Chess is officially recognized as a genuine sport by the Olympic Committee for being a game of skill, widely practiced worldwide and having competitors from a number of different countries playing competitively as individuals or teams against each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So there you have it. Do you still have doubts about the status of chess? Let’s take a look into the FACTS that makes the great game of chess and its elite players, a sport and sportsmen and women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Oxford Dictionary defines sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or a team competes against another or others for entertainment”. No doubt chess falls into a number of those criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they have left out is addiction<\/a>, frustration, and despair, of course, something every chess player has felt at some point or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So let’s go through the elements and physical activities of the definition of sport, just to be sure and make it perfectly clear to those that still may be on the side of why chess isn’t a sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Picking apart the official definition of sport, we can pull out several parts and use them, and to that, I am going to add some other things that make it indisputably sporting to play chess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If chess wasn’t a sport it would mean that the game is not a competition, it does not have a physical aspect to it and there is no set of rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That should be enough to settle the argument, but let’s crack on and prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt with the top 10 supporting reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chess is a very skillful game and takes years of training, practice, and dedication to master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are just 9 examples of various skills required involved in the sport of chess, I’ve literally just thrown them together in ten-seconds off the top of my head, and I am sure we could come up with a dozen more, so diverse are the abilities required to reach the very top of the competitive chess world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most sports require only one skill or a minimal skillset that is perfected, whereas chess requires mastery in a whole range of skills<\/p>\n\n\n\n Competitive chess is played all over the world for entertainment, status, and money. Competitive chess is rated<\/a>, and professional players have rankings that are calculated using their ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The World Chess Federation<\/a> is the formal governing body for competitive chess internationally (FIDE). It was founded in Paris in 1924 and has been headquartered since 1978 at Lausanne, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Players may compete over the board or play by email\/postal correspondence<\/a>. There are also computer-assisted competitions where participants try to defeat each other’s programs rather than playing face-to-face over a chessboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps you consider chess as just board games or in the same class as billiards, pool, or darts, requiring little physical abilities. Well, just as those sports do require physical attributes, so does chess, not least of which is stamina. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is conceded that you’re not going to be required to be in the physical condition of Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt, or have the build of an American Football player, but those chess pieces are not going to move<\/a> and usually, at a tournament, this is going to take place over many concurrent hours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n What chess may lack in athletic ability demands, it certainly makes up for in mental exertion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chess skill can be both physically and mentally draining over a sustained period of time, and possessing stamina is a key requirement. A chess player needs to be able to think for hours, sometimes uninterrupted- this is not an easy task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A good example of the physicality in chess is that people have become so tired from playing a game they actually fall asleep at the board!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to get better at chess<\/a>, you need stamina and concentration, or your elite chess players will beat you easily with their superior mental capacity and ability to keep on going when things are tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conclusion: <\/strong>Chess can take both aspects of mind and body strength but primarily requires intense focus over long periods of time which makes it one heck of a sport – if not THE best one out there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sport being played by individuals and teams in competition against each other is an undeniable aspect of chess playing. Whilst primarily and best known as an individual one-on-one game, chess is also played by teams in a team event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It can be argued that excelling as an individual sportsperson is much harder than doing so as a team, and whilst you may have a team behind you when the competitive action begins it is one on one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can there be a tougher aspect of the sport than being solely responsible for your own performance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n All sports have rules of play and engagement and chess is no different. Although the rules of chess might be a little bit more a read than the rules of competitive javelin throwing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official rules of chess are the World Chess Federation’s (FIDE) Laws of chess<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The governing body is Fide, which governs all international competitions and organizes world championship<\/a> events such as the Candidates Tournament or the World Championship Match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The definition of a professional sportsperson is one who is either paid ar gains willfully economic benefit or payment in sponsorship or prize money for competing in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With over $1.6m up for grabs at the World Chess Championships and some players able to earn in excess of $500,000 a year from chess playing activities and related sponsorship deals, there is no doubt that chess has its own professional players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not all of the best chess players can earn money<\/a> playing chess, however, as there is not a huge amount of prize money to go around as you might find in Tennis or Golf, as you would expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chess is played by an estimated number of people in excess of 600,000,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If there is any doubt about how global the game of chess is, it would be possible to suggest that no one sports are played in as many different countries around the world as chess. It has FIDE-rated players from 189 of the 195 official countries on earth!<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are Grandmasters<\/a> with 85 different nationalities, coming from places such as Albania, Faroe Islands, South Africa and Zambia, whilst Russia has the most with 234 against the US’s contribution of just 90, just behind 2nd placed Germany with 92.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOfficial Definition of a Sport (Does Chess Comply?)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Elements of Chess Qualify it as a Sport?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/chessquestions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/chess-is-sport-1024x683.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n1. Chess Involves Skill<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. Chess is Played Competitively in Various Forms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. Chess is Physical – Yes it is!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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4. Chess is Played by Individuals and can be a Team Event<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5. Chess Has Rules and a Governing Body<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
6. Chess Has Professional Players<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
7. Chess is Played Worldwide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/chessquestions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/global-chess-1024x683.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n8. Competitive Chess is Subject to Drug Testing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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