Is chess a sport or a game

Good post Soulzityr, allthough I cannot quite agree with your assumption on transition between chess and baseball.

Baseball and Basketball are both ball games, so it may work out there and your reciever may indeed catch up quickly. But you cannot expect your reciever to do well at for example speed skating, or marathon running, or wrestling or... I think that those will be acceptable athletic sports according to your theory.

And what is your take on sports like motor sports (where often equipment quality or concentration may have a decisive role, not the athletic demands) and table-tennis, golf - do these areas really have any remarkable athletic demands?

I said that 'we all agree with Spassky' in order to try to close the argument.

Enjoy your chess!!!!!!!!!

Keep the thread friendly please :)

Golf and motor sports take extreme physical skill to guide something precisely, so yes, they do have remarkable athletic demands if you take athletic to mean physical. Chess, less so.

Pulling off a BRUTALITY in mortal kombat takes extreme precision, I don't consider it  a sport. (and I don't want to meet the man who does)

I will never understand why anyone on earth can watch NASCAR, but thats neither here nor there. If you think autoracing is a sport because it requires precision than you open the door for a hell of a lot of other things.

Just like you say there is no comparison between videogames and autoracing, I say there is no comparison between autoracing and real sports.... the things actual athletes compete in.

No i'm not kidding, and I have been practicing table tennis myself. Of course not on top level, but at least on a club competition level when I was a lot younger. I am convinced it is a mild exaggeration to call it the most physically demanding area of sports -  you do not need to have the physical strength of for example a weight lifter or the stamina of a marathon runner.

It's rather technique and accuracy that play a vital part and I don't think that is what Soulzityr had in mind while refering to physical demands in the post that I was replying to.

And if physical skill really was what would determine the definition of sport, we would have a lot of people calling eating hamburgers in time, darts throwing etc as a recognized sports rather than just physical activity, which i think is not happening.

I think that for majority it is more about the level of competition and the necessity for dedicated training and improvement  in that area that makes sport a sport. Also, I can assure you that a lot of top level grandmasters consider good physical shape vital to put up a quality chess in the pressure of longer tournament or match up play. It kinda makes sense to me as I dont think one can remain creative and keep a mind clear while physically exhausted.

ahem ahem

from across the pond

chess is a game, chess is a sport, chess is a mind sport, chess is a mind game.

some say sports must exert physically, well, high level chess players are caused to be thin, patzers will stay fat. It's a cognitive demands thingy.

will chess ever get into the Olympics, it may be difficult unless its appeal as a spectacle can be improved

is football a sport or a game?

>:)

Thank you to all for your comments on this topic. I enjoyed reading your opinion weather chess is a sport or a game. Please continue your comments regarding this topic.

Ray Duque III, New York City

I think that the vast majority agree that chess is a game. There is significant disagreement on whether it is also a sport.

What I wanted to respond to was the absurd claim on the first page (which I believe hasn't been responded to yet) that Golf is not a sport. What??? By what definition is golf not a sport? The poster seemed to say that it wasn't physical enough, but I think that such an argument is flatly wrong, even for people who define sports to include a physical component. If golf wasn't physical, physicists would be winning all the weekend tournaments, not Tiger Woods, Jeff Ogilvy, Stuart Cink, Scott Verplank, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, and the like.

For the physical component (if you want to include that as part of your definition), I think that the physical skill needs to be a large component of the competition, and not something that's very easy to do well. For example, essentially anyone can move a chess piece or lay a card. Just about anybody can also, say, play basketball, but few can shoot jumpshots for high percentages, defend at a high level, etc. The physical component of Basketball is a huge part of the game, whereas with chess, it's extremely small.

You caused no hassle or upset.  Again more a case of disinterest in you, the less time I waste with you the better.

Is being a member of a world-class symphony a sport?

I'll address these one by one:

• Horse riding -- The athelete is standing
• car racing -- Arguable
• motorcycle racing -- Arguable
• speedboat racing -- Arguable
• arm wrestling -- arguably not a sport, but if you don't stand up you're not going to be competetive
• cycling -- Fair point
  
• game fishing -- Not a sport
• canoeing -- Fair point
• kayaking -- Fair point
• rowing -- Fair point
• rafting -- Not a sport
  
• polo -- The athelete is standing
• model aerobatics -- Not a sport
• RC racing -- Not a sport
• robot combat -- Not a sport
• aerobatics -- Not a sport
• pigeon racing -- You're joking, right?
  
• thumb wrestling -- Not a sport
• kite flying -- Not a sport

"Horse riding -- The athelete is standing "

You probably mean something like this

..only happens at circus :P

Hah, funny.

Seriously, though -- it was the intent of the qualifier I was trying to get across:  physical exertion.  I think it's clear that all of the exceptions to the "standing" rule have something that chess does not: you may be sitting but you are not still, and your locomotion is self-powered.

The dictionary definition of sport is not the definitive authority when it comes to parsing what qualifies and what doesn't. The superficial notion that a sport must involve a certain amount of physical activity is insufficient. Who's to say how much it takes, must you break a sweat first? That is quite a loose argument.

The real differences between a game and a sport aren't so obvious as to which involves more bodily movement. No, the real difference is whether or not the game within it's rules is limited i.e finite in expression. Checkers has been solved, it is limited and is therefore relegated to merely a game. Chess is near infinite and is for the moment a sport, the 64 squares is enough.

On these two statements we disagree at a fundamental level.  The first one is just wrong, the second is just silly.

It can be argued quite well that everything is finite. Furthermore, are you saying that chess is a sport now but will cease to be if it ever gets solved? That's sorta ridiculous.

Well then TheGrobe you don't understand what a sport is if you think there must be sweating involved. If there is an end to the game were it becomes repetitive as checkers has been proven to be then you cannot call that a sport. If there is room for endless express within the rules of the game then it's a sport. Parroting the vague physicality argument doesn't pass the test.

chess is definitely a sport...err a game....ohhh whatever, i enjoy playing chess.....