefit.
            But for others ,memorising openings and chess theories does not seem to yield any results except to make better at chess.
So, it is better to spend time on games such as Badminton, Table tennis,foot ball etc  where you have both physical and mental involvement, where you get both the thrill of winning/losing and also physical exercise.

Comments and criticisms are welcome.

If you don't enjoy it, it is a waste of time.  If you do enjoy it, it is not.  It really is that simple.

You can claim almost anything is a waste of time depending on your life priorities and other definments. "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

Your arguments seem to be missing a very important detail: Chess is more fun than physical sports for a lot of us. Unless you're one of those people who considers fun to be a waste of time (in which case I question what your actual end-goal is), that's a perfectly good reason to play it. Also, there's the fact that human senses of fun thrive on variation; even for someone who mostly prefers physical sports, an occasional game of chess mixed in could enhance the total fun they experience, because repetitivity leads to boredom, and boredom isn't fun.

I have another perspective. I believe chess is a waste of time as anything other than a hobby. So I believe perhaps the opposite -- it is a waste of time for pros.
At the same time, I don't believe my "belief" to be objectively true. I'm sure that if I, myself, spent time becoming a chess pro, it would be a waste of time for me. Because there are many other things I'd rather do, or better serve others by doing. I believe that if chess is honestly, truly, what someone wants to pursue in life -- it is not a waste of time for them. I suppose I only think it is a waste of time for pros when it is pursued in vain and without perspective of other options? Like, pursuing a chess title for its own sake would surely be a waste of time. Pursuing chess because you truly love it, is not a waste. At least, not any more a "waste" than anything else (if you want to get philosophical).

I have to agree with pawpatrol - its all about enjoyment. People who play on an amature level can enjoy the games just as much as profys do as long as they are playing people of the same level.  You may have the same view of table tennis and football if your play with profys there too! lol

Chess is not a waste of time for the amateur ; even if you don't have the time or the energy to familiarise yourself with chess theory you can still have some enjoyable games over the board. Anyone who says that you have to know all the sharp opening lines is being an elitist snob... and that is someone who obviously thinks too highly of himself. No names no pack drill.

I agree with the OP on most points and personally i opine that it is mostly

a waste of time IF you dont enjoy it(then why should you be playing in

the first place!!) if you REALLY enjoy(and are not addicted to) it it is not a

total waste of time.....if you are addicted to it,you neither enjoy nor

does your brain develop significantly in the non-chess areas..so you better

do something else in that case..............................However if you

plan on being a pro it is an useful and highly productive passtime(thats

obvious i guess) and further more i dont think that in any case would it be

a TOTAL waste of time.....Good post though you have been one sided......

Your brain is like a muscle and chess is a sport for the mind. If you sit around watching Jersey Shore and don't use your brain, your ability to problem solve and calculate will slip away just like if you sit around and play chess every day you won't be able to jog 75 feet before you collapse. Even the chess obsessed Bobby Fischer played tennis.

Chess is a "waste of time" for anyone not making 100k or more a year from it (pretty much Carlsen and Anand this past year and maybe a handful of others). It's a very, very poor career choice...tantamount to declaring "I will win American Idol and that's my only career goal" while singing Karaoke at bars.

There's nothing wrong with chess being a waste of time, because chess is a game that is designed to waste people's leisure time. People like to assign playing chess some bigger status, but chess doesn't inherently make you any better or smarter than playing Connect 4. It just has more longevity and popularity.

Why does the OP waste his time writing such unpersuasive dribble ??

Does it have anything to do with working conditions for the Indian Civil Service?

What does waste time mean? A question intelligently posed by rdecredico above; is it to squander something that you could have kept?...no, for the time will pass anyway whether you "waste" it playing chess or reading a book or making love to your wife, huband ,girlfriend or boyfriend or by walking the dog ;whatever you do you will never save the time.

Any time that you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

If you don't like it and/or think it is a waste of time, then don't play it. Just don't waste the time of people who enjoy the game with threads like this.

Try to play drunk

On you saying that chess is mostly useless for non children.....i have to say

that while very superficialy you are right ....it does have benifits ...for

instance it makes analytical thinkers and harder workers of lazy people

...it does help in areas regarding research,any sort of analysis and deep

thinking...it also gets your brain going...but for the above to take place

its necesary that your not playing bullet or super blitz right away.....i can

vouch for all the above from my shallow experience..............and dude

dont mind the disrespectful comments.....I have obsereved that when any

Eastern guys post some black sheep americans mostly and some other

westerners tend to put in comments laced with racism...........however

you are expected to answer make submissions/admissions and explain

with respect to the many serious questions here....

Reminds me of a George Best quote which goes something  like: "I spent a lot of money on women, drink and fast cars. The rest of it I just wasted"

No i think it has to do with the conditions for Guantanamo Bay.

So you can write in (almost) complete sentences?  Good for you.

What happened to the extra (.....s) you so love, @Parokeet ??

Try writing with gigantic font, just like the OP, then folks will surely notice your persuasive prose and felicitous turn of phrase.

Stop..........it...............zborg..............