Would you agree that wrestling or boxing are violence? Intent is important, as you say. With chess, you have two contenders sitting down with the express intention of dominating the other. I don’t normally see people doing that with breathing.

If you can construct a scenario like that with a breathing contest, I’ll buy your analogy, but I bet the scenario would be pretty violent.

An oversimplification of the word and concept, where truth lies with intent. Do I intend to cause harm. That is the crux of the matter.

Regarding “love”, I am definitely talking about bad relationships. But I think there is a reason that relationships between lovers go bad more often than other relationships like friendship, parent to child, sibling to sibling, and so on. Love, as opposed to fondness or obsession, is implicitly about commitment. In romantic relationships, two strangers come together and become “bound” by love. We romanticize the fact that the lover is willing to do anything for the beloved, even die. The marriage vow says “until death do us part”, but even that is not enough for many: what young girl has read “Romeo and Juliet” or Poe’s “Annabel Lee”, and not wanted to have a man love her so much that his heart is bound even after her death?

There are admittedly some major differences to chess, though. When people want to cause another to fall in love, it’s normally because they have already fallen in love (in a manner of speaking) with that person. It’s relatively rare for people to be completely calculating and one-sided about love. So, unlike chess, it’s usually a process of mutual self-extinguishment rather than unilaterally extinguishing someone else. But at the core, the allure of love is that we imagine it to create certainty and bind another’s will in such a way that we can forever depend on them.

Chess is like a slow-motion no-holds-barred death match. Arguably the most important thing in chess is to get the “initiative,” meaning you want your opponent reacting to your moves, not to be reacting to his/hers. This is where “imposing your will” comes in. If you have the initiative and keep attacking (and don’t overreach or mess up), you are pretty much bound to win.

The comparison of chess to violence really is apparent when you play online. There is only basic chat on the site i use, so there is none of the banter or jokes you would get while sitting across a table from a friend. Playing someone online really gives you the opportunity to be brutal (and be brutalized, lately in my case) and just take piece after piece without remorse. For example, one of the ppl I play quite often is someone who i beat every time. It is really hard for me to “play off” and NOT take his queen or other power pieces when he leaves them unprotected. This is the chess equivalant of kicking someone when they are down.

The end of the chess game is pure violance. Checkmate is basically like choking somebody out (a la Hans Reiser) or holding them immobile (like wrestling).

Chess might be able to be compared to a bad relationship, but I don’t think there is any way to compare a healthy relationship to chess. At least in love there is some give and take, in chess there is only take. Even sacrifices are meant to give you some advantage, either in board position, initiative, or piece development.