Is chess a sport or not?

Hemmingway said the only sports were auto racing, boxing, mountain climbing, and bull fighting....everything else is a game.

I guess he means blood needs to be a consequence.

This might require rethinking some of the rules of chess...perhaps, if you take an opponent's piece, you are allowed to throw it at them.

I'm sure there's a way of incorporating electric shocks into the game.

The game might also attract a larger audience..."Ultimate Chess."

If Tiger Woods can be touted as the World's Greatest Athlete then why not
chess players?  By the way, Jack Nicklaus was actually a better athlete than Tiger
Woods in high school(Jack was a 100 meter track star and basketball player
while Tiger ran cross country) but Jack did not live in the age of sports hype
and marketing to sell products.  Sam Snead held some West Virginia high
school football records for years.  It is amazing how people have bought into this.  Robert Hess also played high school football.  Even in NASCAR Elliot Sadler
starred in 6 sports in high school.

The public perceives what marketing companies want you to believe.

I think when you consider the stresses imposed on the human body during a
World Championship match chess should be considered a sport.

Heart rate, blood pressure, and brain fatigue are all a part of chess, even if
running is not part of the equation.

It is a contest

According to the International Olympic Committee (I might have the exact name of the group slightly wrong, but the folks who organize the Olympic Games)  Chess is a sport.  It won't ever be in the regular games, but it has its own Olympiad.  If Curling is sport, Chess certainly should qualify.

That's kind of the problem I see with that definition as well. If you call chess a sport, then any board game would be a sport. 

I have to say if the wikipedia definition is correct, I learned something. I also thought a sport had to involve phsyical activity in "real-time". Maybe not. like someone said, poker is often called a sport, although that puzzles me as well.

I guess "sport" is just one of many words that have more than one meaning.

All in all, I don't see it as being a very important question.

sport for the mind :) my final answer

Lighten up- it's a game

Sport: An ATHLETIC activity requiring physical prowess, and often of a competitive nature. Source: Random House Dictionary. So obviously games not requiring athletic ability are not sports.

OK, we can agree that physical sports and chess are both games, right?

If chess is a sport, what is left to differentiate the words "sport" and "game"? Presumably card games, checkers, go, rock paper scissors, connect 4, starcraft, minesweeper, unreal tournament, world of warcraft etc. are all also sports under this definition, right?

This is not true. Computers can play chess without changing brain chemistry, blood pressure, heart rate or anything. In fact, humans can too without those changes. The fact that some humans do happen to raise these things is not mandatory for playing chess, but you simply can't play a physical sport without the physiological changes. It just isn't physically possible.

Chess should be a sport. In my country chess competition is included in National Sport Olympiad.

They don't really play soccer (yet?). And that isn't really the point anyway. I'm giving reasons why increased heart rate and all that aren't enough to call chess a sport.

I would say it's not a sport, it's an activity.  A very interesting, difficult, competitive activity, but not a sport.  If Chess counts as a sport so does video gaming, MMORPGs, checkers, rock paper scissors, solitare, etc.  You have to draw the line somewhere.

But in the end, does it really matter?

Why would we want to associate with such people?

I´ll gladly admit to being somewhat of an elitist regarding this. Chess is a cultural and intellectual institution. It has elements of science and art and intellectual achievement that few other human endeavors has that i can think of.

There seems to be some in the chess community who really want recognition from people who do not appreciate these aspects. I don´t see why.

I have argued this issue before, and i can string together a fairly decent argument that chess could properly be viewed as a sport. But i really don´t care either way. I am not going to lose any sleep knowing that jocks, or anyone else, roll their eyes whenever chess is played or talked about.

The Vikings can help us out here. They were big on board games, and their descendants took to chess like mad. Their legislative system was one based upon a striving for balances, and fair advantages - for this reason they were attracted by chess, as it begins with a supposedly ideal balance, and has straightforward rules through which one attemps to establish advantage in a manner that is acceptable to others.

The Vikings put just as much importance into mental acuity as to physical skill, and their word idrott (Íþrótt) covered both spheres of activity. A person was truly powerful only when the mind was quick and the body was agile.

idrott (Íþrótt) - the pursuit of mental and physical skills

idrott is a composite word consisting of id and drott. Íð + þrótt
þrótt is "power" "force" "endurance"
Íð  points to activity, occupation and willingness to exert oneself

In old Norse, an Íþróttamaðr - idrottamadr - sportsman (!) was a person in possession of considerable mental and physical skills. To them, boardgames were a way of gauging someone's mental acuity, which could become critical not just in battle, but when struggling against the elements or trying to navigate dangerous waters.

So is chess a sport? If you're sitting pear shaped at the board with wheezing lungs drinking soda, you're not in accordance with the Viking definition.

Kasparov was in perfect accordance with the definition, however. He put in hours of regular grueling physical exercise in addition to his chess studies, in order to achieve excellence.

The Lewis Chessmen were made for the descendants of the Vikings, and were most likely manufactured in Trondheim, before making their way to the Outer Hebrides to be sold there.

Quite right Steinwitz. And the word "sport" is derived from old french;

"c.1400, "to take pleasure, to amuse oneself," from Anglo-Fr. disport, from O.Fr. desport "pastime, recreation, pleasure," from desporter "to divert, amuse, please, play" (see disport). Sense of "to amuse oneself by active exercise in open air or taking part in some game" is from late 15c."

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sport

You do know that words sometimes change meaning over the centuries, not to mention once they are imported from another language, right? Besides which, that definition is indistinguishable from "jouer" really, but I don't think anyone would argue that all games are sports, and if they did, then why bother still using both words?

...... *tumbleweed*