[johnloeber]

I used to play chess somewhat seriously, though I focused on the Chess960 variant (I think it's a much more interesting game).

My opinion is that the only real predictor of how good someone is at chess is how much they have practiced, and conversely, the only thing that playing chess makes you better at is playing chess.

I've sunk a few hundred hours into playing chess, and the conclusion I arrived at was that the skills and mode of thinking cultivated by playing chess are largely non-transferable. Granted, playing chess has given me a few analogies for thinking about certain real-life situations, but I learned those in my first few hours of play.

Ultimately, I stopped playing chess. Perhaps this is an unorthodox opinion, but chess ended up being something I don't want to be extremely good at, simply because that requires a great deal of time investment, and I view the time I spent playing chess as largely wasted. I grew bored with the limited and mechanical nature of the game and quit. Haven't looked back. I think the reputation of chess as one of the greatest "thinking games" is severely undeserved. The vast majority of the game is about routine and mechanical/technical formalisms.

If you wish to practice your thinking or programming skills, there are much better ways for you to use your time (programming is one).

[moron4hire]

I felt the same way about poker. I can see the mechanics of poker a lot easier than I can see them with chess. But if I'm going to spend the time, effort, and money to become very proficient at poker, then why don't I spend a similar amount of time, effort, and money on starting a software company? That revelation was the beginning of end of me regularly playing games of any kind.

I still occasionally play video games, but I treat it more like watching a movie on Netflix. I usually only play through once on the medium setting, whereas in my early 20s I was very much a completionist, even for games I didn't much care for.

[aerovistae]

I could not possibly agree more. I have always been confused by the bold assertions to the value of chess as the greatest game of all time.

Yes, it's over 1500 years old and continues to amuse, but checkers is even older, and there's card games, and then Monopoly is basically just real life, so, that counts as eldest. What I mean to say is that chess is just another game, and just happens to be one of the old ones. It's a great game! But it's not like the holy incarnation of everything a game should be.

For people who defend chess's value by pointing to the enormous game complexity, the number of possible games / moves / etc, the same exact thing can be said of Super Smash Brothers and countless other multiplayer video games. Is Super Smash Brothers the greatest game in history?? (yes)