> If you like chess, then play chess! It's a fun game with an amazing depth and a huge player base. But if you're just starting out: Please forget about having

> If you like chess, then play chess! It's a fun game with an amazing depth and a huge player base. But if you're just starting out: Please forget about having "becoming a grandmaster" as a goal. I could not agree more. You can waste your entire life becoming excellent at chess and that's all you will gain, being excellent at chess. It is a myth that chess makes one smarter or more intelligent at other things in life. The skills are not transferable. That said, sure, there's a lot to chess that does transfer, such as: learning to concentrate for an extended period of time, accepting losing, learning to consider multiple possible solutions and uncertainty, etc. However, I feel that if one just plays chess and nobody makes some of these connections to real life some of these skills simply don't translate. My kids and I play almost every day. They love the game, try to win but I taught them not to care about winning or losing at all. It's much healthier that way. There have been cases when one of my kids might lose eight or more games in a day and not win a single one. Someone who is invested in this game could easily crumble and have a bad week because of something like that. In his case, he could not care less, he knows that sometimes you win and other times you do not. The following day he might have ten wins in a row, and that's fun enough. The other problem is that, in order to ascend through the ranks you have no option but to become a human database. This is what can consume a lifetime of study. Just learning a few openings, counterattacks and end-game strategies can elevate someone in ranking. That isn't super hard and I still consider it fun "sport" chess learning. To get much beyond that you are going to go up against people who devote every living minute to shoving a database of games and strategies into their brains. Which means you have to do the same. To what end? I often say that if you are going to study that hard for nothing you might as well study something like medicine and actually get something of value in exchange.