SEATTLE—Frustrated with the endless comparisons of the game to human interactions in the real world, globally ranked chess grandmaster Adam Van De Lay admitted Thursday that he is growing “sick and tired” of the average person’s tendency to compare every life situation to a chess match. “People may want the boring, if difficult, details of their everyday life to seem more exciting, but I’m sorry, trying to get a promotion in a sales job over one of your coworkers is nothing like a game of chess in any way whatsoever,” said Van De Lay, adding that using the term “checkmate” to describe winning meaningless arguments about movies or politics is both ludicrous and “really fucking obnoxious.” “And referring to the people on your condo association board as ‘pawns’ in some sort of ‘endgame’ not only fundamentally misunderstands and cheapens chess as an abstract strategic exercise, it also just makes you sound like a dick. Stop it.” Van De Lay later warned to “not even get [him] started” on comparisons of chess to other sports, though he conceded that he could “at least kind of see it” in the case of football.

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