There's something uniquely maddening about losing a chess game you were certain you should have won. The pieces remain frozen on the screen in their final configuration—a digital crime scene where your blunder is preserved in perfect clarity. Yet before the post-mortem analysis has even begun, I've already clicked the "New Game" button, maybe too embarrassed, frustrated, or dismissive of my incredible loss.

Online chess platforms like Chess.com and Lichess have engineered perhaps the most elegant addiction loops in modern gaming—all the more impressive for doing so with a 1500-year-old rule set that hasn't meaningfully changed since the queen gained her current powers in the 15th century. In the era of Family Guy and Subway Surfer videos stitched to our content as a desperate attempt to keep our attention, how is it that chess, a game I wouldn't decry spectators for taking naps during play, has us hooked?

Don't throw your controller. Or your queen.

What I find particularly fascinating—and occasionally disturbing—about my relationship with online chess is the phenomenon players across many genres call "tilting." After a particularly painful loss, rational analysis cedes to emotional reaction. I know I should take a break, yet I compulsively queue for another game, driven by an irrational certainty that I can immediately reclaim my lost rating points (or perhaps even less than that, my own ego). This emotional spiral typically results in further losses, each one intensifying the desperate need to recover equilibrium. During these episodes, my gameplay deteriorates in predictable ways—impulsive attacks, careless blunders, resignations over the smallest frustrations—yet I remain incapable of interrupting the cycle. In the worst cases, I find myself actually numbing to the losses but refreshing my profile to track my continuing fall, like a day trader watching red lines plunge downwards.

• I'll stop playing if my Elo drops another fifty points.
• [...]
• I'll stop playing if I lose another two hundred.

This happens most during Blitz (or when I really wanted to stress myself, Bullet) rounds under such tight time constraints that I'm in a constant state of panic and hand-cramps from gripping my mouse with the ferocity of a first-time roller-coaster rider. Yet alongside this shadow side exists genuine enrichment, particularly socially. I have a few friends who send fascinating puzzles, magnificent blunders or brilliant plays from our games, or ones at the upper echelons of competitive matches, for the rest of us to scrutinize. It also enjoys the luxury of being essentially universally known; I can say I play chess without the strange looks I get while trying to explain even well-known video games like Stellaris or American Truck Simulator.

• It's like, you drive a truck. Through America.
• Them: Oh.

Short form content is dangerous. Chess can be too.

What might be chess's most insidious feature: it provides the perfect alibi for addiction while simultaneously delivering genuine intellectual benefits. Unlike mindless mobile games or social media scrolling, chess addiction comes with both intellectual prestige and actual cognitive rewards (don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with some healthy vegetating, and I'm not denying that reasonable scrolling or gaming can have benefits, too). When I mention having played thousands of games, the response is more so admiring rather than concerned. "At least you're exercising your brain," people say—and they're not entirely wrong, but I caution that addiction to anything, no matter how intellectually stimulating or otherwise enriching, is probably not good for you (outlandish take, I know).

My experience with playing chess excessively was fortunately never wholly destructive. I had a roommate hopelessly addicted to League of Legends, stepping outside usually only momentarily for his food delivery. Relatively, it's tough to even say I had an addiction; the worst that happened was that I wasted (compared to what I wish I had done) evenings and used chess as a procrastination tool. But how I felt after those hours-long cycles of highs and lows from my exciting wins and grueling losses is important: I walked away feeling gross, unproductive, and angry. Even if I had stuck to slower time controls, twenty-minute games instead of six, I suspect that sinking feeling would have been less prevalent. At least then, I could say I was thinking cerebrally and engaging with the game, not rushing my moves just in search of the satisfying "ding" of victory.

Gambits and gambling

My accounts across different sites show I've played over 7,500 games and completed nearly 10,000 puzzles over a timespan I'd prefer not to specify—a number that simultaneously horrifies and satisfies me. Do I wonder how I could have better spent that time? Yes. Is it arguably the worst way I could have spent that time? Absolutely not. I can think of many worse options. For an easy start, I could have devoted myself to becoming the world’s foremost expert in identifying cloud shapes, including "angry llamas" and "slightly disappointed sandwiches." But regardless of my alternate antics, I'm still not entirely sure how to treat my relationship with the game I value dearly but want to keep at a safe distance.

The honest answer requires confronting both uncomfortable parallels to less prestigious dependencies and genuine appreciation for chess's unique rewards. The persistent checking for new games, playing "just one more" despite intentions to stop, the mood fluctuations tied to performance—these patterns would immediately be recognized as problematic in other contexts. Yet the intellectual engagement, social connections, and genuine cognitive challenge provide counterbalancing value that shouldn't be dismissed as mere rationalization.

Chess has a built-in excuse

This intellectual exceptionalism extends beyond individual psychology to cultural perception. A four-hour chess session is viewed as mentally enriching; a four-hour video game session as potentially concerning (okay, but is it really a problem); a four-hour social media session as definitively problematic. Yet the underlying neurological reward mechanisms may be remarkably similar, with chess simply offering a more sophisticated narrative to justify the dopamine pursuit. While this hierarchy reflects some genuine differences in cognitive engagement, it also reveals cultural biases about which forms of attention are valuable. Chess, unlike League of Legends or DOTA, benefits from its historical association with intellectual elites, creating a halo effect that unduly glorify it as nothing but enriching.

Perhaps this explains why chess has flourished rather than diminished in our era of algorithmic entertainment. It offers not just an attention economy based on intellectual merit, but a psychologically complex harbor for the compulsive tendencies endemic to digital life. We can indulge our addiction to novelty, competition, and quantified achievement while simultaneously engaging in genuine intellectual development and social connection.

Chess is a great, accessible game, and I always urge non-players to give it a shot. Just be mindful of the time you spend daily (daily puzzles are OK) on it. Be deliberate and thoughtful, and definitely, definitely be suspicious of the Blitz and Bullet buttons.