Thats true Immanuel, what about when you win? 
Hmm ... unklecyril was a little girl ... I think I am confused 
Philosophy and Chess
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I will confess that I know a lot more about philosophy than about Chess, but I will say that Ludwig Wittgenstein, a Viennese philosopher from the early twentieth century, was very fond of using chess as an example. Wittgenstein`s main concern was language and, in his later works (which I will say are more important, but it`s a controversial claim) his central concept was the language-game. In his later view, there was no one underlying logic to language; i.e. there was no pure language which was capable of conveying uncorrupted meaning. For him, language was made up of a virtually infinite number of colloquial language-games. These games could be the specific dynamic of a teacher talking to a pupil, formal business document, but they could also be more literally (and so more obviously) chess games.
Chess illustrates the point of how language-games offer an internal logic. For example, you could speak English fluently and still not understand a conversation, in English, about a Chess game. You could watch a chess game and be able to understand the "meaning" of certain moves, but not others. Chess also demonstrates how symbols (pieces in a game) don`t necessarily need to be tied to any object in reality (an important component of his later thought), but simply represent a use within the context of the language. In chess, quite explicitly, the meaning of a piece is its use (i.e. what you can do with it in the game).
I could go on and on about the ways in which Chess can teach us about our own everyday language, but I will stop here as I feel you probably get the jist by now and the longer I go on, probably the more confusing and/or incorrect I will get. Wittgenstein is no walk in the park haha.
I'm sure this a subject that comes up often, year after year.
Yeah, thanks to you resurrecting this moribund carcass...
Going back to post #1, that idea is hardly novel. It's very common in analysis to ask "ok, but what's the threat?"
And the stupid thing's 4 years old! lol
I've been thinking about this recently. Actually I think when you are having a philosophical argument, you are legitimitely playing chess! In chess you have certain opening moves that can determine the whole course of the game, this is the initial question asked. When playing e4 you might as well be asking e4? IE your asking What is the purpose of life? Is religion necessary for morality? etc. etc. Then dependent on your opponents responses conversations can branch off into crazy different lines that no conversation has ever explored before. These lines can also transpose into common arguments just like chess can transpose into different positions that have been played before.
Further the pieces could be said to be arguments and the king can be said to be your overall conclusion. You have weak arguments that you don't care too much whether you lose and strong central arguments that are core to your claims. In chess you can fork two pieces and therefore win one. The same can be true with philosophy. You can use an argument to fork two of your opponents arguments using whats called a dilemma. No matter what they lose one viewpoint they had in protectance of their claim. You may even attack their central claim itself and one of their most important arguments in support of it forcing them to abandon it to protect their conclusion. IE Forking the King and the Queen. You can strengthen your claims with other argumentative pieces or weaken the enemies fortresses and go on the attack. Even endgame strategies like how useful pawns are. If you let a weak argument from your opponent advance for too long then it can become a major problem for you entire conclusion. And as this weak argument advances once you start to see it's growing more and more of a problem for you, it becomes necessary to move major arguments to counter it which they can be stuck the rest of the game. And as anybody in the youtube comments will tell you nobody will ever give up on their main conclusion unless it's completely destroyed and their is no way to slightly change the conclusion to escape any longer, IE Checkmate.
Even the opponents difficulty is similar. The opponent that you can understand is much weaker than the opponent that you don't understand any of their moves. IE they could be playing a different opening line then one you've studied or have found logical traps that in previous positions you thought were winning. Some people are incredibly weak when it comes to the game and might easily give up after just a few moves. The most engaging conversations are always the ones where the contenders are relatively equal in strength! Etc. Etc. The list goes on! I believe it is what makes philosophical conversation and debate so entertaining and interesting. And it's always fun to see two grandmasters go at it, if only just to better understand the game ourselves!
When I was a little girl I once thought about something..then I forgot!