I just told a friend that there are more books written about chess than about all other games combined. I have heard this said multiple times, but when I tried to prove it, I could not find any facts or statistics to support it. Is this true? And can anyone find somewhere that actually supports this claim? Thanks!

I seriously doubt that as well. If you can prove it please post it here. Thanks.

I don't think so. You have to take into account that many sports may not be as old as chess but probably are a lot more popular. I'm not sure how I could prove that. Maybe there's a giant dewey decimal thingy that you could use?

If you take into account biographys and such it may not be true.  But there are definitely more books about how to play chess than there are books about how to play other games.  That sounds logical.

There have been an enormous number of books written on Bridge. IThe game is in decline now, but at one time millions of people played bridge regularly

I think that There are a lot of books talkin' about chess game but I am sure that PLAY chess games is the best way to catch my own skills

 I went to amazon and entered under books "Chess Books" and it showed 15,966 entries. Granted some of these will not be chess books and probably there are some not listed  so you can guess probably about 15, 000 to ? 20,000. Guess is 17,049. (how many jelly beans in the bottle?

From Oxford Companion:

"In 1949, B.H. Wood suggested in the ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS that the total number was about 20,000. Since then there has been a steady anual increase in the number of chess publications."

I suspect now the number is closer to 100,000.

[edit: in 1913 the number was estimated at 5,000]

If you change "Chess Books" to "Chess Literature" the number probably goes into the millions, with daily newspaper columns etc.

There are as many chess books as there are Adams in the universe.

Patch Adams, Grizzly dams, Sam Adams Lager . . .not that many

I was thinking more of a universe with many different Adam and Eves(and of course a play on "atoms")

From amazon.com:

Football books: 50,999

Basketball books: 22,044

Ice hockey books: 5,688

Even if we estimate the number of books on chess to 100,000, it is clear that the old statement that there are more chess books than books on any other sport cannot be true nowadays.

Ask GM Lothat Schmid - he's reputed to have the largest private library of chess books.

 Are we talking about the same thing here? Are we talking about Chess titles of BOOKS, not number of chess books printed right. "Single titles -Books" not "publications" correct, like magizines etc. a

I'm pretty sure we're talking titles!

I always assumed that the old unproven fact about there being more chess books than books on all other games  put together was referring to board games, not athletic games. But I can't prove this either...or the "fact" that there are more books written on chess than any other subject, period. I have also supposed, again minus any proof that this "fact" only refers to books published in english.

I believe bibliographies of chess books have been published.

 If we are talking Chess book titles then I don't think its anywhere close to 100,000. If so then Amazon would have way more entries than 15,966. It would surely be more like 70,000 etc. ie a lot closer to 100,000.

Amazon only has recent books, and only in English. The English-speaking countries aren't exactly chess crazy.

I don't know...there are an astounding number of books about poker being written nowadays (might not take too long for it to catch up with and surpass everybody else).

Of course, the real trump card that chess holds in all of this is openings books...