I wish I could drink a beer and play chess, smoking a cigar. Those where the good old Army days! Now when I try and have my scotch at the board some one will complain, "Oh oh, he can't drink here there are children here, oh oh what about the children!" Like I'm gonna share with those little pukes! I dare you to try it, go to your next chess match with a beer, some one will throw a fit over it!
Walter, what the f*** has anything got to do with Vietnam?
Yeah, a sport for docile, middle-aged office warriors, if you're not a very strong player.
I find the comparison with poker very relevant. The most important dimension in Chess is the fight, as opposed to beauty or truth. The important is to win over your opponent.
That said, it is not a sport like boxing or running a marathon
no
Maybe chess used to be a sport, back when it was played by real men, who smoked and drank and sometimes abused morphine, nowadays it's a bunch of flowery nancy boys studying opening theory terrified of gambiting a pawn or two. No thank you ma'am! Yeah, it was sporting but it sure ain't no more.
Dude, that's just not cool.
In my opinion, I say chess is half a sport and half isn't. Chess requires strategy and tactics like most sports like tennis and badminton. But it also isn't because you just sit down and don't sweat at all (except when you get too stress) :)
landlubberdolphin wrote:
is a taco a sandwich?
No. Taco is spelt T-A-C-O and Sandwich is spelt S-A-N-D-W-I-C-H. :) hahahaha
Chess is a game.
It's not a sport, and telling people it is makes you look like a real weenie who can't throw a ball. And NO, chess should not be in the Olympics.
It's not art, I don't care how "beautiful" the mate is. There's beauty in a well-played billiards shot too...and that's not art either. If you start calling everything beautiful art, then the word loses its meaning.
It's a GAME. Like Battleship, Bridge, or Operation. Like Clue, Poker, or Tiddlywinks. Go out and run a few miles or paint a watercolor, if you want sports or art.
I would say on higher levels chess is a sport. some chess players run a marathon before a big game.
on my level chess is a game.
1. Define sport.
2. See if your definition includes Chess.
It doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter if you love it or not. If you're trying to be objective, that's the only way to go.
/thread
Its not a sport.
I hope it never will end up in summer or winter Olympics.
Its a game, like poker.
The topic of this thread has been asked and aswered dozens of times.
The only constant is the same wrong-headed perspectives, and pinheaded responses keep appearing, ad nauseum.
Who cares?? Chess players are such an eccentric lot, holding very strong opinions about the game, and virtually everything else in the world.
No Surprises There.
The royal game comes in "black and white." Too many folks here feel the same way about the world at large. Binary thinking, over and over again.
Get Used To It.
Well, chess is probably as much or more a sport than poker. And there are actually poker games shown on sport networks. Not too much thinking needed...
Great cut and paste thinking, @Savage. Your avatar name is well chosen.
>Some chess players run a marathon before a big game.<
Oh, so that makes it a sport? Some players buy round lots of sugar futures before a game. Does that make chess a financial transaction? Some players bang 50-dollar hookers before a match. So chess is now sex?
Sheesh.
So sports with minimal physical exertion like pool and croquet aren't sports?
Games.
So where do you draw the line?
If John Daly, a fat man that constantly drinks and smokes while he plays golf (-not that I'm against him) can make it into the top 50, or 70 year olds can still play, does that mean golf is simply a "game" and not a sport?
All of the above mentioned sports are, at elite levels, taxing either on the body or the mind. I suppose a counter argument would be that playing instruments is not considered a sport, and I know damn well after playing piano for 20 years that it can be physically demanding and take a toll on you mentally- but it comes down more to a cultural understanding than any single opinion.
Perhaps a concerto is the game since it is a soloist competiting against the orchestra. Even more so if we talk about the concerto grosso!
There are several definitions of 'sport'.
It seems that culture or social acceptance might change it slightly(in my language, every definition of sport seems to accept chess a sport as they include not only physical exertion but also mental activity as part of what defines a sport) but across the board, chess is accepted by almost every definition.
"an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment" - Oxford Dictionaries
As stated before, a chess game exerts you both physical and mentally. I doubt that anyone who actually ever tryed to play chess can argue with that. I had a tournament a few years ago, 9 sessions accross a week, and I lost about 2kilos on that time. The only thing I did was playing chess, preparing for the games, eat and sleep in a hotel.
Sometimes I read/hear people saying that this sort of thought is what makes people grow fat(I read it somewhere in this thread too) but the truth is, that has nothing to do with whether chess being a sport or not.
TL DR: Chess is a sport.
The topic of this thread has been asked and aswered dozens of times.
The only constant is the same wrong-headed perspectives, and pinheaded responses keep appearing, ad nauseum.
Who cares?? Chess players are such an eccentric lot, holding very strong opinions about the game, and virtually everything else in the world.
No Surprises There.
The royal game comes in "black and white." Too many folks here feel the same way about the world at large. Binary thinking, over and over again.
Get Used To It.
In denmark chess is not considered sport and clubs have a hard time getting money because companies want to give money to sport not games. therefore if is was a sport without a doubt it would be easier to get sponsors.
Chess is officialy a sport.
And unicorns are officially the national animal of Scotland which means unicorns are real, chess is officially a sport, and my sciatica is all in my head which is why the pain pills don't help. Yeah right, kid, whatever.