Rory Quinn is a chess player and blogger. Erin O'Reilly is a chess player who is campaigning for chess to be recognised as a sport. Úna O Boyle is the ICU Public Relations Officer. ISC is the Irish Sports Council.

In September 2010 the then Senator Dan Boyle initiated a debate in the Seanad on Chess being recognised as a sport to the then Minister Mary Hanafin. It is now time to reignite the debate.

• Chess is everything: Art, Science and Sport – Anatoly Karpov
• Chess is a sport, a violent sport – Marcel Du Champ

Rory Quinn

The debate over whether chess is a sport or not was reignited in the Norwegian press recently during the Anand – Carlsen match in Chennai. While some people may regard the question as a purely academic one, it can have practical implications also as I experienced recently.

I suppose it’s fair to say that if you took a random poll of people walking down the street in Ireland most of whom presumably would have little knowledge of, or interest in chess, the majority would say that they don’t believe that chess is a sport. Not having done it, I can’t say for sure but I expect that would be the result. Our notions of what is or isn’t a sport (at least in the Western world) seem to be very much tied to the amount of observable physical activity involved. It wasn’t always thus, go back a few hundred years and chess would certainly have been considered a sport. Language and how it is used can change significantly over time. It’s hard not to view organisations like Student Sport Ireland and the Irish Sports Council as being somewhat like King Canute trying to hold back the tide in their refusal to recognise chess as a sport here. Chess is recognised as a sport in 105 countries worldwide and increasing all the time. The European Commission, International Olympic committee, the international university sports organisation all recognise chess as a sport. FIDE, the world chess federation, has more countries affiliated to it than any other world sporting body apart from FIFA (soccer). In fact viewed from this perspective it is inevitable that chess will be recognised as a sport in Ireland. The only question is when this will happen.

But even given that all these countries and international bodies already recognise chess as sport some people still want to argue over whether chess is really a sport. The only way to answer this is to consider the definitions of the two terms. We can all agree on what chess is, but what about sport? There are various definitions of what a sport is depending on the source consulted. The Oxford dictionary defines it as an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. It is fairly obvious and can be easily verified that chess involves (quite a lot of) skill and is very competitive. It is over the physical activity element that arguments tend to arise. Well chess (as normally played) certainly requires some element of easily observable physical activity, albeit not a lot. Note the emphasis on easily observable in the previous sentence. For if we dig a little deeper we can see that the physiological demands of top level chess are more considerable than generally thought. You can read Kevin O Connells interesting dissertation Practical Recommendations to Chess Players from Sports Science for a summary of research in this area. See also Roberto Bagliones paper on Nutritional Practices of Chess Grandmasters which was covered on Chessbase back in 2007.

Of particular interest is the work of Helmut Pfleger, himself a chess grandmaster and doctor, who measured participants physiological reactions during a grandmaster tournament in 1979 in Munich and found that competitors had comparable physiological reactions to those in other sports in the light athletics class e.g. golf, shooting. Also interesting is Hollinsky's work which looked at the levels of stress hormones in the blood of chess players during competitive play. This showed increases comparable with other sports considered far more physical e.g. cycling, tennis and soccer. I think this and other research shows that to play chess at a very high level requires good physical stamina and why most top players have some sort of fitness regimen incorporated into their training routine. In Kevin O Connell's paper he recounts conversations with chess players who also played other sports at a high level, one a former Norwegian international football player (I presume this is GM Agdestein) and the other a Chilean tennis player who made it into the World’s top 50 tennis players and both said that chess was a harder game physically than either tennis or football.

There is also evidence that expert chess players show different brain functioning on domain specific tasks than do novice or non chess players. See for example this paper. I would also argue for difference in brain form too due to intense practice (see for example my comments on The Talent Code) but I don’t know if this has been demonstrated specifically in chess players.

When people see a great soccer player like Messi or tennis player like Federer they marvel at their physical feats but their muscles are only doing what they are instructed to. Doubtless you could find a stronger or fitter soccer player than Messi but none as skilled. Messis skill results from difference in brain form/function due to intense practice. And so it is with top chess players, it is just that their skill is manifested on the arena of the chessboard as opposed to the soccer pitch. This post has gotten rather long so time to cut it short for now but essentially I have tried to describe why I believe chess is a sport. To those who disagree…over to you!

Erin O'Reilly

The ISC Act 1999 is in need of review. In the Act the definition of 'recreational sport' states 'all forms of physical activity which through casual or regular participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being and at forming social relationships.'

I believe this definition is out dated as we are aware now that mental and cognitive well being is just as important as physical well being. Research suggests that social engagement, intellectual stimulation and physical activity are key factors in cognitive health (Butler, Forette and Greengoss, 2004). In studies of older people the research also shows that higher participation levels in mentally stimulating activities such as playing games and crosswords are associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease (Fabrigoule et.al 1995) (Wilson et al. 2002). Chess provides cognitive stimulation and therefore a healthy mind.

Using the definition I would like to ask how snooker or horse-shoe throwing are considered sports and chess is not when each involve arm movements?

I recently tried to set up a chess club in Dublin City University and was unable to as it is not recognised as a sport by ISC. I am writing as a chess player and as a voting citizen to request that the ISC Act 1999 is reviewed and that chess is to be recognised as a recreational and competitive sport.

The Irish Sports Council

In a recent communication with Erin O'Reilly the department of Tourism and Sport received communication from the ISC. This is what they said:

The ISC acknowledges that chess demonstrates many features of a Governing Body including its organisational structure, the number of participants, participation in schools, club structure, competition structure and both national and international competitions. While chess manifests some of the criteria used to recognise sport, it does not fulfil all the criteria e.g. technical, tactical, physical, physiological, outlined by the Council of Europe definition of sport by which the ISC assert recognition and therefore would not afford recognition of a governing body of sport.