- Chess was in times past seen as the ultimate game of pure intellect, where the player with the most of that uniquely human trait, intelligence, wins the game.

- Chess was in times past seen as the ultimate game of pure intellect, where the player with the most of that uniquely human trait, intelligence, wins the game. Except that no, turns out a tiny piece of silicon the size of your fingernail can beat the best player on the planet. So why spend time and effort on chess instead of some other game where humans still reign supreme (office politics? Cheating on your spouse?)? - And a variant of the above argument, humans are a tool-making species. We make tools to do specific things better than we can with our bare hands. So that we can use the tools to do the things that tools are better at, and then use our own hands/heads on things that humans are better at. So now that we have developed tools that are better at playing chess than a human, lets move on to another more challenging task. - And since this is HN, a variant of the above is Larry Walls characterization of the virtues of a programmer: impatience, laziness, and hubris. We "solved" chess, time to move on. Of course, all of the above justifications are, in a way, justifications against chess as some kind of noble pursuit that improves the condition of humanity. If you enjoy playing it as a way to spend your free time, go ahead, don't listen to all the negative sniping from the sidelines!