Is chess the ultimate metaphor?

I posted awhile back on the use of the term "chess piece" to describe Ukraine's current geopolitical status. But there seems to be no end to the metaphorical use of chess in describing politics, war, life, in fact - just about anything. Particularly popular is the use of "pawn(s)" to describe a person or group who is unaware, controlled, being duped, left out of the loop, etc.

Here is a typical example from Froggy Ruminations' post "Usama bin Laden is NOT Dead":

....But at some point, muslims are going to have to realize that they are acting as pawns in a global chess game being played by a handful of despotic psychopaths who are all too willing to sacrifice them in what will clearly be a losing effort.

Here is another example, on the topic of Marxism by Diplomad:

It's a call to keep certain people as either an ethnic curio on the shelf for the enjoyment of European and North American anthropologists or, equally vile, as exploitable pawns for the use of political activists.

And in a post entitled "Rumsfeld's Gambit", the So-Called Austin Mayor states:

It seems the wing-nuts were wrong to consider Spc. Wilson a pawn of the liberal media. He's actually a pawn of the Bush administration -- just like all the other troops in Iraq.