Are there chess players that play other games? Such as card, role playing, and/or video games, specifically fighters?
Game players often play many games.
Board games (partial list of my currently owned games):
Acquire, Axis and Allies, Backgammon, Boggle, Britannia, Castle Risk, Diplomacy, Dune, Empires in Arms, Excalibur, Fortress America, Freedom of the Galaxy, Imperium Romanum, Kingmaker, Kings and Things, Machiavelli, Monopoly, Quazar, Rise and Fall, Risk, Scrabble, Sequence, Settlers of Catan, Starfarers of Catan, Starship Troopers, Supremacy, Swords and Sorcery, Talisman, Third Reich, Titan, Trivial Pursuit, War in the Pacific, War of the Ring, Wooden Ships and Iron Men
Many a chess player has turned to poker, and some play professionally.
The chess players I knew in college played various trick taking card games. It started with Bourré (Booray), then Spades, Hearts, and finally settled on Bridge.
I left chess for a time in the late 70s to play backgammon because that is where the money was at that time, just as players of the Royal game today have turned to the currently fashionable game of poker. Now I play, read about and study Go, not for money but for enjoyment because it is a beautiful game. The Great Man himself, World Chess Champion Dr Emanuel Lasker played Go. A plethora of articles concerning Dr Lasker, and Edward Lasker, has been posted on the internet. For example, this is from the article, Celebrities who have played Go: Dr. Emanuel Lasker, 1868-1941, was World Chess Champion from 1894 to 1921. He considered Go a deeper game than Chess and regretted only starting Go in his 30s. He was ranked number 5 in Germany at one time and a picture of him playing with the Dueballs is in the collection of the Lasker Society in Berlin.
American (but German born) Edward Lasker (1885-1981), a distant relation of Emanuel, was also a Chess master who played Go. He was a founder of the AGA and was awarded an honorary dan certificate by the Japanese Nihon Ki-in. He wrote Modern Chess Strategy with an appendix on Go, and in 1934 Go and Go Moku. In the mid-twentieth century, many English speakers first learned of Go from the latter. There are now many better introductions to the game, but it is still in print. Working as an engineer he invented the breast pump.
I was introduced to Magic: The Gathering in a chess tournament skittles room in 1994. I would think most chessplayers enjoy games generally, though I would expect twitch games like video fighting games to be less popular than strategy games, sims, and RPGs. My preferences run to strategy computer games, miniatures wargames, and Eurogames.
There are several players who have switched from chess to bridge, or who play both games. I partnered with former USCF Technical Director Ernie Schlich during the mid 1990s. At one game at Ernie’s house it was Ernie and me vs. Ernie’s wife Joan and GM Arthur Bisguier.
Bridge is a wonderful game, every bit as deep as chess but unlike our game always fun. Always, even while you’re playing.
I was told by a player who was a master at bridge and a strong expert in chess that he advised players not to take up both competitively. Each requires too much time and emotional energy to become expert in. The only good thing about bridge was that you could blame your partner. 
Have played Go, Stratego, checkers, some Avalon Hill war games, and a couple of video games. The only one that held my fascination and led me to competition was chess. I think the organized structure and the social aspect of the game made it more attractive than the others. It appealed to a sense of history and being part of a large community of individuals who had a similar passion. The other games were only games.
Mr. Magar writes, “I think the organized structure and the social aspect of the game made it more attractive than the others. It appealed to a sense of history and being part of a large community of individuals who had a similar passion.”
The same could be said about Go, or Bridge. As a matter of fact, I have heard similar things said about Bridge in the 1970s & 80s at a place where bridge was the main game but backgammon was played, the Broadview Bridge Club on Piedmont Avenue in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, Ga.
IM Stuart Rachels, who became the youngest chess master in U.S. history in 1981, then 1989-1990 U.S. Co-Champion, stopped playing chess and now plays Bridge. You can find both games listed on his webpage @ jamesrachels.org/stuart/
Back in the '90s, despairing of ever getting any better at chess, I took up go. Got pretty good at it; I’m still significantly better at go than I am at chess. Part of it is visualization: I have poor persistent visual memory, and it’s easier for me to mentally add pieces to a board on which pieces, once played, don’t move than to track the movements of pieces that don’t stay put.
I also have a modest collection of family-strategy board games. It used to be bigger, but I downsized some years back. Played hearts a lot in college, and cassino with my dad as a child. And my fiancée and I enjoy playing backgammon together.
There are chessplayers who prefer bridge, wherein one of every four players is stupid, and players take turns at being stupid.
Stratego is a wonderful game. Very underrated.
Duplicate post deleted.
I have played bridge competitively at times in the past couple years. I have just learned to play go, and I remember talking with Mike about the game in Thad Rogers’s Atlanta Chess and Game Center, which had a selection of go literature.
The American Contract Bridge League has about 160,000 members, and at 41, I am one of the younger ones. I suspect ACBL would be envious of our plethora of youth. Most competitive tournaments tend to have low entry fees and no prizes. Professional players make money through teaching and through partnering with a less strong player for a fee. The game has a substantial literature, rivaling that of chess.
By the way, acbl.org has a link to download very good learn-to-play software in exchange for an email address. I found the lessons well worth the resulting spam email, which netted them my membership. I’ve not compared the “how to play” portion of our web site, but if we had unlimited resources, the ACBL’s approach would be one to emulate.
I’ve yet to attend a go tournament, because I want to get to the point where I can lose a 9x9 game by a score closer than 81.5 to 1before I do. But the impression I get from the American Go Association web site (usgo.org) is that tournament opportunities are limited compared to chess, and most players are playing for the love of the game. Go literature is comparatively sparse. The Arlington County (VA) Public Library has two titles, only one in English, compared to at least 100 English chess titles.
I have actually taken up a number of games competitively.
Chess is certainly the game I have stuck with the longest. While at the University of Illinois, I more or less stopped playing chess, because I was immersed in learning pool. Other than that, though, I’ve been consistently in chess at some level since 1986. (I did get roped into playing a US Amateur Team, courtesy of Josh Manion and Julie Oberweis. They, along with Julie’s dad, managed to win the U2000 prize that year, despite my best efforts at sabotage. My play was sufficiently embarrassing that I refused my clock prize.)
I played a great deal of pool in the late '90s, and managed to win a few tournaments. I was not really good enough to take my game on the road, outside of tournament play. The trouble with pool (for me anyway) is that if you really want to get better, you have to play the best players, most of whom will not play unless you’re willing to gamble with them. A related problem is that, as you get better, your growing reputation makes it progressively harder to line up winnable games. Eventually, I got to a point where I just didn’t want to put in the work I knew it would take to make the next jump up in skill, and quit.
I first started playing poker during my time at Shimer College, so I was maybe 15 or 16 then. Outside of home games, though, I couldn’t play much, because I wasn’t of age. I started taking it more seriously in 1997, after watching Stu Ungar win the WSOP main event at an outdoor final table. I played a great deal between 1998 and 2002, and won tournaments in Illinois, Missouri and Iowa during that time, in addition to having good cash-game results. I stopped playing between 2002 and 2008, due first to marriage and then to my son. I now play mostly pot-limit Omaha in Pittsburgh a few times a month.
(There has, I suspect, always been a good deal of crossover between poker and chess. I know that there are a number of USCF masters who play. The highest profile master examples I can think of offhand in poker circles are Walter Browne, the late Ken Smith, Tom Brownscombe and former Massachusetts state champion Dan Harrington - who IIRC was rated 2355 back in 1971, when being 2400 was close to US Championship invitation territory. While I lived in Urbana, I played in a $1-$2 home game that was very difficult to beat. Perhaps not coincidentally, the average USCF rating of the players in the game was about 1900. On the other hand, I also remember playing in a Chicago-area poker tournament in 2000, and starting out at the same table as Dmitry Gurevich. He is better at chess, it turns out. 
)
The two games I’m currently very interested in learning for competitive purposes are bridge and Scrabble. There was an ACBL master in my hometown who always promised to teach me, but I never got around to really pestering him to follow up. I’ve tried learning on my own to some degree, but I could definitely use some help. (Perhaps Mr. Price’s link to the ACBL site might be a good place to start.) As for Scrabble, I finally joined NASPA this year, and will play my first tournament next month. I look forward to receiving my first beatings, and perhaps dishing out one or two down the line.
Re Dan Harrington: while poker bores me, the Harrington on Hold 'em series is an interesting read.
http://www.amazon.com/Harrington-Expert-Strategy-Limit-Tournaments/dp/1880685337
Games:
Quoridor — The game I most unreservedly recommend to chess players. Like chess, Quoridor is a two person abstract strategy game. Unlike chess, a beginner can quickly comprehend some basic strategies, yet to master Quoridor would take a lot of study or experience. Goal of the game is to place fences that hassle the movement of your opponent’s one piece more than the fences hassle your own movement. Ultimate goal is to walk your piece to your opponent’s back rank. Who is winning and losing can take exhilirating sudden shifts. One game duration is approx 20 minutes. Rules and simple and elegant.
Anyone can play Quoridor against computer for free at quoridor.net!
Khet — Next time a better chess player smirks at one of my blunderous chess moves, I will challenge him to a game of Khet. It is astounding to see intelligent people routinely make stupid blunderous moves that all agree should be easy to foresee and avoid. Game of lasers and mirrors to shoot the lasers at your opponent’s pieces. Like chess, it can be hard to regain equality after you are down in material. Khet 2.0 is out, and apparently Khet (1.0) is becoming unavailable. The big difference is that in Khet 2.0 the lasers are now mobile. Rules are simple and elegant.
Kamisado — Unlike Quoridor and Khet, Kamisado appears to not sell well or to not be popular. Yet my wife enjoys playing a game of Kamisado with me more than she enjoys Quoridor or Khet. Basic idea of Kamisado is that you partially control the reply move of your opponent by which square you move your piece onto. Kinda like chess, the goal is get one of your pieces onto the back rank of your opponent. Game duration is approx 15 minutes.
Twixt — Old 3M / Avalon Hill game, now almost unobtainable; although I still have my copy. Can play Twixt on graph paper, with minor rule change that your color bridges are allowed to cross each other (but certainly cannot cross opponent’s bridges). Goal is to build an unbroken chain of bridges east-west, while opponent is building north-south: no way both can succeed. As with all the two person abstract strategy games that I like, Twixt rules are simple and elegant.
Tayu — Has similarities to Twixt. Twixt is great, Tayu is only good. Tayu is my wife’s favorite two person abstract strategy game.
Quirkle Cubes — An excellent many-person game. Each cube face has two attributes, color and shape. You add cubes to the growing structure by aligning these attributes. Game is slightly better if you can buy six sets of plain dice, each set having 15 dice, and each set being a distinctly different color.
Rush Hour — For a single person game, Rush Hour rocks. Available free on Android computers (or “phones” if we are still calling them that).
Honorable mentions to: Set, Quarto, Big Boggle, UpWords (I prefer UpWords over Scrabble), BananaGrams (which I think has a mechanistic flaw that people do not notice - there is no need to hurry yet people do), Pictionary, Catch Phrase, Memory (playable with any deck of cards).
Cash Guns — I have recently heard that Cash Guns might be fun many-person party game.
Games that do not entertain me include: Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, Dominion (and all the other similar games that are really dressed up “card” games), Pylos, Mr Jack.
Stratego — We all feel the game is cool, but in practice it does not work well. He who attacks loses. One piece can have too much power.
Go — I have tried Go recently. But my friends and I agree that the rule pamphlet that came with my game is ambiguous or unclear on certain important details. I went online to find a better written Rule of Go, but still have not found one that a lawyer or referee would agree is utterly unambigous. Weird.
It is worth noting the links used to create the bridges/fences are exactly one knight hop long.
Try the Learn to Play Go series by Jeong Soo-hyun and Janice Kim. It’s the best introduction to the game by far, better even than the time-honored Ishi Press Elementary Go Series. The five volumes available are sufficient to bring you to an advanced-beginner level.