Is chess a sport? Ending the debate

Logical moves and systems and patterns recognition

I started chess one year ago and my biceps doubled in size. Also my back pain disappeared.

Chess is definitely a sport.

ha!

One pro tip: Never use underpromotion! Always promote your pawns to heavy pieces. Also make sure that you're not moving your pieces so fast. Grab the piece you want to move and move it slowly to the desired square. 

I do it all the time and my biceps is freaking huge right now.

Virtually all chess tournaments are NOT a fashion show.

On this we surely agree?  

Which part of this movement is concentric vs eccentric, and is  there an isometric equivalent of this?

scrabble, maybe?

Now we're talking!

you could get a lot of points for a well placed whine.

oh, yeah, and get a workout placing the tiles.

Can chess players get over their lack of ability at real sports? The never ending debate ...

i think we're on to scrabble, darts, golf, and bowling now.

I think sports should require some level of physical dexterity, or show of strength (and as for the OPs argument that it requires endurance: Practically everything does, so its not meaningful).  Also the fact that the IOC defines it as a sport doesn't mean they are right.

Chess is more of an intellectual game.  If you make no differentiation between the physicality of sports vs games, then you should be prepared to say that virtually anything that can be done competitively is a sport.

Is competing to recite the longest string of numbers also a sport? Is solving sudoku puzzles a sport? Is preparing the best cup of tea for a panel of judges a sport? Because if your standards require no overt physicality, then your definition becomes so broad as to encompass everything competitive.

If you're okay with that that's fine, I just think that there should be some clear distinction that separates it from physical forms of competitive play, because traditional sports appeal to very different audiences, where the focus is on the mastery of different parts of the body (besides the brain).

About once every month or 2 a 'new'(to the thread) really heavy thinker comes along, and they are usually big readers also, and they are all like...

  "Chess is a sport cause you gotta move your body to roll the dice, which is why craps is a sport also!"

It's called a dictionary people. Use it!  

.. Late- Breaking ..{well, sort of} ..

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-latest-target-of-scattershot-u-s-sanctions-chess/

.. Feeling Negative, lately ; 'micky', in 'joisey'?! ..{lol}

Nice try @mickynj don't cut n' paste I copy n' waste. Fact.

I've noticed something about this topic that seems to mimic another real life/internet problem. In real life no one ever gets on a bus or other public space and start telling other people how wrong they are for no apparent reason. In real life, people tend to be more polite and considerate. Except in extreme situations like like someone claiming chess is a sport or the earth is flat.  But on the internet some people who cant vent their rudeness in real life go all out.

So it is with the chess is a sport debate. In real life no one ever says that. At least no one I've ever met or known. They dont want to get laughed at, pointed at, and subject to giggles and ridicule. Imagine going to the local sports bar and asking "why isn't chess on?" But on the internet that's not a problem, so they go all out. They say things they would never say in real life. Maybe the lack of seriousness by the pro chess sport people is all the proof anyone needs.

Actually, I argue with people all the time about whether or not chess is a sport. I even did a paper on it in highschool.

if you could post it here, i'm sure many would be interested to read it.

however, i would certainly be one that disagrees with your conclusion, based on your previous comments, and the link to london chess that argues that chess is a sport and gives it's ten reasons. it is a good argument, i just don't agree with it.