Chess isn't a sport

ad hominem is bad debate, you are losing credibility by using personal attacks rather than facts.

why wasn't his initial comment false

that is not true, because the Webster's Random House Dictionary defines a sport to be "diversion; recreation"

I actually do not much care. But I am sticking with the traditional definition.

anyway, as i stated earlier, this debate is closed, chess IS a sport!

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025. sport (spôrt, spōrt),

n. Sport

an athletic activity requiring physical skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

it isn't up to you

Chess is officially a sport, but most people realize that it shouldn't be.

But you are allowed any definition you like, for any word, including "sport".

"When I use a word, it means precisely what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."

Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

Lincoln: "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?"

Seward: "Well, five I suppose."

Lincoln: "No, because just calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."

Chess is a sport just not an active sport

Here's an AI opinion based on the Olympic commitees opinion. I don't know if someone has copy/pasted anything similar on here but here it is. Maybe it'll add positively to the discussion.

While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially recognized chess as a sport in 1999 and recognizes the International Chess Federation (FIDE) as a legitimate governing body, chess has never been an Olympic sport included in the official games
. It has, however, been an exhibition event at the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics, and included as an online esport competition at the 2023 Olympic Esports Week. 
The IOC's recognition means that chess meets the criteria of competition, skill, and organization required for a sport. However, it faces several hurdles for Olympic inclusion, such as viewership, game length, and the debate over the definition of "sport" in relation to mental vs. physical activity. For example, the IOC typically prioritizes events that involve physical exertion, which chess, despite its intense mental demands, does not meet. Some argue for faster formats like Rapid and Blitz chess to address game length concerns.

What you are calling “traditional” is both fairly recent, and also truncated. That is, there are other definitions of sport in common usage that the most common dictionaries omit. Some of these are the traditional definition, dominant well into the twentieth century. It takes more research, but I think the insistence on sports being physical developed when American children became fat from watching television instead of playing baseball.

You can say that's your definition, but not mine. Because it isn't, no offense.

Neither the Olympics, nor the IOC, determine what sports are. They DO determine which games are to be included in the Olympics. They used to include things like writing and architecture, as these were considered pursuits worthy of creative and artistic consideration. Today things like dance or ice skating are also considered to have artistic expression.

The first modern Olympics included only athletic events, like running or throwing. But by 1908 it was to include arts. The five arts were literature, painting, sculpture, music, and architecture. It was called the Pentathlon of the Muses. A natural disaster postponed that until 1912 though.

What you may not know is that the arts competitions were to all have a sports theme. For example, poetry must be about sports, literature could be about an athlete, etc. A sculpture of Dimitriadis (a discus thrower) won gold medal in 1924. Over time there was disagreement about that. Artists wanted to express themselves in other ways, not just express about sports. Robert Graves, a famous poet, came in last place for a poetry event calling the competition a "bad joke".

The problem was these artists were not able to convey themselves adequately because they were not athletes themselves. How was a writer going to effectively write about athletes when they have no athletic experience themselves?

So eventually all of the arts categories were dropped. This is the same problem chess enthusiasts have when considering chess as an Olympic event. It would not be popular, it's not a sport, and it's not creative enough to represent sports. We've all seen timeless sculptures or paintings that depict an athlete or sporting event. Those resonate; ordinary people can relate to those things. Chess is not relatable, as an athletic event OR representation of sports, to the general public.

you dismiss facts when they seem to oppose you, yet you appeal to them when they seem to help you, you only want to acknowledge what you view as correct--but ignore the fact that you view as wrong. That is no way to debate.

poker is also a sport

box is a sport? realy...distroing opponent phisical cannot be sport...