I remember arguing that chess was a sport back 2 decades ago.
It was a 48-hour debate in channel 103 on the I.C.C.
After hearing the opposition's arguments, I could no longer be convinced of my position.
As I read this forum, it's jogging my memory and I think that there are some very astute caveats and qualifications which are paramount to the arguments and counter-arguments being presented:
1. The main point I remember, was that of 'dexterity'.
It simply wasn't something that I could dodge, evade, or counter, and it seems primary to the semantics behind "sport".
*A sport is a contest where the accuracy, strength, or speed of a physical action, objectively determines a winner.*
It's extremely difficult to bend or break this definition.
If people want to maintain that spelling bees are a 'sport' because it involves contest/competition, then that's OK; however, in my view, there will always be the distinction of 'dexterity' which foists the subtext of (kind of a) sport, or (pseudo) sport, or sport (ish), when it comes to things like spelling bees, wall street, elections, business, grandma's bridge games, etc.
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2. One of the points I thought was very interesting, was the point about 'darts'.
Nobody would really contest that darts is a sport, as it's obviously on plane with basketball, golf, bowling, archery, and any other sport requiring precision and aim.
Yet, I remember seeing the contestants with beer guts, cigarettes, and even pints of beer on their bar tables.
So, in the case of darts, archery, curling, or even the mechanism that scores points in a basketball game, the aspect of athleticism seems like a non-sequitur.
And, while this is used as an argument for chess qualifying as a sport, it is actually an argument against, because chess has nothing to do with "who can put the chess pieces most perfectly in the centre of the squares".
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3. Others have correctly pointed out that the I.O.C.'s definition of "sport" seems to employ semantics which may border on illiterate.
Namely, the point about 'needing a judge to determine the winner' and the point made about 'dancing'.
These arguments can't be easily countered.
There is something fundamental about the objective nature of 'sport' which seems to effectively disqualify anything where a human judge is needed.
However, this, then, might call into question boxing, which nobody would argue is a sport.
But, it could be said that the core spirit of boxing is to beat one's opponent into complete submission, including K.O., exhaustion, resignation.
This would have been the original and objective form of the sport, as, obviously, the rounds, time limits, and judges will have been added on later. In other words, the judges are secondary.
This is a fundamental difference when compared to figure skating, where the judges are primary to the scoring.
Once this distinction is understood, we can clearly see how boxing satisfies the semantics and qualifies as a sport, and how figure-skating, dancing, and synchronized swimming, technically, would not.
In this model, while freestyle skiing would not qualify, slalom, long-jump, and alpine, would.
The point is that the distinction is completely clear, literate, and the semantics do not leave room for ambiguity.
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4. With this definition, when we ask, "Is abc xyz a sport?"
We all come to the exact same conclusions.
This is the point of communication, speech, language, words, and semantics.
This is, effectively, the barometer that we can use to determine the efficacy of words in the dictionary, and the proficiency of those who crafted it.
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5. Interestingly, chess might be one f the most difficult to categorize, because many might argue that speed is critical in bullet chess.
However, just like with boxing, we have to understand the spirit of the sport in it's initial format.
Chess was invented long before clocks were added. The clocks are secondary.
(There is a reason why people question if hyper-bullet should actually be considered 'chess'.)
In effect, one could make a sport of "who can turn the lights on and off the most times in 30 seconds" and that would be a legitimate sport, which is effectively what hyper-bullet changes chess into, or super-hyper-bullet, or extreme-super-hyper-bullet, or deluxe-extreme-super-hyper-bullet, or whatever.
Here, then, we see that the aspect of 'sport' wouldn't lie in the chess, but within the dexterity to move one's hands quickly; and, thus, we can make a delineation and understand that chess, in and of itself, is probably not a sport if we are observing literate semantics or semantics which serve both integrity and clarity.
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With all of that said, I still call chess a sport...because why not?
We have a few more times to wake up and go to sleep and then that's it for us.
Nobody cared 1000 years ago.
Nobody will care 1000 years from now.
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It's funny...I used to have no qualms about calling other people "stupid", and I would argue until I was blue in the face about if chess was a sport or not.
Now, it's like I'm living in 'backwards world' or something!
It was a 48-hour debate in channel 103 on the I.C.C.
After hearing the opposition's arguments, I could no longer be convinced of my position.
As I read this forum, it's jogging my memory and I think that there are some very astute caveats and qualifications which are paramount to the arguments and counter-arguments being presented:
1. The main point I remember, was that of 'dexterity'.
It simply wasn't something that I could dodge, evade, or counter, and it seems primary to the semantics behind "sport".
*A sport is a contest where the accuracy, strength, or speed of a physical action, objectively determines a winner.*
It's extremely difficult to bend or break this definition.
If people want to maintain that spelling bees are a 'sport' because it involves contest/competition, then that's OK; however, in my view, there will always be the distinction of 'dexterity' which foists the subtext of (kind of a) sport, or (pseudo) sport, or sport (ish), when it comes to things like spelling bees, wall street, elections, business, grandma's bridge games, etc.
-
2. One of the points I thought was very interesting, was the point about 'darts'.
Nobody would really contest that darts is a sport, as it's obviously on plane with basketball, golf, bowling, archery, and any other sport requiring precision and aim.
Yet, I remember seeing the contestants with beer guts, cigarettes, and even pints of beer on their bar tables.
So, in the case of darts, archery, curling, or even the mechanism that scores points in a basketball game, the aspect of athleticism seems like a non-sequitur.
And, while this is used as an argument for chess qualifying as a sport, it is actually an argument against, because chess has nothing to do with "who can put the chess pieces most perfectly in the centre of the squares".
-
3. Others have correctly pointed out that the I.O.C.'s definition of "sport" seems to employ semantics which may border on illiterate.
Namely, the point about 'needing a judge to determine the winner' and the point made about 'dancing'.
These arguments can't be easily countered.
There is something fundamental about the objective nature of 'sport' which seems to effectively disqualify anything where a human judge is needed.
However, this, then, might call into question boxing, which nobody would argue is a sport.
But, it could be said that the core spirit of boxing is to beat one's opponent into complete submission, including K.O., exhaustion, resignation.
This would have been the original and objective form of the sport, as, obviously, the rounds, time limits, and judges will have been added on later. In other words, the judges are secondary.
This is a fundamental difference when compared to figure skating, where the judges are primary to the scoring.
Once this distinction is understood, we can clearly see how boxing satisfies the semantics and qualifies as a sport, and how figure-skating, dancing, and synchronized swimming, technically, would not.
In this model, while freestyle skiing would not qualify, slalom, long-jump, and alpine, would.
The point is that the distinction is completely clear, literate, and the semantics do not leave room for ambiguity.
-
4. With this definition, when we ask, "Is abc xyz a sport?"
We all come to the exact same conclusions.
This is the point of communication, speech, language, words, and semantics.
This is, effectively, the barometer that we can use to determine the efficacy of words in the dictionary, and the proficiency of those who crafted it.
-
5. Interestingly, chess might be one f the most difficult to categorize, because many might argue that speed is critical in bullet chess.
However, just like with boxing, we have to understand the spirit of the sport in it's initial format.
Chess was invented long before clocks were added. The clocks are secondary.
(There is a reason why people question if hyper-bullet should actually be considered 'chess'.)
In effect, one could make a sport of "who can turn the lights on and off the most times in 30 seconds" and that would be a legitimate sport, which is effectively what hyper-bullet changes chess into, or super-hyper-bullet, or extreme-super-hyper-bullet, or deluxe-extreme-super-hyper-bullet, or whatever.
Here, then, we see that the aspect of 'sport' wouldn't lie in the chess, but within the dexterity to move one's hands quickly; and, thus, we can make a delineation and understand that chess, in and of itself, is probably not a sport if we are observing literate semantics or semantics which serve both integrity and clarity.
-
With all of that said, I still call chess a sport...because why not?
We have a few more times to wake up and go to sleep and then that's it for us.
Nobody cared 1000 years ago.
Nobody will care 1000 years from now.
-
It's funny...I used to have no qualms about calling other people "stupid", and I would argue until I was blue in the face about if chess was a sport or not.
Now, it's like I'm living in 'backwards world' or something!
