Smart People Play Chess/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character is shown playing chess to indicate that they are smart.
 * Straight: Stan entertains himself between decoding ancient Uru etchings by playing chess.
 * Exaggerated: Stan entertains himself by playing chess against 14 other players simultaneously. While decoding ancient Uru etchings.
 * Justified: Stan is The Chessmaster.
 * As a child, Stan played games daily against his father, a world-champion chessmaster.
 * Inverted: Stan is an idiot who plays chess by treating the pieces as action figures.
 * Subverted: Stan is shown playing chess absolutely brilliantly. People assume he's smart, but he's actually an Idiot Savant.
 * Stan is a brilliant man, but he's never been able to get the hang of chess.
 * Or alternatively just never tried chess, or does not like it, etc...
 * Double Subverted: But despite being an Idiot Savant, he's not just a great chess player; he's a genius in other, more useful, areas as well.
 * When forced to play, it turns out Stan is EXCELLENT at chess... it just doesn't interest him at all.
 * Zig Zagged: The Smart Guy's house is full of classic 1960s-1980s Turn-Based Strategy Board Games, including a Diplomacy set open on a table showing a midgame position. No chessboards are visible or mentioned.
 * Parodied: Stan entertains himself between decoding ancient Uru etchings by playing tic-tac-toe.
 * Deconstructed: Stan begins to apply chess-like thinking to all aspects of his life... which wreaks havoc with his personal relationships.
 * Reconstructed: Stan treats chess as a hobby, and doesn't try to draw grand life lessons from it.
 * Stan doesn't treat his friends like chess pieces but learns to find benefit regardless of a plan's success or failure. He learned this 'glass half full' mentality from playing chess.
 * Averted: Stan is a genius, but isn't shown playing chess.
 * Enforced: The program is produced by Gary Kasparov.
 * Lampshaded: "Stan's so smart, you can tell he plays chess for fun."
 * Invoked: Alice gives her son, Stan a chess set for his birthday to help make him smarter, or at least seem smarter.
 * Exploited: James sets up a chessboard in an interesting puzzle situation to distract Stan from the trap he is about to spring.
 * Defied: "I don't waste time with chess. Playing with people is so much more fascinating."
 * Discussed: "Let's have a friendly game of chess to demonstrate the Xanatos Speed Chess I used to Out Gambit you."
 * Conversed: "Glasses and a chess set. This must be The Smart Guy of the Five-Man Band."

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