Chess is one of easiest things in category "hard stuff"

I won't say chess is easy, but if you compare to other hard subjects/skills is definely one of easiest ones.

1. getting inside chess is trival compare it, for competitive programming or most branches of mathematics.
2. clear and pretty obvious improvement, you can't say same for CP, math, physics, and software developmemt or even drawing.
3. no strong mental overload when playing chess, you can have a burnout and play chess, but for other hard subjects it is wrong.

I would say more but I'm writing it on a tablet, and this is painfull to write.

Chess cannot be hard: a cell phone can do it.

Chess in itself is an easy game to play. It is just extremely difficult to play well.

Chess is way easier than real life & social relationships.

It's also basically Groundhog Day where you get to start from the exact same position over & over. In real life every blunder you make affects the rest of your life, can't knock over your king & start again with a clean slate.

I would say chess is not too easy compared to a brick or an egg that has been boiled for 30 minutes.

A bit more on topic: I find 4 in a row much easier to start but harder to master so I guess it depends on what you consider hard stuff

Connect Four is easy to master: has been strongly solved.

@PureProgressionFTW said ^

Chess is way easier than real life & social relationships.

It's also basically Groundhog Day where you get to start from the exact same position over & over. In real life every blunder you make affects the rest of your life, can't knock over your king & start again with a clean slate.

Chess is a perfect information game. Real life is far from that and can be categorized as a game of deception with imperfect info. Same goes with social relationships.

It is said that it is rare you talk to someone for 1 minute and somebody does not lie during the conversation. That's how horrible we are.

We humans are horrible examples of the species.Selfish, arrogant, uncaring mostly.

Ideally, chess is 'easy to learn' (the rules, etc.), but difficult to master (Strategy, phases of the game, etc.).

@tpr said ^

Connect Four is easy to master: has been strongly solved.

True: You can read a connect four guide and be an expert in an hour.

Also True: You can read chess books for a lifetime and still suck at it.

1. Count the number of chess masters in your country.
2. Count the number of university graduates with a degree in computer science, mathematics and physics from a single university in one year in your country.
   Impressed?
   It's a skewed comparison, of course, as university degrees require years of full-time study and few can devote the same effort to chess. Nevertheless, it shows how hard chess is and reaching master level is something special.

"... whereas the game of chess is rather well understood by half a dozen masters and fairly comprehended by a few dozen lesser masters and -- say -- a thousand amateurs, our social intercourse is, alas! not conducted by masters, nor even by near-masters, not even by any comparable in skill and insight to those thousand amateurs. ... a word is needed to distinguish the peculiar attitude of the chess master, who, in dealing with his pieces of wood, is not led astray by any outside interests. ...
Principle of justice! Thou art a power effective in history in spite of all that has been done to thee by the army of liars, that want to hurt thee, yet have to play the hypocrite, for the people instinctively love thee. Hypocrisy is tribute paid to thee by thine enemies. ...
On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite. ... many a man, struck by injustice ..., has found justice realized on the chess board and has thereby recovered his courage and his vitality to continue to play the game of life. ...
...
Let us assume that a master who follows a good method, say, the method of this book, strives to educate a young man ignorant of chess to the level of one who, if conceded any odds, would surely come out the winner. How much time would the teacher need for this achievement? I think that I am correct in making the following calculation:
Rules of Play and Exercises: 5 hrs.
Elementary Endings: 5 hrs.
Some Openings: 10 hrs.
Combination: 20 hrs.
Position Play: 40 hrs.
Play and Analysis: 120 hrs.
Even if the young man has no talent at all, by following the above course he would advance to the class specified. Compare with this possibility, the reality. In fact, there are a quarter of a million chess amateurs who devote to chess at least two hundred hours every year and of these only a thousand, after a lifetime of study, attain the end. Without losing myself in calculations, I believe I am safe in voicing the opinion that our efforts in chess attain only a hundredth of one per cent of their rightful result.
Our education, in all domains of endeavor, is frightfully wasteful of time and values. In mathematics and in physics the results arrived at are still worse than in chess. Is there a tendency to keep the bulk of the people stupid? For governments of an autocratic type the foolishness of the multitude has always been an asset. Possibly, also the mediocre who happen to be in authority follow the same policy. This motif, it is true, is not predominant in chess. The bad state of education in chess is due entirely to our backwardness.
Education in chess has to be an education in independent thinking and judging. Chess must not be memorized, simply because it is not important enough. If you load your memory, you should know why. Memory is too valuable to be stocked with trifles. Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I had learned or read, and since I succeeded in this I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without. If need be, I can increase my skill in Chess, if need be I can do that of which I have no idea at present. I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of good use in many and varied emergencies. I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight. ..." - Lasker's Manual of Chess, (~1925) by Emanuel Lasker