Chess Bloggers Anonymous

Chess Blog Addiction, also known as CBA, is a well known, debilitating scourge on society.

As with all addicts, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Today, Mark Weeks took that step:

It's been exactly one year to the day since I started this blog and it has become an addiction. I need help in stopping. Lots of other chess bloggers seem to be able to stop without any problem. Why can't I?

Can you find it in your heart to help him?

What Chessdad64 has to look forward to

MJ explains how teaching her son to play chess has come back to haunt her:

I taught my son to play chess when he was three. We used to play chess all the time. He just really fell in love with the game. So he read umpteen books on how to play it really well, he went to camp for it, and he played a million phantom games with himself. He played it constantly for years. So he got really good. Now he can totally clean my clock in like five seconds flat. I stopped playing chess with my son. It's not because I am bad sport and I can't take getting beat. It's just not good for him. He has started to think that because he can beat me at chess that he is smarter than me and can question my thinking. That's not the only reason for it, but it doesn't help. He is just starting to enter the Know-it-all phase of his existence and playing a game where he can whoop me is not helping him to avoid becoming an arrogant little punk. So I don't play chess with him anymore.

Chess, Personality and Madness revisited

In my post on Chess, Personality and Madness, I posed the hypothesis that "Playing chess doesn't turn one into a 'difficult case', but rather 'difficult cases' are more likely to be attracted to chess." Richard Feynmann offers his take:

I have to say I completely agree when taking myself as the entire population. I am a difficult case. I speak my mind with disregard for the consequences (I'm usually aware that what I say is controversial but don't normally care), I have little time for the needs of others and am generally considered to be inconsiderate ... all charges to which I plead guilty ... it sounds arrogant to admit that I have these faults and to then follow it up by saying "I don't care" but I really don't care as I have no interest in spending my time tiptoeing around people ... I barely have enough time for my interests as it is! So in answer to DG's question ... I'd say yes difficult cases are attracted to chess and I think the reason is that you have to be difficult to get anywhere as chess absorbs life for those who get seriously involved!

Those who know the grip it takes once you get involved in the game know that the rest of life pales into insignificance ... and I think one reason why it's only difficult people who get that far is that difficult people tend to have unfulfilling personal lives and thus have little to counter the appeal of chess. Again referring to my own case I plead guilty to that ... I had friends at one point, I had a social life, I had hope for my career ... now all I want to do is study weak squares ...

See also "Watch Richard Feynmann go mad - Live!".