Is Chess a Sport or a Game?

A general debate to whether chess should be considered a sport or a game.

Please use the forums appropriately and respect all user's opinions.

It's not a game. Sport is debatable.

i vote for board game

It can be either.  I would say that is entirely dependent upon your mindset as you go into it.  For me, when playing with friends or family over the board, I try to see it as a game.  Win or lose, I'm having fun and it is a good way for us to spend time together and work on our game.  That said, I take studying chess a bit more seriously and hope to do some competition in the future (when I actually have time, probably when my kids grow up some).  In that way, I see it as a sport.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

I think it is a sport. Many people see it as a game though

This matter is insignificant to me. It doesn't really matter whether chess is a sport or a game.

Several men did.

Anything that makes you breathe heavier is a sport. Chess makes me hyperventilate, so I call it a sport.

Why can't it be both sport and game? I mean sport for Carlsen, Topalov et al, and game for "normal" people?

It's a sport of course !

        We already have this over worked argument going on in another thread. This one must have been started to stir up trouble, as others clearly have been. Now, wait for the abuse.

Chess is on a different plane from both mere games and mere sports.

Chess is an intellectual activity (admittedly not the way I play it, but I seek to improve).

        So doing a hundred press-ups is a sport? Sex is a sport? Being fightened out of your life is a sport? You didn't think that one through.

Come for the discussion. Stay for the abuse!

i think game. if it was a sport there'd be refs and penalty boxes. players would get to body-check each other. there would be cheer leaders. i think people would watch chess if there was any of that.

It is if you do it right.

innuendo??

o boy, off topic

both

I would argue that chess is a sport on the basis that there are major international chess tournaments, large amounts of prize-money, adjudicators, audiences and sponsors just like any other sport. I think of a normal board game as one where it is bought from the shops and played with friends for enjoyment, without major tournaments, without large crowds and without rewards for winning. For example, we don't have a ranking points system for monopoly or checkers.