A sport is defined as a physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and is often engaged in competitively, so when most people think of chess they would often choose to believe that is a game rather than a sport. However, what most people don’t understand is all the dedication, hard work, and sweat that it takes to become a great chess player. Just because chess players don’t move 200 pound game pieces across a football field sized game board, doesn’t mean that they don’t invest 110% percent into the training and perfection of their sport. Chess, although it may not seem like it, is a sport just like any other because of the nature of its competiveness, strategy, and pure mental will.

Chess isn’t just a simple board game where you roll a dice to see how many spots you can move up. Chess isn’t a game won depending on the fate of the cards. Chess takes skills such as perception, ability to think quickly, and strategy much like any other sport. Just like football players must memorize complex maneuvers and create game plans that could change in a moment’s notice, chess players are faced with much the same dilemmas. It takes a mental resilience that is often not needed for other board games and chess players must work hard in order to become skilled experts at this game. For chess, whether the game is won doesn’t depend solely on luck or chance, it is based all on the player’s individual’s skills and ability to anticipate the next players move.


Some might argue that in order to be considered a sport, chess must be physically demanding, and in fact, it is. Chess may not exert your muscles to an absurd extent or cause you to sweat a great deal, but chess will strengthen your mind, probably one of the most important organs in our body. Studies found that after only 2 years of chess, students had shown an increase in their tests and reading performance scores in schools nationwide. Chess has the power to transform the human brain in unimaginable ways. And if we were to get technical, if you were to play a blitz game of chess where your queen moved 53 time, 3 squares per move, you could burn off an entire Big Mac!

Another form of modern chess that is played today is chess boxing. Chess boxing consists of two opponents facing off in a ring and playing 4 minute interval games of chess, then continuing on to go face to face and fight. One can win the match by either getting a check mate or a knockout. This is a sport of extremes. Extreme physical and mental fitness is a must in order to play this sport because by the time your done fighting a round, it takes the all the mental will you can muster to win the chess game. This is proof that chess is sport because anyone could fight a round and then play a game of chutes and ladders, but not anyone could have the capacity to also win a game chess after having all your energy drained.
Chess today has been recognized a sport by the International Olympic Committee and millions of tournaments are held every year. Whether or not chess is a sport is still debated today, but as chess does fit the criteria of the definition of a sport and is physically demanding, chess meets all the standards of a sport. The competitive nature and pure skill its takes to win a game of chess makes it very much a sport in the sense. It may be only a matter of years until chess makes it into the Olympics. We will just have to wait and see.