[agscala]

I think that the prestige associated with chess is appropriate. It's quite a difficult to play and there really is no entertainment value to the game outside of the gameplay itself. Why would you say that its prestige has nothing to do with the game's merits?

[hugh3]

It's a fine game, but it's still just a game. The comparison to Starcraft makes it clear.

I'm all for filling in your spare time by playing games, but if it's all you're doing in life then that seems pretty sad.

Especially true if chess playing ability really is an indicator of general intelligence. All those grandmasters could be doing amazing things for the human race, but nope, their brains are filled with queens and rooks.

[xiaoma]

Yes, that's a very good point. The perfect example of this was Emanuel Lasker. He was an extremely talented mathematician, noted for work in commutative algebra, but he poured the vast majority of his efforts into chess. He was world champion for 27 years, easily the most dominant player of his era and amongst the best ever.

Just imagine if mathematics had been his passion and chess the side hobby!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker

[wewyor]

> All those grandmasters could be doing amazing things for the human race

I'm not so sure chess masters would necessarily be good at other things like say physics as they would have to have a passion in that to even become remotely viable for race saving. Grandmasters likely have been playing and practicing and have been absolutely absorbed in chess for many years in order to achieve their status, but I don't know if it would be as easy for someone who thinks chess to become absorbed in something like medicine or aeronautics or other such things.

Edit: if you have a subscription to the new yorker this was a pretty good article on what a single grandmaster is like http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/03/21/110321fa_fact_... [PAYWALL]

[derefr]

They'd likely be equally good at things that also require large-scale, long-term thinking about complex zero-sum competitive resource optimization problems. Like, for example, war strategy. I don't know if it generalizes beyond that, though.

[astrofinch]

http://boardgamegeek.com/abstracts/browse/boardgame

There are a lot of ways to use your intellect that don't benefit the world: crossword puzzles, inventing new programming languages, World of Warcraft, and sudoku all come to mind. Chess is one of the few that can get you laid. That doesn't change the fact that you're not helping anyone.