Is chess a sport? Ending the debate

I can't begin to even comprehend why people would even want to argue chess to be a sport.  Just play it and enjoy the mind challenge

No Jeff. Again, you are incorrect.

It's not my responsibility to teach you logic, argument, evidence or why fallacies are not evidence to support your conclusion.

Suffice it to say your argument is invalid.

You wanted it to be about what more people thought, but that isn't correct.

You wanted it to be what you felt was correct. That was proven incorrect.

On the other hand, I posited a claim with a conclusion that followed from true premises according to the established rules of argument, reason and logic.

You can't refute the conclusion with fallacies.

Hang it up unless you're willing to pick up a book and learn the difference between your incorrect assertions and a valid claim supported by evidence.

People had once decided the earth was flat..

^ Exactly. The majority did.

They didn't decide it. They believed it until they started sailing around in circles. lol Like we're doing. lol

Jeff, despite our differences I'd like to thank you for being a good game about it all.

No problem.  Like someone else said, this is going in circles.  How about we just agree to disagree, before the name calling starts.   I will always believe that I am right and you probably will too, so there's no point in continuing the debate.  Btw, I made lots of other points, before you entered the debate.  Like the one about an old man in a wheelchair and on an oxygen tank being able to play chess, but not being able to play any sports.   You should read the entire thread, before you call my arguments flimsy.  I attacked it from all possible angles.  Anyway, thanks for the debate.  Agree to disagree.  

Well if he's playing chess he's playing a sport, but yeah I get what you mean if you mean other sports more physical than the sport of chess.

Not more physical.  Physical, period.   lol   Anyway ...........  

I found some criterias for sports in Wikipedia.  One thing is that luck shouldnt be a part of the game.  Here chess is obviously outside, because every game I won have been because of luck. Luck that happened because my opponent made a bad move.  Sometimes I have been so lucky that my opponent played an opening I was comfortable with. One time I slipped a piece landing it to a stronger place than I could think of myself.One day my opponent was five minutes late to a 90min 30 sec game, and I won on time when he had to do a very difficult move attacked very hard with 40 seconds left on the clock.

If a game can't be a sport if luck is a part then no sport is a sport!

When a footballer scores after the ball rebounds off of an upright, that may be skill (on the sole condition that he/she specifically trained to be prepared to shoot (and score) after a rebound - and is highly proficient at doing so) but it was luck that the ball rebounded off the upright in the first place... unless the previous footballer who had the ball wasn't in a position to score themself but was able deliberately rebound the ball off of the upright toi their teammate (and that was the optimal way to get the ball to the teammate best positioned to score.

If we aren't qualifying varying degrees of physicality then the physical moving of the pieces in the sport of chess cannot disqualify its status as a sport.

Is "holding your breath" a sport? I think for those who can hold their breath for say 5 minutes, it is. Does it require physical exertion? Quite the reverse, it requires that you be as relaxed (no physical exertion) as possible. So, I am not convinced that "physical" exertion (meaning mostly muscular/cardiovascular exertion) should be the decisive criterion.

In that case, brushing my teeth is also a sport, because my hand is physically moving.   Sleeping is also a sport, because I'm breathing and dreaming about chess moves.   lol   How about just breathing?   My lungs are moving, so that must be a sport too.      Yep, chess is just as much of a sport as breathing.   Do you see how silly that sounds now?   I think you need to redefine "physicality" where it applies to sports.   

I totally agree, most sports are lucksensitive, and therefore not sport. The best competitors are very good at luckmanagement and can smell luck when its coming. They can run to the spot where the ball will pop up and skillfully score, and the great chessmaster can detect the smallest inaccurasy and punish it with skills.

You need luck to win, but its how good you are handling the luck that decides the success. You also must avoid giving away to much luck (mistakes).

Yesterday I was lucky at chess. In  move 15 i got a winning attack going, but lacked the skills to score. It went empty and he equalized, I thought (actually he got advantage but I didnt understand it). I carried on with a wrong plan, but the move before I was planning a really bad move, he blundered, and I won.

Actually I think luck management is very important in most aspects of life. If a fantastic woman falls in love with you, and you takes care of here the right way, it can become lifelasting luck. The same goes with work. If you gets the best job, and takes good care of it, that luck can last very long.

Where sport is defined it says a sport is something that is done to use, maintain, or improve phsyical ability. Where a game is defined it doesn't include physical dexterity or ability so I would guess the difference between the two is the physical aspect of it. It seems pretty obvious chess is far, far closer to a game than a sport. I'm sure a game could also be a sport, but chess wouldn't be a good example. I'm also pretty sure nothing said here will "end the debate" since what some people believe always trumps the actual definition.

i feel chess is also a form of mental  challenge to test ur abilites ..and using ur fluid intelligence to analyze the novel task infront of u...

Sport or game, who cares. A fine thing with chess is that you doesnt need to be born with extraordinary physicals talent to play well.  You dont have be 2 meters high to outplay Michael Jordan. I little 7 year old girl (Lykke Merlot Helliesen) can do that easily, or the powerful and charming little boy  Torbjørn Valvåg from Tromsø that plays in a wheelchair. You dont need the big physics to be a giant in chess.