How many people think that; Chess is just a Total Waste of Time in Life!

How many people think that; Chess is just a Total Waste of Time in Life!

Einstein did!

Yes.Chess is just one ******* game that wastes your time...analyzing your games,studying tactics,etc.When you look at the time you have put in it, in a yr visa vis your improvement you realize you are just wasting your time...not only that;say you study 2hrs a day then you play 2 hrs a day you realize you are wasting 4 hrs a day on something that is not really helping pay bills or whatever.You are just playing online with people who you don't really know thinking you are making friends.....this is what George Bernard Shaw said about chess;

"Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time."

Depends what you're trying to achieve really... if you enjoy it it's not a waste of time.

People are playing online games such as Counter Strike and Massive online multiplayer games hours hours every day without making any money or thinking. At least chess makes you calculate and improve your brain.

I multitask, doing other useful things like watching TV, drinking beer, and eating snacks...

yes , I played competitively and achieved master status 16 years of studying and play got me divorced, broke, trophies and very little money. I don't even have any friends left but 1 who moved away. So say what u want , I think chess helped ruin my life. Even when I played well and beat senior masters the others would make excuses for them and when I lost no excuses were offered nor any credit for my brilliancies on wins. I also found hi rated players to be the biggest cheats because when you are winning they will try to win by distracting you with BS like coughing in your face and purposely knocking over the pieces and clock if you are short of time. Also I had a 2400 player(russian) touch a piece and refuse to move it, good thing I had a witness because he was a GOM of the club and the director was going to take the 2400 players word denying the cheat. Most players arent strong enough to see what these "strong" players are made of but if you can put their back against the wall - perhaps you will see for yourself. I wasted alot of time becoming a good player to find i shouldve concentrated on the art of cheating. I still manged to beat these players on occasion so its not "sore loser" if that is your idea. I was also a city champion twice and a first board at college. I was 18th at the US open  one year (the only year I played) and then , after the TD messed with me about some minor rule and threatened to take my hard earned points away, I lost my energy and could not recover, losing three in a row and droppping out. A tragedy fo me for I wasplaying so well before BG messed with my head. I was able to keep my points but the stress was too much on top of the competition and travelling so far to play. You may take a guess who BG is. I had a long term goal of making the olympiad team.

Chess is a drug.A legal one.If you abuse it,it will abuse you back.

If chess is a waste of time, then so is:

watching Game of Thrones,

and listening to music,

and playing a video game,

and reading poetry,

and looking at Facebook,

and sex (unless trying to get pregnant),

and playing poker,

and drinking a beer.

What's wrong with "wasting time"?  Should life really be only about work and making money?  Are we a bunch of puritanical workaholics?  Must we feel guily about experiencng a little enjoyment once in a while?

it was alot more than lack of money 4 me if you read all the experience left many bad things in its wake and we were asked specifically about chess and in case you missed it - this a chess forum not poetry or poker - one of mypoints was that my fun and progress were hindered by cheats - if I did not enjoy playing, then I would not have , it was certain people that ruined it for me. I wonder if the game itself has that much to do with it, the world is a hard place in my experience, so take away what you want from it , I was just sharing my experience, appreciate it or not. have a nice day.

Short answer: chess (or any other activity) is not a waste of time if you enjoy it.

Chess is much more time wasting avenue compared to other aspects of WASTING TIME LIKE WATCHING MOVIES, HAVING SEX, WATCHING FACEBOOK VIDEOS etc.In other words

- Chess serves no real purpose outside itself
- Chess uses time and effort, and displaces other activities which might be better than it in some ways
- Chess is inherently unconstructive. While the theory can be intellectual and academic in nature (though inherently unimportant), the purpose is fundamentally to defeat the opponent. It is possible that chess causes unconstructive patterns of thought by a process analagous to transference. i.e. in chess you are fighting alone against an opponent, so other things can seem like that even if they are not, which can be unhelpful. Of course, there are ways in which this could be considered a pro - perhaps in certain areas like business the fighting aspect of chess could be well-channeled. [This point is based both on my own experience and what I have observed in others]
- Very few chess players can earn money from chess, especially with the large number of GMs in the world these days. Professional chess has very limited income streams from non-participants. Of course this is not a con at all to most people, who play chess as a hobby and have no interest in chess as a career
- While some types of chess are cheap, playing in frequent OTB tournaments is expensive and takes a lot of time, with a large impact on the rest of one's life.
- Chess can be obsessive, which can be damaging to other areas of life.

So, the question that we are all asking...

What do you do for fun?  

Sounds like a bigger waste of time than chess!!! 

Think about all that study and thought that go into chess analysis, huge teams of Eastern Europeans like Russians, Bulgarians etc analysing rook versus pawn end-games etc - It all pretty much boils down to a waste of time.In other words while you could pretty much waste time doing some things like playing football and you will never make it to NFL, at least you get benefits like collage scholarship, women like you, you make life long friendships and much more.Chess is much restricted to the 64 squares and cheats in tournaments who cough off in your face or knock your pieces off the board if you are about to defeat them.

Alright, I'm done feeding the troll... See yous.

For chess you have to be meticulous. It is not for everybody. Concentration, focus... not for ADD people. For them chess is a waste of time. Any resemblance between life and chess is exaggerated. Neatly placing figures on their spots, avoiding crowding... boring... so boring, at least for me. I can't be very good in chess, although I am fairly intelligent. For us chess is activity that should be avoided. Do mathematical equations, music, whatever...just don't do chess. It is a game that requires very specified type of intelligence (one in which most of even very intelligent people are not stellar at), along with meticulousness to the point of being anal. Stay away..!

How many people think that semicolon is out of place?