I hope this doesn’t come as a shock–but cats have never learned to play chess.
For our cat, Henry, the irresistible lure was Strat-O-Matic baseball. Dice, and little plastic baserunners–how was he supposed to ignore that? (He didn’t!) I didn’t dare leave the room until I put the game away.
So far as I know, and have seen, cats love to mess with anything and everything they can get their “hands” on especially if they can make it move.