The Sport of Chess

The title of this article may seem contradictory or even absurd to some people but over 100 countries officially recognize chess as a sport, as does the International Olympic Committee. John Foley recently offered an eloquent explanation of why chess is a sport. Foley cited 10 reasons that chess is a sport and he urged his home country England to join the 24 out of 28 European countries that classify chess as a sport. Here are some quotes from Foley about each of those 10 reasons:

1) Competitive: ...Chess involves a relentless struggle against one's opponent. There is probably no sporting activity in which two people are locked in a competitive struggle of such intensity for such a sustained period of time. One lapse of concentration and suddenly a good position is transformed into a losing one...

2) Well established: The world championship has been organised since 1886 and our national federation was founded in 1904. Chess competitions are organised at every level: schools, universities, counties, cities, leagues, junior, senior, European, World, etc...

3) Physical fitness: Peak mental condition requires being in good physical condition. Players need to concentrate totally for up to seven hours. As the stress and tension builds up, blood pressure, pulse and respiration rates all increase. Contenders for the world championships have nutritionists and fitness coaches.

4) Behaviour code: Players are penalised for poor sportsmanship e.g. for refusing to shake hands with their opponent. Potential cheating is taken seriously...There is an anti-doping policy.

5) Olympic Recognition: Chess has been recognised as a sport by the International Olympic Committee since 2000. It was an event at the Asian Games in 2006 in Doha and again in Guangzhou in 2010. It is also being considered for inclusion in the Pan-American Games...

6) European Recognition: Chess is recognised as a sport in 24 out of 28 member states of the European Union...

7) Global game: Chess is played around the world irrespective of age, race, gender, income or language...

8) Mental component: All sports have a mental component. Ultimately competitive sports may be construed as strategy games differing only in their physical manifestation. Commentators are prone to similes such as: curling = chess on ice; bowls = chess on grass; snooker = chess with balls, and so on.

9) National accolade: World chess champions have won their national Sportsman of the Year competition including Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vishy Anand (India) and Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria).

10) Player ranking system. The player ranking system was developed for chess in 1960 and has been adopted by many other sports including American football, baseball, basketball, hockey, korfball, rugby and golf. Football and cricket use a related formula.

Foley concludes, "Chess has health benefits. There is an emerging awareness of the effectiveness of chess in delaying the onset of Alzheimers. Chess promotes social integration as players travel to a venue and interacting socially. Chess presents a welcome social activity to many children who are on the autistic spectrum. Many Aspergers children find chess opens up for them a whole new world which conventional sport does not. For many adults, chess provides them with meaning in their lives."

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Further Reading:

Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport

Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport, Part II

Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport, Part II

In Chess as Art, Chess as Violent Sport, I declared, "It is not accidental that top level chess is dominated by young players; chess is very strenuous and thus energy and physical conditioning often outweigh the value of accumulated experience/wisdom." The recent deaths of two players at the biennial Chess Olympiad (hosted this year by Tromso, Norway) further highlight the physically demanding nature of chess.

In Why Chess is Really an Extreme Sport, Stephen Moss details why chess tournaments are so much more demanding than the general public may realize:

At the Olympiad, participants were playing a game a day over a fortnight--11 rounds with just a couple of rest days on which to recuperate. For up to seven hours a day, they would be sitting at the board trying to kill--metaphorically speaking--their opponent, because this is the ultimate game of kill or be killed. In some positions, you can reach a point where both sides are simultaneously within a single move of checkmating the other. One false step and you will have lost. This imposes enormous pressure on players.

These days, some top players use psychologists to help them deal with this stress. They are also paying increasing attention to diet and fitness. I was staying in the same hotel as many of the world’s top players during the great annual tournament at Wijk aan Zee on the Dutch coast in January, and was struck by the regime adopted by Levon Aronian, the Armenian-born world number two, who started each day with a run followed by a healthy breakfast.

After listing the poor health habits that contributed to the early demise of some of the former Soviet Union's great chess players and the equally poor health habits typical of the average club level player, Moss concludes:

So next time someone suggests a nice, quiet game of chess, or paints it as an intellectual pursuit played by wimps, tell them they’ve got it all wrong: this is a fight to the finish played in the tensest of circumstances by two players who are physically and mentally living on the edge. We all need to get fitter to play this demanding game, and society should recognise it for what it is--a sport as challenging, dramatic and exciting as any other. Such recognition would be a tribute of sorts to the two players who sadly played their final games in Tromso.

The Best Thing About Sports: The Ever Changing, Unpredictable Narratives

We thought that we knew the story. Mike Tyson was an unstoppable force, a knockout machine so fearsome that he seemed to win many of his fights before they even began as his terrified opponents stared at him through saucer-sized, fearful eyes. Then Buster Douglas came along and Tyson looked less like an all-time great and more like the neighborhood bully who finally met someone who was not afraid of him.

We thought that we knew the story. John Elway and the Denver Broncos could never win the big one. Elway had a rocket arm and nimble feet but he was destined to come up short in the Super Bowl. Then Terrell Davis arrived, Coach Mike Shanahan tinkered with the offense and Elway won back to back Super Bowls as a stirring coda to a Hall of Fame career. 

We thought that we knew the story. The 2007 New England Patriots seemed to be the ultimate team of destiny, a squad that had recently won three Super Bowls in four years, had just completed the first 16-0 regular season in NFL history and was now poised to finish 19-0 by winning a fourth Super Bowl. Then Eli Manning and the New York Giants pulled off perhaps the biggest upset in Super Bowl history.

We thought that we knew the story. Tiger Woods was destined to shatter Jack Nicklaus' record for major championships, while Phil Mickelson was a talented but flawed player whose reckless approach would inevitably lead to thrilling moments followed by baffling choke jobs. The same thing was true of Woods that used to be said of Nicklaus: He knew that he was the best, his opponents knew that he was the best and he knew that his opponents knew. Woods never came from behind to win a major championship but he never needed to come from behind because he usually had lapped the field by Sunday. Chess Grandmasters once spoke of "Fischer Fear," referring to the way that Bobby Fischer intimidated other great players to such an extent that those players performed far below their normal standard against him; for many years it seemed like golf's best players suffered from "Woods Fear," collapsing down the stretch of tournaments at the mere sight of Woods prowling the back nine. Then Woods' personal life crashed--literally and figuratively--and he struggled to regain his former dominance; Woods may still believe that he is the best (or he may doubt that at some level, which could be part of his problem) but it is clear that his competitors no longer suffer from "Woods Fear."

Meanwhile, Mickelson--whose personal life seems to be the steady and grounded opposite of his free-swinging playing style--has figured out how to seize the big moments on Sunday at major championships as opposed to shrinking from those moments. Mickelson has won more majors since 2004 (five) than any golfer except for Woods (six) and he seems to be getting better with age, while Woods' game does not seem to be aging well; Woods used to be the ultimate finisher but in his past several majors he has started strongly only to falter down the stretch and it is unclear if the problem is physical, mental or some combination of both factors. It is a tribute to Woods' former greatness that despite his recent drought he still has won more majors in the past nine years than anyone else (and more than Mickelson has won in his entire career) but unless Woods undergoes some kind of revival the narrative of his career--and of his rivalry with Mickelson--will be much different than anyone could have imagined as recently as that fateful Thanksgiving weekend in 2009 when Woods' private life became a source of public mockery and derision.

The great thing about sports is that competition is the ultimate unscripted drama. We may think that we know the characters and we may think that we know the stories but people can change their lives and write new, previously unimaginable tales.