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

Okay. F1 isn't then. Neither is soccar, American football, rugby, swimming. They're all games too.

Please use better logic

I must admit I had to laugh, you handing us the 'sitting on your arse' part. But in your claims, you are vastly mistaken. Chess is only simpler than a football match. Computers will have no trouble making football as prearranged as chess (and, of course, robot teams will have no trouble winning the world cup) as split-seconds are, like, hours for them.

As field players we enjoy our wonderful sports but as chess players, who may or may not find chess is their sport, who are or are not geeks and nerds, we are the pioneering, we are the advanced sportsmen or gamesmen (sportswomen or gameswomen) who already live in the time after (deep blue and alpha zero). No need to be recognized as sportsmen, we know what we are doing inside out. It's an old game full of people and stories. Just playing chess together, as humans, preferably with humans, with split-second, split-minute and split-hour decision making, in the computer age.

What the vast majority of people are going to accept is the question. Surely we won't get over it by saying 'get over it'.

Very cool, I had a go at juggling, too, for a year or so- 35 years ago. I think it is enough of a sport- for the physical skills alone, not for the competitions you mentioned that were invented- but I can see it is very artistic and magic. But that, chess can be, too. And football can, for that matter

True, and an interesting point about AI. We are currently one of the only communities that has learned (for the most part) how to live with AI. True, there is the occasional person with an overdependence on it, but generally the advent of these advanced programs has only improved the quality of chess in recent years.

The physical stress of a professional chessplayer is compareable to that of a long-distance runner. Also I cant think of a single professional chessplayer that would be fat ?

Even before AI chessprograms have been far better at playing chess than any human being.

AI has further increased the distance, but it hasnt fundamentally changed anything.

I always go back to me favorite rule whenever this debate rolls around.

If you can play it well while holding a beer, then it is not a sport.

If you think that then why are you here on Chess.com

Absolutely, even when you fish with a grenade and have to throw again a net to collect the fish...

Nobody. You won't be able to convince them.

No one will ever compare Magnus Carlsen with Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt, Magic Johnson, Sergej Bubka etc. Carslen will always be regarded as a great chessplayer, not a great sportsman. As has already been said and repeated, sitting motionless in front of a chessboard or a screen is not just a sport because you sweat from nervous tension and burn calories as a side effect. For 99% of people in the world this is not sport, regardless of definitions, re-definitions, and what you can find in dictionaries or on wikipedia. Chess is something else.

By the way, since you're of school age... In addition to playing chess, don't forget to do sports. Health is precious, you have to take care of it, and you can do through sports ( the real ones ).

If you care about arguing to convince people on this, then you have no life

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The key characteristics that define a sport are:

An element of competition. >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport/

Not harmful to any living creature> same url.

Not relying on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games)> same wiki

Not relying on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport> you guessed it.

Sports can be primarily physical (e.g. rugby, athletics), mental (e.g. chess, Go), motorized (e.g. Formula 1, powerboating), coordination-based (e.g. snooker, cue sports), or animal-supported (e.g. equestrian sports).> same source but hammers the nail here.

And @lichess-007 I have a life..

Acute stress in a chess game is not the only reason you burn calories during the game. You also burn calories while playing chess due to the brain requiring glucose (a store of energy) to complete its functions i.e thinking, utilizing memory, etc. The more mentally demanding the task the more calories you burn. A lot of grandmasters physically train like a typical athlete for peak mental performance. Most sports have a mental aspect as well as a physical one.

"Physical exercise was always a key element of my chess training as world champion." - Garry Kasparov

"At 5-foot-6, Carunana has a lean frame, his legs angular and toned. He also has a packed schedule for the day: a 5-mile run, an hour of tennis, half an hour of basketball and at least an hour of swimming."

-The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely move (ESPN article).

One could argue the reason most people state that chess is only a board game is due to tunnel vision or bias. Tunnel vision in that they don't understand the physical and mental demands of playing at the highest level as they can only see the world from their perspective.

Or you could argue that there is a duality of the game. At the amateur level it is a board game rife with blunders and missteps but at the master level it is a sport.

One thing I have learnt from this site is it is a futile endeavor arguing over this topic. As the philosopher Epictetus once said, "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."

Stay curious.

By you. Others see this differently.

Magnus was chosen "Sportsman of the Year" in Norway in 2009.

Lajos Portisch is one of the "Sportsmen of the Nation" in Hungary, an elite group of 12 retired Olympic champions.

And you pay 4 it?

There is an online micronation that claims Chess is a sport, and it's their official sport. You can see for yourself at https://sites.google.com/view/united-republic-of-wolville.