Is Chess a Sport?

Anastasia Lanterman

Checkmate!? Wait, is chess a sport? According to Chess.com, chess is seen as a sport. But in the UK chess is not a seen as a sport, and in research it is important to see other sides of this topic. Chess is seen as a sport or not because, it is very competitive, it’s a global game, and it has a mental component. Will we find out if it is or not? Let’s see.

Firstly, chess is considered a sport because it is very competitive. According to ichess.net, “The participating players feel the drive to win in a tough struggle against a motivated opponent.” When chess is played people may feel horrible after defeat, showing how competitive it is, and this happens with lots of sports. Also, according to ichess.net “Many activities can be competitive, including Monopoly, gin rummy and tiddly-winks. No-one is arguing that these are sports, just because they happen to be competitive.” Lots of games are competitive but are they really sports? It is hard to know for sure. Maybe if we research how global it really is, we can see if it is a sport or not.

Secondly, chess is seen as a sport because it’s a global game. According to londonchessconference.com, “Chess is played around the world irrespective of age, race, gender, income or language.” So many people play chess so you can see how people may think it is a sport. According to herculeschess.com “86% of the member states of the European Union recognizes chess as a sport that is equivalent to 24 out of 28 states. The rest of the 4 member states do not recognize chess as a sport.” But even if it is played all over people still think it is not a sport. Will strategy be enough to call chess a sport?

Finally, chess is seen as a sport because it has a mental component. According to londonchessconfrenece.com “Ultimately competitive sports may be construed as strategy games differing only in their physical manifestation.” Many sports have a mental component especially chess, to play chess you need to outthink your opponent, is it a sport though? But according to ichess.net “Again though, further consideration reveals that while chess requires skill (in common with sports), this is also not enough.” People may think this is not all you need to call chess a sport, many games may require strategy. Chess may have strategy is that enough.

In conclusion, Chess is seen as a sport because, it is very competitive, it’s a global game, and it has a mental component. Chess.com says chess is widely considered a sport, but in many places like the UK it is not considered a sport. No one can really say if it’s for sure a sport or not, will we ever know?

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