…I’m afraid I’m serious.
According to this AP Story, we may soon see chess at the Olympic Games.
Here’s the challenge: I dare anyone to try to convince me that this is a good idea.
Because, Chess is, if not a sport, at least a game, that requires a good deal of skill and practice. It’s played almost worldwide, it doesn’t require expensive equipment to play, and it is extremely competative.
And at least you get a definitive result - beats the hell out of gymnastics, diving, synchronised swimming etc that requires a judge’s score - if you can’t get an absolute result without a subjective decision (is that a word?), then it shouldn’t be at the olympics
They want more attention to be paid to chess in the form of corporate sponsorship. Can’t you picture it now? Diet Coke, the offical drink of the US Chess Team.
I’ve got a pretty broad definition of what I’ll consider a sport. It has to inolve some sort of physical activity and skill. I’d even include things like golf as that involves a great amount of hand eye coordination and practice. But chess doesn’t fit the bill in my opinion.
Marc
No way. Gatorade would snap up that concession.
I wanta see slow-motion film of sweaty chess nerds sweating out multicolored electrolytes!
Heh, I saw this on my local news, along with the side issue of “should they still drug test?” The “no” people offered that drug tests were meant to show steroid use, or speed or whatever, and none of those would help a chess player, so why bother?
What are those little bastards hiding, s’what I wanna know!
ANYway, I can’t see that chess belongs in the olympics even though I love the game; it just doesn’t seem to embrace what I picture olympics to be about: physical skill and/or ability.
Even though there is a great element of skill involved in chess, I don’t think it should be an Olympic event. I don’t think a lot of events should be in the Olympics, either - things such as ballroom dancing, gymnastics, etc, which depend on a subjective judge are too uncertain in my eyes.
I’d rather see events that can be objectively measured. Who can run the fastest, who can throw an object the farthest, who can lift the heaviest weight. It would remove (from my admittedly subjective viewpoint) risks of national bias and would be a ‘purer’ form of the Games. However, with that strict definition, I’ve probably excluded all team games from the Olympics, since though the score at the end of the game can be objective, the referee calls during the game are necessarily subjective.
Someone once argued that the games that I’d exclude would have their world championships anyway, and why not hold them in the Olympics anyway? With that point of view, any event should then be allowed into the Olympics - cheerleading, if you will. (I’m not arguing on whether it’s a sport or not. If you think it is, I agree with you. If you think it’s not, I agree with you.)
Give me physical, single-person events that you can measure, and I’m a happy man.
First of all, I must point out that I first saw this report on The Daily Show, a show widely regarded as,
“the smartest show on television.” You should have seen the report they did… hee hee! 
Regarding the whole drug angle, I recall someone here pointing out a while back that lots of athletes take drugs for unusual reasons. For example, sharpshooters take bloodthinners (illegally) to slow their heart rate because an ill-timed cardiac beat can throw off their aim!
I didn’t want this to become the old “What is a Sport” Debate, but I guess, upon reflection, that it is. I mean, I agree with LNO regarding things like dancing… wasn’t that just an exhibition? They’re not going to make it a competition in the next Games, are they?
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall hearing about a lot of ties when grandmasters play against each other. The matches can spread over weeks between just a couple of players. Unless they change the format, I don’t think that chess would be a good fit in the Olympic games.
Even if the format was changed, there’s still a problem. I was under the impression that for a game to be considered for inclusion in the Olympics, it has to represent a challenging physical activity. Chess is primarily mental, and so are those that propose it for inclusion in the Olympics.
They don’t call themselves the Olympic SPORTS, do they? No. They are the Olympic GAMES. If they are going to do ballrom dancing, trampoline, WALKING (no kiding,) than chess should be olympic.
What I really want to see is backwards hurdling. That would be a sight to see.
-Soup
From what I’ve seen, those who argue for its inclusion claim that the physical nature of chess derives from the endurance required to retain acute mental acumen over hours and hours.
With that, I would like to propose armchair quarterbacking as an Olympic event. Not only does it require mental activity (ranging from “Christ on a crutch, that ref is blind!” to “C’mon! He’s open! He’s OPEN!”) but it also has a high level of physical difficulty, in that you need to be able to surf between multiple games on the remote control and still be able to rush to the fridge or the bathroom between plays.
Just two things:
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Best decision procedure I ever heard for the sport/game dichotomy was: “If you can smoke while your doing it, it’s not a sport.”
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Alan Turing invented a game known as “round the house chess”. Simply, while your opponent ponders his move, you run round the house. Get back before he makes his move, and you get another move yourself - before his. Could this be adapted for the Olympics? And would your strategy be to train chess players to sprint, or sprinters to play chess?
Sure it could. Just replace the house with a standard 1/4 mile track. That should make for some entertaining TV, as well as an interesting new sponsorship opprotunity for athletic shoes and Gatorade.
This is as plausible and ludicrous (IMO as “Olympic Bridge”, which I believe is slated to appear in the next Summer Games.
If we’re going to go this route, when are we going to make video games part of the Olympics? The US Quake Team can just go to Quakecon to recruit players…
So’s Bridge, and that would at least give my granny a chance of competing in the olympics.
I’d love to play Devil’s advocate here, but for the life of me I really can’t think of a good argument for having Chess as an Olympic sport.
Nah, it’ll never happen. The moment they start testing for Caffeine as a performance enhancing drug every player would be disqualified.
I agree with soup_du_jour. The Olympics showcase games, not necessarily sports.
I see no reason to deny them access to the Olympics merely because it’s not athletic. Usually, the less athletic it is, the less likely someone will watch it. So then NBC will give 5 minutes of coverage to is at 2 a.m., but that doesn’t mean it should be played.
Heck, I think Bridge is going to be demonstrated at the next olympics.
Also, while I suppose this supports the argument for allowing chess in, I see no reason why we should bar events like figure skating or gymnastics merely because the results are subjective. First, is there any other way to rate the event? Second, the competitors understand and accept that this is the way their event will be judged well before they enter.
Finally, did you know the Olympics webpage has a link to the World Anti Doping Agency? What does everyone have against us?
Because some people…
[Jack Nicholson]
**CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! **
[/Jack Nicholson]
Is there any other way to rate the event? No.
The competitors understand and accept this? Good for them. That doesn’t make it an Olympic sport in my eyes.
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t convince me that a competition based on aesthetics rather than on hard-and-fast physical results should qualify. (Of course, I don’t make the rules, so that’s really irrelevant.) I don’t see any real difference between figure skating and, say, sculpting. They both take a great deal of skill, but the end result cannot be quantified.
Part of my problem may stem from having to depend on a potentially-biased source to determine the winners, rather than hypothetically being able to measure it myself. If five people throw a javelin, it’s easy to determine who threw it the furthest, compared to watching five people figure-skate and decide who was the best.
Eliminating controversy, that’s me.
let 'em do it! It’s no skin off of anyone’s nose, anyway. And it’s great for the game of chess.
However, the admission of chess as an Olympic event suggests other endeavors that are being heinously ignored by the IOC as potential Olympic events (from the ridiculous to the sublime):
**1)QUARTERS **- Divide the contestants up into weight classes, like weightlifting & boxing do. Choice of drink is important, too - Natural Light could lead to long, protracted matches, while Samichlaus or Bicardi 151 would make for better TV.
**2)PENCIL-CRACK **- Standard Scripto yellow #2s only!
**3)SKEEBALL **- 2000 tickets can buy a gold medal.
**4)AIR HOCKEY **- Slapping down to stop the puck is expressly prohibited.
**5)FOOSBALL **- No spinning the players!
**6)BILLIARDS **- This is one I have seriously wondered why it was not in the Olympics. Four disciplines can be played: Snooker, Straight Pool, 8-ball, and 9-ball.