History Main / CrazyPeoplePlayChess

Many writers view TabletopGame/{{chess}} players as not just [[SmartPeoplePlayChess brilliant]], but also mad as a hatter. As a result, this trope shows up in various works featuring chess or similar games such as go. Expect rants about conspiracies against the player, bizarre and borderline-OCD match behavior (such as demanding that spectators be seated in a symmetrical manner around the board, or throwing out people whose watches are ticking a bit too noticeably), and, in some cases, violent rage (culminating in [[RageQuit flipping the board]]) or total depression. Expect someone to proclaim at one point that 'It's only a game!', and more often than not, the madman will disagree.

* [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} The Joker]] is a brilliant chess player able to consistently beat Ra's al Ghul, Batman's oldest (as in, the most long-lived in-universe) and most strategically sound foe, at chess.

* Mao and Lelouch in ''Anime/CodeGeass''. Mao is crazy enough that he rigs a bomb to detonate if he wins. Subverted (or perhaps reinforced) in that neither Mao nor Lelouch actually know how to play chess and are playing based on their own rules.

* ''Film/SherlockHolmesAGameOfShadows'', An epic chess match between Holmes and the main antagonist serves as both the climax and a representation for the entire movie's events. It should also be mentioned that both of them were not using a chess board and playing throughout portions of the match.

''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'' has King Radovid V, an increasingly paranoid despot obsessed with chess and [[BurntheWitch hunting sorceresses]]. Fittingly, the first place you meet him is at a chess club where he explains his passion for the game.

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop''[='=]s 14th episode, entitled "Bohemian Rhapsody", contains a chess game between an old senile chess master and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Ed. The game is played over the internet and lasts for days until the chess master wins, and subsequently dies.
* Mao and Lelouch in ''Anime/CodeGeass''. Mao is crazy enough that he rigs a bomb to detonate if he wins.

* [[ComicBook/{{Batman}}The Joker]] is a brilliant chess player able to consistently beat Ra's al Ghul, Batman's oldest (as in, the most long-lived in-universe) and most strategically sound foe, at chess.

* ''Literature/UnsoundVariations'', by GeorgeRRMartin. A guy botches a chess tournament and is scorned by his team. So he invents a time machine to go back in time and ruin their lives.

!! Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/CowboyBebop''[='=]s 14th episode, entitled "Bohemian Rhapsody", contains a chess game between an old senile chess master and [[CloudCuckooLander Ed]]. The game is played over the internet and lasts for days until the chess master wins, and subsequently dies.

* In the Manga/DeathNote live-action movie, Light and L do this.

* Manga/PandoraHearts has [[TortureTechnician Vincent]], though his crazy and chess-playing don't overlap.

[[folder:Film]]
* In X2, Magneto and Professor X play chess at the end.

* The main character in ''KnightMoves'', a chess grandmaster, spends a lot of time as a patient in asylums.
* ''[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' -- A GeniusBonus for chess enthusiasts is found in the game that HAL 9000 and Poole play; although HAL predicts mate, there's actually a way for Poole to avoid it. A subtle hint at HAL's error-prone nature...

* ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Through the Looking Glass]]'', the sequel to ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'', features a chess-crazed Looking-Glass World. Wonderland, of course, is populated mostly by those who are as mad as hatters.
* Famously, in Creator/VladimirNabokov's ''Literature/TheDefense'', the chess grandmaster is so tormented that his whole life disintegrates. Even when he resolves to abandon chess for the sake of his sanity, he finds that he can't.
** The protagonist, Luzhin, is based on the real chess player (and nut) Curt von Bardeleben.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Theatre]]

* In ''AmericanMcGeesAlice'', the main character, Alice, starts the game in an insane asylum. She also has to play some chess as she moves through the game, even turning into different pieces at some points.

* In the first setting of the ''Vortex of Madness'' module of 2nd Edition ''TabletopGames/DungeonsAndDragons'', which is also the FramingDevice, the [=PCs=] come across a room with a giant mobile chess set and an unusually talkative iron golem, who refers to them as "Baron" and itself as "General". They'll likely assume they have to play chess with it, but if they do, the golem is unsatisfied with the result (even if it wins) and demands a rematch. Eventually, the players are going to lose patience [[CuttingTheKnot and try fighting it]] (well, if they ''don't'' they'll be stuck playing chess forever) and if they do, it obliges, its chess pieces supporting it and the [=PC=]'s pieces siding with them; if beaten, the golem finally yields to them before falling apart. (The point? The whole complex is an interpretation of the life of Baron Lum the Mad, who is being held prisoner by [[ArtifactOfDoom his terrible Machine]], which is almost as insane. This particular room is the Machine's interpretation of the final battler between Lum and his traitorous General Leuk-O, which ended inconclusively.)

* The Sewer King in ''HeyArnold'', despite liking chess, is '''horrible''' at playing; Arnold beats him in a few moves seven times in a row. He admits having only rats to practice with...

* "Mr. Series/{{Monk}} and the Genius" had Monk butting heads with a chess Grandmaster and serial wife murderer.

** Bobby Fischer, the 11th world champion. The man who took down the Soviet chess machine. Also a raving anti-semite ([[BoomerangBigot in spite of his Jewish ancestry]]), ConspiracyTheorist who thought that the Soviets (and later, the Jews) were trying to assassinate him or at least screw up his games, and all-around nutjob. [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie Rumor has it]] that Fischer and his opponent Spassky hated each other so much that the championship organizers had to put a board under the chess table to stop them from kicking each other between moves.

** Bobby Fischer, the 11th world champion. The man who took down the Soviet chess machine. Also a raving anti-semite ([[BoomerangBigot despite being Jewish]]), ConspiracyTheorist who thought that the Soviets (and later, the Jews) were trying to assassinate him or at least screw up his games, and all-around nutjob. [[BasedOnAGreatBigLie Rumor has it]] that Fischer and his opponent Spassky hated each other so much that the championship organizers had to put a board under the chess table to stop them from kicking each other between moves.

->''"It's easy to get obsessed with chess."''
-->-- '''Magnus Carlsen''', Current World Chess Champion and highest-rated chess player of all time

* Windom Earle from ''TwinPeaks'' plays chess, when he isn't murdering people and stuffing them in paper-mache pawns.

* ''Mr. {{Monk}} and the Genius'' had Monk butting heads with a chess Grandmaster and serial wife murderer.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''{{LightNovel/Durarara}}'''s Izaya doesn't just play chess. He plays chess-reversi-cards-alcohol-matches. And he is definitely crazy.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Theatre ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Web Comics]]

* Billy Thatcher in ''[[{{Webcomic/Morphe}} morphE]]'' is a chess grandmaster who has some inspiration drawn from Bobby Fischer. His behavior is narcissistic, paranoid and obsessive. He is, however, brilliant.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]