Another arguement for chess as a sport

Here is an interesting article stating reasons that chess can be considered a 'sport':

 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2007/09/15/2_CHESS0915.ART_ART_09-15-07_E2_BI7S9AC.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

 

"A four- or five-hour game can leave one physically, as well as mentally, wrung out.", I think this quote is very true. When I play those long games I feel very tired (physically and mentally), just as much as any athlete of a physical sport.

Although I am an avid chess enthusiast and believe that chess deserves the same respect as any sport, it's still a game, not a sport. The definition of sport is: "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc. ort. The dictionary definition of sport is "

Although this article you linked says that the body has similar reactions to peaks in emotional heights so do near auto accidents, almost falling down stairs and news that a close relative just passed, but none of these would be called a sport.

The dictionary defines game as: "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators."

So why not call chess a game and demand equal respect that is given to sports? Why try to make it something it's not?

Just like most chess players can't run a marathon or play professional level football, most professional jocks couldn't endure a marathon chess game and they wouldn't stand a chance against the average club player.

Chess is a great enough game to stand on it's own merits without having to be reclassified into something it is not. It is after all, the King of all games and the game of Kings.

 

I tend to agree.... mostly with the idea that it's irrelevant (except in instances where it might determine funding or participation in some organization or event) whether chess is called a sport or not.  It has some sporting characteristics and is certainly a competitive activity, but on the other hand it lacks the physical - usually large muscle - involvement generally associated with sports, and as ChessDweeb pointed out, physical reactions do not equate with physical actvity.  For chess-players to keeps insisting on classifying chess as a sport comes across almost as a sign of desperation or even as a sign of insecurity. I say, let's just play the game and let the non-players figure out what to make of it.  

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 and motor sports where mental acuity or equipment quality are major factors.

 

copy and pasted from wikipedia

If we look historically, sports have been limited to physical activities, of course definitions change with time, so it does not settle an argument, but I think putting mental activities under the definition of sport is just broadening an already large definition to something so large that it would lose most of it's value as a definition  and would become much less relevant, almost irrelevant, actually as monopoly and even snakes (chutes) and ladders would become a sport. We could as well start calling chess a patience game too, or whatever we want. For what? To feel better?

"copy and pasted from wikipedia" 

 

is that a statement of validation or one of a caution?

 

 

"I think putting mental activities under the definition of sport is just broadening an already large definition to something so large that it would lose most of it's value as a definition "

 

That's how I see it too.  Let someone else have that umbrella.

 

Unless there's some practical or pragmatic reason for arguing chess as a sport, it's irrelevant.

 

 

 

lets just call it a "mind sport"

As if a definition in a dictionary makes everything clear...

I don't think of chess a sport, but the people who say it's not a sport because of a definition are silly.  If tomorrow we all agreed to call chess a sport, would the use of the word have changed that much?  Not nearly as much as if, say, we decided to call reading a sport.

joeyson wrote:

Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing)

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 I disagree with this purely physical assessment of athletic ability. Physical capabilities certainly play a significant role in sports, but if you were to put an EEG on Roger Federer while he's playing tennis or had you done the same to Michael Jordan while he was driving the lane in a basketball game, I'm inclined to believe that you would see a highly unusual veritable storm of brain activity that you would not see in an average person (or even a lesser athlete) performing the same activities. Physically, top athletes are pretty much on the same level. 

That said, I don't believe that chess is a sport. Nor do I understand why it needs to be.

I can think of lots 'real' sports that are less athletic than chess, e.g. relief pitching.

Chess is actually sports for people who can't play sports

Chess should be na olimpic sports. 

I'm a very sporty person and consider chess to be sport.