Chess: Sport or Game

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when people try to call chess a sport. Its fun, and highly mentally demanding. But a sport must a physically demanding, not really mentally. 

Well like most sports I think chess is both a game and a sport, for example if you are competing in a tournament particularly at the highest levels I think chess can be classed as a sport if you and your mate are having a beer and a game of chess then your playing a game. I dont think sport is just about breaking a sweat it's about competing to win. This is just my opinion as this debate rages on about many sports, golf, darts, snooker to name a few. Also on another note competition chess is quite physically demanding and does require stamina, a fit chess player certainly has an advantage over an unfit over days or weeks of 1 or 2 games per day.

I agree with death_clutch and disagree with Terricotta.

chess is both.
try going to tournament and feel the tension. people are caught in the battle.
it is like a boxing battle noone wants to go down.
your heart starts to beat if you are not sure if the move you made is the right.

“Chess is everything: art, science and sport”
(Anatoly Karpov)

“Your body has to be in top condition. Your Chess deteriorates
as your body does. You can't separate body from mind”
(Bobby Fischer)

“If Chess is a science, it's a most inexact one. If Chess is an art, it is too
exacting to be seen as one. If Chess is a sport, it's too esoteric. If Chess
is a game, it's too demanding to be just a game. If Chess is a mistress,
she's a demanding one. If Chess is a passion, it's a rewarding
one. If Chess is life, it's a sad one”
(Unknown)

"yabadabadoo"

(Fred Flintstone)

 

My definition of a sport:

A competition whose results are determined by a set of rules and has a physical challenge.

(Note that "sports" that require judges to vote on the score are not sports by this definition.)

Chess is won or drawn only by rules (not people), and is physically challenging in a time rush. I would say "infinite time" chess is not a sport, but quick chess and tournaments are definitely sports.

I agree with frrixz's definition.  I've never thought that any "sport" in the olympics which relies on judges to vote on a score was a real sport.  Not to say that they aren't physically demanding, but judging is totally subjective.

But I don't necessarily think that timed chess games are a sport, either.  I think most people would laugh if you said you participated in sports, and then said that you play chess. 

But, call it whatever you want to call it.

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Subjective judgmeent does not preclude objective standards. I used to think the same way until my kid got involved in gymnastics. Taking him to meets all over the place let me see a lot of events and as a parent I had to learn the judging criteria to cheer my kid on effectively. The reason there are multiple judges is that the subjective elements even out over a number of trained observers. They know what they're looking for and by averaging scores across multiple judges they achieve remarkable consistency.

That said, 'sport' is a perfectly apt word for chess, but it is an archaic and somewhat foreign usage and will certainly get odd looks unless your in your 60s and English.

More threads like this please.

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I guess you'd better notify the World Mind Sports Games affiliated with the Olympics and the International Mind Sports Association.

I do understand where you're coming from. To be honest, I think a game of chess played by two patzers at home who have never trained, ignoring en passant, isn't sport. A tournament game between two players who train, however, is sport. So for me, a mind game is a sport when played competitevely. It isn't one when played leisurely. I'd apply this to physical games as well.

Words simply have multiple meanings. There's not a strict universal definition of sport.

Just because someone misuses a word doesn't mean it's definition has changed.

(For that, nearly everyone has to misue it)

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I wanna win because I won, not because some judge likes me.

If I lose, it better be because I lost, not because some judge likes my opponent.

This is what motivates my definition of a sport.

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I assure you, gymnists who win consistently win consistently because of performance, not because judges like them. Even if one judge happens to judge a particular paticipant favorably for personal reasons, the remainder will not, and the odd man out's score won't be counted.

Subjective trained observers can reliably judge against objective standards. That you don't believe this to be true doesn't alter the fact that it is.

The same does not hold true in figure skating.

Over the course of a career it does. The ISU system is, however, new, so there's not a lot of agreement on how to interpret some marks.  I think the last bit I read on it was that there's potentially a 1% - 2% of the score being judging bias impact. Which for an event like the olympics where the competitors are very close is pretty high. But in local competitions if gymnastics is similar in terms of athlete's talent range, that won't have an impact on order of finish over the course of an entire competition.  Even in regionals, untrained fans can tell who won without looking at the scoreboard.

I find it just difficult (if not strictly pointless) to define chess in terms of something else: chess is '___'. Whatever you fill the gap of the definiens (sport, art, science...), it seems inescapable to experience a discomfort in your mind. It is not unrare to find people filling the gap with the term 'mathematics' (but math is everywhere!). As I see it, there is something wrong in the whole picture of the matter. This holds first of all for the definition of chess as a game (http://blog.chess.com/Dyskolos/chess-is-not-a-game), although the notion of 'game' is here more convincing than the notion of 'sport'.

i think its a sport

Let's go and necropost all topics about 'Chess: Sport or Game?' !