Ann Hulbert’s piece on the growing appeal of chess to American youth (which is to say: the growing marketability of chess to anxious American parents) reminded me of the observation that, for all its academic fustiness and overstuffed armchairs and Teutonic jargon, psychoanalysis is no more scientifically defensible than astrology or Tarot readings. Sure, it’s always nice to talk, but shrinks are basically ears for hire: you pay them to listen to you say what nobody else would listen to.
By the same token, all of the supposed benefits of chess could just as easily apply to bridge, poker, or scrabble; it’s just that chess has a veneer of European intellectual respectability, and poker still has a whiff of the illicit. I would much rather raise a skilled poker player than a grandmaster: poker has all of the benefits of chess, with an additional human dimension. Anybody want to argue back?
Update: In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that I am a reasonably good bridge player, a fair but enthusiastic poker player, and I absolutely abhor chess. I find it dispiriting, chilly and inhuman. With poker or bridge, you are occasionally dealt bad hands; with chess, there is always one winner and one loser, and the player who loses does so because he is dumber and worse than the winner. Despite this personal animus against the game of kings, my argument still stands.
