Is chess a sport?

science has found that in critical situations (time trouble, won but complex position, etc.) chess players have a comparable surge of adrenalin like guys who do bungee jumping or paragliding.

Most Super GMs do extra sport like tennis, yoga etc to have a good physical fitness.

It is definitely a sport.

If you can play it while holding a beer in your hand, it's not a sport.

Sports like boxing hockey and basketball are similiar in terms of the  intensity, preperation, skill development like Chess.

I think Chess is a combination of boxing and running a tough mararthon it's absolutely a fight and a test of endurance and the nerves how much you can take.

You've either got the nerves to play this game or you don't people who have it crack like egg shells under the pressure.

Part Art, Part Science, Part Sport.  End of Story.

http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Grandmaster-II-Boris-Gulko/dp/1857446976/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388678594&sr=1-1-fkmr2&keywords=conversations+with+a+grandmaster

Compare page 17.

It's a board game, like Chutes & Ladders or Candyland.

Is Candyland a sport?

In the netherlands where I live, darts has been getting a lot of attention since the new world champion is dutch. 

That made me think, trowing a dart is barely more physically demanding than moving a chess piece, the walking can actually relieve pressure.

Professional chess players sit at a table for hours, this exhausts the mind but also the body, the two are connected really, a chess player won't be able to run a marathon after an intense game, even though he sat all the time.

So if we consider the link between the body and mind, how they depend on each other, then perhaps chess is a sport

Now I just happen to have this handy venn diagram on hand for just such an occasion:

Is running a marathon a sport?

I don't mean if you're a contender, but one of the 20,000 who enter the Comrades every year, only tring to make the 11 hour cut-off?

Is physical activity without a competitive element a sport?

thank you for ur diagram ,TheGrobe ,  interesting , since it does not have any fisical activity , a hoby , and as NZUHC , sais if u can play it while holding a beer bottle its not a sport , its a very interesting game ,  complicated ,  challenjing ,now u get tired after a tense game ,some get tierd after an houer drive , or having a big meal .

Hey now, this is my line.

As I always suspected, ever since it tried to co-opt the name "Football" from the US.

The beer determinant also overlaps nicely with the venn diagram's examples.

GM OTB competition is calorically equivalent to digging ditches.

And Caloric Expenditure is exhausting, as with any "sport."

This thread's question has been asked (and answered) about 15 times over the past 3 years.  Give it a rest, please.

I wish I could drink a beer and play chess, smoking a cigar.  Those where the good old Army days!  Now when I try and have my scotch at the board some one will complain, "Oh oh, he can't drink here there are children here, oh oh what about the children!" Like I'm gonna share with those little pukes!  I dare you to try it, go to your next chess match with a beer, some one will throw a fit over it!

Actually, it is officially a sport by the IOC.

I could swear it's been asked much more than that.

What about mental exertion? Everything else applies to chess,the competition and the entertainment. If the mind gets exhausted then the body does too which is why a lot of people are tired after long games. So if mental exertion also exhausts the body then isn't that to some extent physical exertion? Either way I think Bobby Fishcer said it best when he said "Chess is a great game. A game, and a sport for the mind."

Chess is officialy a sport.

What do you mean by "simply?"  There is nothing objectively superior about a sport, relative to a game.  If something just happens to fall into the latter category by virtue of cultural opinion, then so be it.