I like to share my thoughts about that machine with 'neon sweats'.  Rael, that was funny, and very creative.  You took the time to post that picture and I believe Gatorade didn't pay you for that ad, right?  I like that picture, but I have a comment about that.

Chess software programmers try their best to make a software (chess engine) that simulates a human mind.  During Garry Kasparov's match with Deep Blue he made a comment like : 'A machine...you know that's stupid!' and 'It played like a machine'.  But when this machine made a move, which some analysts say that Deep Blue played a 'Karpov-like move', Garry broke down psychologically and couldn't recover after that.  IBM refused to pass the logs to Kasparov and shut down the machine.  The logs will show the machine's search algorithm and that it really played based on its program code.

Now that hardware with neon sweats.  If a chess software company, would go that far in simulating human conditions when playing chess, and with the sponsorshiph of Gatorade, why not.  In fact, that is not hard to do.  All it needs is a pseudocode like this:

//program Deep Blue

#include <stdio.h>

#include <conio.h>

... 

main()

{

...

/* If the chess software (playing white) finds itself in a position with a score of -8.54 (-/+), then excrete neon sweat. */

...

}

Hardware manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, or IBM know that this project will not do well in the market, so why go with it.  That inkjet printer, which is a hardware, uses ink, which is a liquid, to print the output to a paper material.  So that's how it will be for the neon sweats.

Sport "is an activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.  Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing), but the term is also used to include activities such as mind sports (a common name for some card games and board games with little to no element of chance) and motor sports where mental acuity or equipment quality are major factors."

To see a list of sports, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports.

Now we can end the discussions.

Yes, it is !

Ya'll need to get over it :)

chess isnt a sport and chess players arent athletes. It doesnt matter what some dictionary says. When you think back back the pure meaning of sport it was athletic competition.

There is zero physical extertion in chess. Mental extertion and exhaustion IS part of chess. Mental extertion and exhaustion is also part of studying, waiting at the airport and a long day at work.

Sorry guys. Your just playing a good game.

I don't understand the desire to "legitimize" chess by trying to shoe-horn it into classification as a sport.  It's almost as though there's a perception that if something isn't a sport it's not a worthwhile activity.  I think that there's a certain amount of irony in the fact that this is likely the same basis for the argument that "chess is only for nerds" which we often see questioned here by some of our younger players no doubt after someone basing their reasoning on this same notion has tried to dissuade them from playing.  By buying into this and as a result insisting that chess is in fact a sport we actually do more to legitimize their line of thinking than chess.  What we need to do is reject the notion that if something isn't a sport that it's not a worthwhile activity.  There are many counter-examples, and chess is one of the best.