But chess is approachable because you can learn how the pieces move in five minutes. Contrast that with some German board games where going over the instruction

But chess is approachable because you can learn how the pieces move in five minutes. Contrast that with some German board games where going over the instructions is the first hour and even then you aren't sure if you understand. Why learn assembly?, well for one, the non-abstract aspect of assembly is less abstract, and arguably easier to understand than even the simplest high level languages. Secondly, learning assembly is also learning how computers work and that paradigm will help you even as you largely work in a high level language. And beating the compiler isn't as hard as you might think if that becomes necessary some day.