Bismillah

Thank you for your question. Jurists have come to different conclusions on the permissibility of playing chess based on traditions that indicate its impermissibility. For those that allow chess, the main thrust of the arguments I have seen is that while at the time these scriptural sources were proclaimed and recorded, chess was a tool for gambling and that is no longer the case. So chess was not forbidden as a game in itself, but that it was associated with gambling. 

May you always be successful