The game’s popularity spike is recent years is not so impressive considering the circumstances. Chess was there at the right place, and the right time. Chess has had a certain status for a long time now, and it is just very available nowadays. You will always have someone to play with, either online or with someone you know.
The question you hear in relation to chess lately is ‘why is chess so popular?’, as if it hasn’t been one of the consistently popular games for over 500 years now. If you want to phrase the question in relation to the fact that all of your friends are playing chess right now, you could ask: what made chess get into the position it was to get yet another boost in the last few years?
But, the core question will always be: what sets chess apart?
What sets chess apart?
Two things are very obvious:
First, it’s the intellectual game by excellence, and thus very satisfying to win at. We all link the ability to play with intelligence. Of course, this is not actually right; it’s a game, and some people just know how to play it better than others – regardless of their intellect. But still, although nobody likes to lose at anything except weight, loosing at chess is just that one note more humiliating than loosing at, say, Monopoly, darts or poker. And winning gives you that special and unrivaled feeling of superiority that other games don’t. Basically, chess players are junkies, craving the hit they get when they get to feel smarter than their rival.
Second, chess is like skiing: very easy to learn, but very difficult to master. You can get the main rules explained in less than 10 minutes, and start playing. And from there, the learning curve is steep: it’s very easy to notice improvement, which reinforces your interest in the game. But, and here’s the crucial part, there’s virtually no limit to how much you can learn. There’s always things that you have to improve, there’s always someone slightly better than you that you could beat. The best players in the world are still learning. Actually, even the most capable chess computers are still learning.
We all know that the goals we set for ourselves should be ambitious enough to give us a challenge, but not so much that it’s impossible. Chess is perfect in that sense. A good example is the international rating system, called elo (when you start playing online, your rating is around 300-400). No matter your rating might be, getting to the next 100 mark is always a very reasonable and accomplishable objective, that, even if not easy, will not take you long enough so you grow frustrated. Obviously, there is a limit on how far you can go with the rating (for humans the current record is at 2882), but by the time that you hit a plateau you’re already too deep into it to get out.
Both these points can be found in this quote from Siegbert Tarrasch:
“Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies, its peculiar charm. Intellectual productiveness is one of the greatest joys -if not the greatest one- of human existence. It is not everyone who can write a play, or build a bridge, or even make a good joke. But in chess everyone can, everyone must, be intellectually productive and so can share in this select delight. I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity for the man who has no knowledge of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy”
The beginnings of chess
Alright, but that alone can’t account for everything. What else influenced us into adopting the game of chess as we did? Well, as the chess phenomena is not new, history probably has some answers for us:
Take the bestseller of the late 1400s: Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum. Or ‘the Book of Chess’, by Jacobus de Cessolis. His work was a description of society and morals of the time – like basically every other book written then. But there was a difference. Previously, the human body was used as a metaphor for civilization, but Cessolis used the game of chess for the first time for that purpose – and it hit a nerve. It was the book that gave the Bible a run for its money during the Middle Ages, rivaling the Holy Book as the most popular of the time.
Another example is Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess, which even if it had just 9 performances, was named “the greatest box-office hit of early modern London”. A 7th part of the London population at the time saw the game. It used a giant chess-board as a stage, and the black and white pieces to represent various figures of the English and Spanish monarchy. As you can imagine, it was a satire, specially directed at Spain.
Chess worked perfectly to describe the feudal society of that time: different pieces, with different abilities, and with different functions. The upper and middle classes loved that, and the working class was probably working, so we don’t really know what they thought of it. In Don Quixote, Cervantes uses it to illustrate inequality. It became a socially accepted practice that served to bring people together; even women and men would be seen doing this activity together (there weren’t a lot of activities which permitted them to interact at the time).
Due to its intellectual aspect, prestige got linked to the ability to checkmate your opponent. It’s then when chess became a representation of intelligence and culture.
Point in case, in Europe chess took us by storm, and quickly.
The Arabic world also got a chess fever some centuries before we did, but for different reasons (it was actually our Muslim friends that introduced us to the game, probably through Córdoba and Sicily). During the Golden Age of Islam, there was a shift of seeing life as pure destiny, towards accepting the idea of free will. At a time when in cultural centers like Baghdad astrologists, mathematicians, chemists, and architects were laying the groundwork for the ideal of free thinking and intellect, chess was the perfect representation of exactly that. There is no luck in chess. There is no destiny. Only the two players are responsible for the outcome of the game. At certain times, chess even got a pass for people to bet on games (the reason was that there is no luck involved).
But it was not always sunshine and roses for the game. It has received many criticisms over time.
Both Christians and Muslims banned the game at certain periods and places, as they both saw the dangers of it. Christian bishops (who ironically are now part of the game) did so arguing that it was distraction and a waste of time.
In the 19th century, Scientific America wrote:
“Chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements […]”
And then it goes on a pretty brutal rant about the game, and how it doesn’t add anything to value, even arguing against the sedimentary nature of it. People should either move around, or do greater intellectual efforts than just playing a game. Now, the authors have a point.
Dangers of chess
There is a consensus about chess improving cognitive memory, math, strategy, intuition, creativity, etc… It is also good to learn the habit of thinking things through and accepting responsibility. But it is still not clear how exactly the game might do that and how effective it really is. And what is definitely true, is that there is plenty of room for one to mindlessly play the game, pass the time, and not get any of the benefits that chess might be able to offer.
You can play chess in the wrong way. With “the wrong way”, what I mean is that you can get into the habit of playing the game mindlessly, just to pass the time.
The news can be very useful in order to understand the world, but you can find yourself skimming the news with no specific purpose, just to feel like you’re doing something productive. Instant messager services are a great way to communicate, but it’s easy to fall prey to the constant desire to chat about meaningless topics and receiving notifications. Reading is one of the best things you can do, but nobody would seriously argue that the ideal way to spend your days is re-reading Harry Potter for the 54th time. You get the point: just because an activity in itself can be benefitial to you, there’s always room to cut corners and just do it for the pleasure of it.
The notion that it is an activity that theoretically stimulates the mind doesn’t help, it just makes it more difficult to notice when we’re not really engaged with the primary purpose (maximum mental stimulation) that would yield benefits, and instead use it to pass the time and feel entertained.
Aswell, chess can, and probably will, captivate your mind.
If you want to play well, you have to put some serious mental effort into the game, which leaves your mind puzzling about it even when you’re not playing. It’s exercise for the mind that feels good, and can become an obsession. Albert Einstein puts it this way:
“Chess grips its exponent, shackling the mind and brain so that the inner freedom and independence of even the strongest character cannot remain unaffected.”
It’s a double-eged sword, and one chess aficionados, and professionals, have to watch out for.
But chess always made a comeback.
And the elements of it that have received criticism, are probably exactly those that made the game stick over time. Yes, it is a distraction. Yes, it captivates the mind. Yes, you get a dopamine hit when you win. But exactly this, mixed with the fact that it was socially very well received due to its intellectual component, representation of values and society, and it being seen as a civic way to interact with each other, made it a game that was destined to succeed.
In conclusion, it filled a function when it got introduced, and its accessibility and ability to bewitch the players made it a game for eternity.
Eventually, Paris and London picked it up, people started printing magazines and books about it, tournaments were organized, then the Russians got into it, Americans had to show they can do it better, it became a battleground for the Cold War, then Bobby Fisher became the man of the moment for some time, Netflix eventually decided to make a show about it, a pandemic hit, and here we are.
But although some chance events gave chess some occasional popularity burst, it is not by luck that chess is the king of all games. Or, more fitting, the queen.
leo burghaus 
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