Checkmate age: Does chess add years to your lives? Grandmasters live longer

Chess players actually exhibit a higher level of physical fitness than the general population

In 2014, a chess competitor collapsed during his final match of the Chess Olympiad in Norway. Within hours, another was found dead in his hotel room. Earlier, a chess grandmaster died of a heart attack while playing a tournament game in Finland in 2000. Within the same year, another player died after having a stroke during his tournament in Berlin.

These incidents led many to believe the stress of playing chess could be harmful and even fatal. So we decided to test the theory playing chess