History Main / CrazyPeoplePlayChess

* ''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 in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' is crazy enough that he rigs a bomb to detonate and kill [[spoiler:Nunally]] if he wins, in order to force Lelouch to play him. Subverted (or perhaps reinforced) in that he doesn't actually know how to play chess except by [[spoiler:reading Lelouch's mind]].

game. [[/note]]

** He should have played Fred Fertig then...[[note]]Any German chess kid will understand this gag, for the [[DontExplainTheJoke rest]]: Fred is a rat and chess trainer from "Fritz und Fertig", a German chess edutainment game. [[/note]]

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 TabletopGame/{{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.

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

* ''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. Overlaps with SmartPeoplePlayChess, as this old senile chess master [[spoiler:planned, decades in advance, for several spaceship warp gates to explode out of revenge for the company he worked for at the time that supervised the project.]]

* ComicBook/TheJoker is a brilliant chess player able to consistently beat ComicBook/RasAlGhul, Batman's oldest (as in, the most long-lived in-universe) and most strategically sound foe, at chess.

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* Mao in ''Anime/CodeGeass'' is crazy enough that he rigs a bomb to detonate and kill [[spoiler:Nunally]] if he wins, in order to force Lelouch to play him. Subverted (or perhaps reinforced) in that he doesn't actually know how to play chess except by [[spoiler:reading Lelouch's mind]].
* Ami in ''Anime/SailorMoon'' plays an opponent, Berthier, who is such a lunatic that she freezes different parts of Ami's body as Ami loses her pieces. Granted, Berthier was going through a DespairEventHorizon, thinking she was worthless and preparing to die. She eventually {{Heel Face Turn}}s and loses the 'crazy' part.
** The manga and ''Crystal'' has a chess match between the same opponents, but Berthier is more crazy and less sympathetic: she tries to exploit Ami's fear to distract her into losing the match and used dowsing to decide her next moves. [[spoiler:When the dowsing crystal stops reacting, she realizes Ami will checkmate her, and proceeds to directly attack her, which led to her own death and Ami's capture by the Black Moon Clan.]]

* In ''Film/X2XMenUnited'', Magneto and Professor X play chess at the end.

* ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'': 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...
* In ''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.

* ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass'', the sequel to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'', features a chess-crazed Looking-Glass World. Wonderland, of course, is populated mostly by those who are as mad as hatters.

* ''Literature/LosVoraces2019'' is about a $20,000,000 tournament in the future. A good chunk of the players are... a bit odd. And then there's the serial killer.
* In StefanZweig's ''Literature/TheRoyalGame'', the trope is played with. Chess at first saves the main character's sanity, as all he has to relieve his boredom after being imprisoned is a book of chess games. But once he memorizes the book, he becomes a complete lunatic who has split himself into two personalities, Black and White, in order to play games against himself.

* ''Literature/{{Zugzwang}}'', by Ronan Bennett, features a chess master named Rozental who begins the story on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.
* "Quarantine", a drabble by Creator/ArthurCClarke. Aliens reach earth, and their computers determine that chess will so utterly derange them that the only solution is to blow up the planet.

* In the Kurt Vonnegut short story "All the King's Horses", 16 Americans (including an officer and his family) are captured by a Southeast Asian warlord who lives in a old palace with a people sized chessboard. He's fascinated by the fact that he has these people who he hates and forces them into a game of living chess. The American leader (who admits he's only a fair player) must be the King, but he can put the others anywhere he wants. He makes his wife the Queen, his two small boys the Bishops and the rest as the other pieces. The rules are simple. When the American takes a piece it is removed from the board. When one of the Americans is "taken", he is immediately removed and shot. The American officer is rattled by the first players he has lost but also because he realizes the warlord is not really playing to win, but to take and kill as many people as he can. Then he sees that the warlord's erratic playing has left him vulnerable and he can be tricked into a game losing error - but only if he can get him to move his Queen. To do that he pretends to make a mistake and moves one of his sons into the fatal square. [[spoiler: The boy is "taken" but before he can be shot a sympathetic concubine kills the warlord. The warlord's Russian advisor takes over and allows any taken pieces to live until the game is over. He loses and spares the surviving Americans. In a TV version, it takes place in South or Central America and no one is killed, although they are taken away and a shot fired each time.]]
* In the MordantsNeed novels checkers (this world doesn't have chess) is used to show the King's disconnect with reality. The kingdom falls apart while King Joyse obsesses over games with his mad adviser Adept Havelock, struggles to grasp his land's predicament with checkers analogies, and even goes out of his way to humiliate a powerful foreign prince for not knowing how to play the game. [[spoiler: Somewhat subverted - Havelock is mad, but King Joyse is actually playing a part to try and identify the kingdom's enemies.]]
* ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'': One of the short stories sends Bob to do an audit of a [[BedlamHouse rest home]] for Laundry employees for whom [[GoMadFromTheRevelation the job has proven to be a bit much]], and finds some of the more lucid residents sitting around a chessboard in the common room. [[spoiler: They're not using it to play chess, nor are they actually insane, and what they're ''really'' up to has created yet another mess for Bob to clean up.]]

* ''Series/{{Endgame}}'' is about a chess grandmaster who becomes a {{hikikomori}} and cannot leave his hotel due to paralyzing fear.
* ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' used a mentally damaged chess expert as a villain in one episode.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'', Ford has to play in a speed-chess tournament. His opponents include a guy who sleeps through the whole match and only wakes up in brief spurts to move. He still is trouncing Ford until Sophie intervenes.

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

* "Mr. Series/{{Monk}} and the Genius" had Monk butting heads with a chess Grandmaster/[[TheBluebeard serial wife murderer]].
* Unsurprisingly, [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]] plays a game called "[[ElectricTorture Live Chess]]" with electrified chess pieces. With voltage that climbs, sometimes up to over ''four million volts'' just to '''move''' a piece. Really crazy people play crazy chess.
** The episode "Nightmare in Silver" has The Doctor playing chess against "Mr. Clever", a Cyber Planner using half the Doctor's own brain and driven to insane levels of LargeHam as he plays The Doctor for control of the rest of his brain.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "The Sicilian Defence" revolves around a chess tournament and a computer chess game. As it takes place in Midsomer, needless to say there are more than a few unbalanced personalities involved. The killer leaves chess notations in the pockets of the victims.

* In the first setting of the ''Vortex of Madness'' module of 2nd Edition ''TabletopGame/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 completely loony Queen from ''VideoGame/{{Headlander}}'' runs... she started with chess, but her Grid Clash is now just a chess-themed gladiatorial arena in which the patterns of fired lasers imitate the movements of the "firing" piece.
* Herman "The Doctor" Carter of ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight'' has many chess related add-ons, implying he was an avid chess player. He's also an unhinged lunatic, a mind-breaking torturer who flings electricity to drive survivors mad and was already completely amoral and out of his mind even before he was a killer.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GerisGame'': Geri is an eccentric old man who plays chess by himself.

Expect the effect to be [[UpToEleven greatly intensified]] when certain chess variants are played instead, such as 3D chess, chess with a round board, chess with many new pieces, chess where you can't see your opponents pieces, 4-player chess, and even chess with [[CalvinBall random (and shifting) rules]].

* Unsurprisingly, [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]] plays a game called "[[ElectricTorture Live Chess]]" with electrified chess pieces. With voltage that climbs, sometimes up to over ''four million volts'' just to '''move''' a piece. [[UpToEleven Really crazy people play crazy chess.]]

There are a few different reasons for this trope. Some writers may genuinely believe it, or may be alluding to specific RealLife players who were known for being a bit off. Others may be trying to develop AnAesop about the dangers of obsessions; the mad player in this case is almost always someone who spends almost all their time in isolation studying the game. It can also be shown to demonstrate the character's (usually a villain) psychopathy: s/he views people as pieces to be manipulated on a chessboard. There could also be anti-intellectual messages; if [[SmartPeoplePlayChess smart people play chess]] and chess players are nuts, then smart people in general must be crazy.