> Sounds like the disagreement is just about what is required for "playing chess well".

I think so. I'm getting a lot of flak over it though :-<

> If we raise the bar to 2500+ maybe you will agree?

I can't say. I do have an acquaintance who is at ~2600 level who is also a well adapted guy. He's not a full time player anymore, though.

I have no opinion on whether chess performance at a GM level is bad for you. All I wanted to say was that you can get pretty far with chess (I think a level of 2000-2300 qualifies as pretty far for the general population) without it affecting your life negatively.

There are currently only 267 players who have 2600+ Fide rating. That's extremely high bar. Are you sure your acquaintance is one of them?

2600 rating on sites like lichess or chess24 is much more plausible, it corresponds to roughly 2150-2300 fide rating.

> Are you sure your acquaintance is one of them?

Yes. He's a pretty well known Australian player, not sure how active he is anymore though. Now has a full time academic career.

Edit:

After verifying on the FIDE website, I see his ranking is around 2500 now. He is a GM though.

Hm, there seems to be just 2 Australian players with more than 2550 rating (3 if we take 2549!), and all of them have played rated games recently.

(Two of them are from exUSSR, and the last one has a surname that sounds Chinese)

See my edit. I just don't feel comfortable dropping his name here. I wanted to make a general point about my impression of the impact of playing chess on people, I don't want to turn this into some personal thing.

Well the pool of 2500+ players is significantly larger. It just immediately raised my attention because 2600 is superrare, and prior to 1990s only select few ever had a higher rating: it is really something special.

(Also, verifying the plausibility of statements by internet users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you understand)

Googling "Australian chess grandmasters" I get the following list: Walter Browne, Max Illingworth, Darryl Johansen, Temur Kuybokarov, Moulthun Ly, Ian Rogers, David Smerdon, Anton Smirnov. The guy I'm talking about is on the list, I won't give the exact name.

> verifying the plausibility of statements by internet users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you understand

https://xkcd.com/386/ not sure it's the healthiest hobby, but I guess I understand.