Why are speedruns even allowed?

There is a difference between Michael Jordan dominating a highschooler in basketball and Michael Jordan dominating a highschooler in basketball while explaining to the onlookers exactly how he's dominating said highschooler.

I once heard that if you repeat the same thing over and over again it seems to lose its meaning. Try saying your name over and over again for about five minutes, it'll get hard to keep doing so. So I suspect that since you keep claiming that I'm a chess-is-not-a-sport advocate without quoting anything i said, that, too will lose meaning. You appear to be convinced that any opinion other than "chess is definitely a sport" is a laughable stance... despite the literal definition of sport having a physical requirement... 

clearly you have not done much "standing in other people's shoes", as the saying goes, much less walked a mile.

You can google famous basketball players going 1 on 1 with kids at basketball camps. It's a fun time for everyone. Seems like you're feeling angry, and choosing this as a topic to vent your anger on, even though speedruns have nothing to do with why you're angry in the first place (it seems this way because a lot of what you say doesn't make sense).

That doesn't make sense. You're being irrational.

The guy is a reminder that things aren't so bright at the bottom of the bell curve

I don't want to make fun of him. In other online games smurfing is very negative. If he's new to chess then it's probably a shock that popular players stream themselves doing it and it's condoned by the major chess sites.

Just a reminder though that rating points are refunded, and the account is labeled as a speed running account.

Well, after his rambling in this thread I've lost hope for him. I mostly have played other games at a higher level and know that smurfing isn't healthy for games, but he is using it as an excuse here and pretending it's why he is where he is. That and sandbagging and all sorts of nonsense.

@cooloutAC bro just get gud. then you wont have to complain about smurfs.

Part of why it's fun to watch is when you see GM vs GM it's... basically impossible to relate to it. You don't understand the game and you can't put yourself in the shoes of either player.

But when it's GM vs 1200, then all the 1200s watching can get excited because they'll understand the position and can put themselves in the place of the player.

Anyway, it's not about a rating climb at all.

False dichotomy. You're trying to argue that games are either entertaining or unwatchable.

My statement had nothing to do with sportsmanship. You made a claim about why people watch, and I countered with a different way of looking at it.

Pick any medium of entertainment you like, and the definition of it will not explain why it's entertaining. A better (but still hysterical) argument would have been to say that viewers watch for the schadenfreude, enjoying the unsuspecting player's misfortune and misery.

You seem immune to context and just want to rant.

As for chess as a sport, people have been debating that for years, including here on the forums. I think it's a pretty silly topic. My answer is "a rose by any other name." In other words, its nature is independent of its classification. Competitive chess, like classical sports, embody certain parts of the human experience, such as dedication, self improvement, sacrifice, risk, reward, hopes, fears, triumph, and failure.

Naka is a turd. I'm with you on that.

I don't even watch his stuff, so I don't know, but I can imagine him doing this.

I didn't say it wasn't a sport... lacking both context and subtlety you'd probably enjoy arguing about politics. Try checking out this popular club https://www.chess.com/club/the-ideas-room

There's the dichotomy-like thinking again.

No, he was an unlikable a**hole even as a kid, as a teen, as a young adult, etc. Nothing has changed.

In fact I'd say if anything, he's made an effort to hide the fact that's he's thoroughly unlikable.

I never even addressed Hikaru's motivations, much less denied this specific explanation of them.

Yep, I've stopped addressing your points on purpose... because I don't think you can have a serious discussion

GothamChess has more subscribers on YouTube.

And sure, chess is mostly little kids and retirees... which is part of what makes the community annoying to me.

Again, this method of arguing would work really well in that "ideas room" club I linked earlier... if you're like me, you post here because you're bored, and that club would probably really help alleviate your boredom

Meh, the "whole community" isn't that big. I'd say popular clubs rival or surpass the public forums in terms of number of eyeballs.

In any case, not this discussion in that club, political ones, religious ones, arguments like that.

I mean... ok, the off topic forums probably have more eyeballs, but I don't really count 10 year olds drooling on their keyboards while the family cat randomly hits "post" for them.

You've had this explained to you, it clearly didn't hit home, like most other arguments.

You paid for the extended functionality and features of the site. It has nothing do to with being able to play, everyone can do that for free. And you can use those features you paid for, without ever playing a game.