Is chess a sport?

[jayakris]

From your original post:

3) It should be automatically scored, or judged with objective criteria. [Note that without the objective criteria part, a painting competition would fall under sports, though music still wouldn't, because it isn't visual].

I read it as if it has to be capable of being one, not necessarily have competition/rules be existing. I suppose you are saying that if such rules were to be defined and an actual event took place, you would classify it as sport. All I was saying that these activities have a chance to be a sport, if someone wanted to make one out of it. So, we are in agreement.

Not just the judging rules or results-determining criteria, but also the rules on what all to do before showing the result. Like the rules of football -- "you cannot use your hand to advance the ball", "there must be maximum one goalie and 11 total players" etc.

Well, competitive cooking shows do exist (the only thing that our whole family can watch without any reservations). That's a sporting activity, I suppose?

Cooking competitions do not satisfy the second rule that the results that count must ONLY be sensed visually (and must NOT be through any of the other senses like hearing, tasting, touching etc).

Jay

[Prashant]

I have no doubt at all that golf is more of a sport than cricket is. The physical toll on the body during the contortions of a drive is brutal. You have to walk several miles during a tournament.

Well - the pros walk a few miles over the course of four days in a tournament. Most regulars don't walk at all - they ride a cart & drink beer. Even running between the wickets in a short to medium innings in cricket probably involves more exertion (calories burnt, heart rate raised) than a round of golf.

But you do have a point that the physical skill required to play well is considerable.

[prasen9]

If somebody makes a COMPETITIVE activity out of it, yes, they can be. See that my 3 conditions were all applying to competitive activities done singularly or as a team. Nothing is a sport unless the competition is defined. Somebody can make a sport out of mopping or dish-washing, I suppose. Nobody has, though. That may probably be because nobody can think of a set of competition rules that would result in a sport out of dish-washing that people would want to take part in, or watch.

If people can participate in hamburger or hot-dog eating, they will participate in dish-washing. Number of dishes per minute. And add +ve or -ve points for dishes not fully clean. And curling already has mopping. Or something like it. Now that should get kujo fired up again! I must admit I have tried golf and found it extremely boring. I have not tried curling though. Maybe it requires a lot of skill. No idea.

[prasen9]

that count must ONLY be sensed visually (and must NOT be through any of the other senses like hearing, tasting, touching etc).

So cricket is not a sport because they use sound to figure out if the ball touched the bat in the DRS.

[prasen9]

But you do have a point that the physical skill required to play well is considerable.

Muscles to hit the ball far? And muscle-memory needed for controlled putting?

For me, it is easy. Anything a 70 year old can play professionally is not a sport. If you define sport differently, then let me say it is not a physical-sport.

[jayakris]

that count must ONLY be sensed visually (and must NOT be through any of the other senses like hearing, tasting, touching etc).

So cricket is not a sport because they use sound to figure out if the ball touched the bat in the DRS.

I said, as part of possible foot-note clarifications, that instruments are allowed when human visual ability is challenged. In the cricket case, the sound is used only because we don't have good enough video-technology to confirm the ball-bat contact. The phenomenon in question is still a visual one. To explain further, the cricket competition rule-book does not say that "a sound must be created by the ball when it touches the bat for it to be a catch/out" (and it certainly doesn't say anything about the quality of the sound). It just says "the ball must have touched the bat" (or something like that). The sound is not of relevance to the sport. If a non-visual measurement or confirmation is used to confirm some occurrence that is difficult to determine visually, it does not alter the fundamentals of the occurrence. The competition still defined on the basis of what can be SEEN.

Hey, you are trying hard to break my rules. They won't break that easily. Sport has always had the visual element. Competitions in things people enjoyed on the basis of taste, smell, sound, or touch-feeling, were never "sport" in human history. So, my condition-2 was not arbitrarily created. It is an essential element of what "sports" is, though I am not sure if its significance in a definition of sports was recognized by others (I have not researched this topic at all - I just came up with the conditions by myself the other day )

Jay

[gbelday]

For me, it is easy. Anything a 70 year old can play professionally is not a sport. If you define sport differently, then let me say it is not a physical-sport.

Whoa Prasen! 70 year olds routinely outpace me in long distance runs. I ran this 5k in a neighboring town (Glenridge) last year and they were handing out trophies in all age groups (including the 70-75 age group ).

[prasen9]

Whoa Prasen! 70 year olds routinely outpace me in long distance runs. I ran this 5k in a neighboring town (Glenridge) last year and they were handing out trophies in all age groups (including the 70-75 age group ).

I knew someone would say this. Do 70 year olds run professionally? I think golfers can play at the professional level at which time most others have retired.

[prasen9]

Hey, you are trying hard to break my rules.

As a mathematical scientist, it is but natural that you try to "prove" a set of conditions true or find counterexamples

[gbelday]

Whoa Prasen! 70 year olds routinely outpace me in long distance runs. I ran this 5k in a neighboring town (Glenridge) last year and they were handing out trophies in all age groups (including the 70-75 age group ).

I knew someone would say this. Do 70 year olds run professionally? I think golfers can play at the professional level at which time most others have retired.

Check out the results page of the run I mentioned above -- there is an 80-84 age group as well. One of them ran a sub 10 min mile!
http://www.compuscore.com/cs2012/june/lager.htm

Here are the NYC marathon results by age group. Check out the 80-85 age group winner (sub 4 hours!!). Not exactly sure what competing professionally means.
http://www.ingnycmarathon.org/Results.htm

[prasen9]

I don't know how to measure this to make my point. Golf has not been an Olympic sport but will be there in 2016. The oldest marathoner ever to qualify for the Olympics event was 37. Oldest Marathoner Since golf has not been a sport, I chose a surrogate. The oldest golfers who won a major. There are several of them who have won even if they are over 40, some touching 50. I can almost guarantee that a 48 year old will not win the Olympic marathon in my lifetime. Golf champs You can argue about my comparison being apples and oranges. Ideally, I would like to find the median age of Olympic marathoners versus Olympic golfers but we'll have to wait a few more years for that. The two years in the early 1900s are not good because things have changed. Golf requires significantly less kinetic motion than almost every other sport except maybe shooting and archery. Wrt skills, one can't really compare and putting does require skills.

I have always acknowledged my bias towards more active sports that I consider as being "true sports" in my books.