Saturday, 28 January 2012

Why play chess?

I recently came across this amusing quip from George Bernard Shaw: "Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time". But to any dabbler (or more serious player for that matter) it does pose an important question - is chess anything more than a hopeless waste of precious time?

I would like to suggest that chess is not entirely a waste of time, for the following reason:

1 - It is an arena of battle. It is important for those of us who don't get caked in mud on a pitch kicking/chasing a ball with 21/29 other people on a weekly basis to find other ways to experience the mindset and emotions of battle. Why? Well, there is a universal fight going on; of good against evil, of freedom against oppression, of God against all malevolent spiritual powers. True, a militaristic or macho outlook on life is not good - the humility of Christ is our example - but in our generally peaceful lives getting some fire to fight the good fight is a healthy undertaking.

2- It encourages strategic thinking. The ability to holistically assess a situation, develop goals and plot an outline of action to succeed is a valuable skill in almost any arena of life, with obvious application in enterprise, politics and campaigning.

3- It sharpens the mind. To carry out a strategy successfully, a myriad of close calculations requiring precise thinking are necessary, providing an excellent work out for the mind. Keeping the mind consistently agile has been shown to be one of the most effective preventative steps to dementia. It is also fairly beneficial to the rest of one's existence!

4- The globality of chess. There are few games that you can set up anywhere in the world and expect a good number of people to understand and play; perhaps football is the only rival. In a globalised world (if that is not a truism) it is a great boon to have an immediate common point of contact with people from any culture or background.

So, I think I will carry on playing the Game of Kings, but if I get too obsessed give me a tap on the shoulder...

1 comment:

  1. All board games are a useful tool for socialisation and relaxation. Same for ping pong and snooker or pool.

    In addition to that, without games we wouldn't have some major mathematical fields, such as game theory(!) and possibly even chaos theory.

    Chaos theory underpins most fluid models and many other complex models. Yes, it dictates the way we design bullets and submarines, but it is also used to analyse things like traffic and movement of people in crowded areas.

    The discovery of Game theory changed the way big business works - moving from a completely uncooperative model to a model where cooperation is encouraged. Bringing a little more peace to the world.

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