How do I defend the arguement that chess is a sport?

A sport is anything that any group of people call a sport. It's a definition that is usage-driven and locally defined. If you went to that island where the would-be missionary got himself killed and saw them playing hackey-sack, with betting and cheering spectators, and they told you it was a sport (let's pretend you got them to tolerate your presence and talk to you somehow), would you tell them it wasn't a sport? No. Because:

- They get to define their own sports

- They kill people they don't like

So, on the island of [whatever name they have for their own island]...another thing that cannot be defined for them externally, by the way...hackey-sack is a sport because people there have decided it is a sport. End of definition.

The rest is just hyperventilating and posturing. Some people have issues with wanting to define things for the whole world based on their narrow slice of it. It's like trying to tell someone born and raised in Firenze that their city is actually called Florence...you probably deserve whatever you get back for your arrogant ignorance.

See Clifford Geertz, "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973).

Yes, that dovetails nicely.

I will assume my downvoters are rather narrow-minded but afraid to risk looking foolish by trying to argue the point.

Chess is a mental sport. Things like football, basketball, American football, baseball and stuff like that are physical sports. So you could say it as a sport, though a mental one, or you could say we're talking physical sports only and in that case it wouldn't be a sport. It's not definitive.

This debate will go on forever but fundamentally chess is a game. A board game. Football, cricket, tennis etc are ball games. They are referred to as sports when the competitive element is the main focus but it doesn't change the fact that chess is a board game in the same way that football is a ball game.

Someone who hunts for survival isn't doing it for sport but when they hunt for competition they are doing it for sport.

Exactly.

Sport is one of those subjective things that people just make up as they go along. But generally words have meanings. Which is why a penguin eating plutonium while riding a bicycle isn't the same thing as a rabbit driving a car while talking on the phone.

People say that chess is a sport because they want it to be. Because the definition of the word is flexible. So people usually fall into two camps, the one that any word can mean anything, so chess is a "sport". And the one where words have meaning. That chess is a board game and sports are reserved for physical activities.

Plenty of folks here are using established definitions of sport that do not limit the term to physical activity. The term sport in common usage also signifies organized competition for which training and preparation are beneficial.

TRUNCATED dictionaries, of course, are limiting.

it is a sport

its not

Isn't that just Google AI Overview?

If you want to convince your classmates that chess is a sport use the equipment argument. In sports, like golf, tennis, track, football, etc the equipment you use (or in some cases things like shoes) give one opponent a distinct advantage over the other opponent. For example, a professional golfer using the very best equipment from 1984 will have big problems competing with a professional using equipment from 2024. Probably even more distinct in things like motorsports or any sport that uses newer lightweight materials.

So just explain that at a chess tournament, the player who uses the latest and greatest equipment, including apparel, is going to have a big advantage over the opponent who is using equipment from the 20th century.

Plenty of nonsense in this thread.