Is Chess more of an Adult's or Kid's Game ??

So are Kids here playing an Adult's Game or are Adult's here playing a Kid's Game ?

I know Chess like most Games r for Everyone but Which do u think it's more of and Why ?

Well from experience I know that more adults play it competitvely in otb chess than kids

It's a game for life, whatever that means.

Yeah but then you have to define chess player.  Is a 600 rated 8 year old who can't remember how knights move a chessplayer?

"It's more of an adult game due to, on the whole, adults understanding and playing the game at a far deeper level than most kids." - I know exactly what you mean, but couldn't that be said of, say, pokemon?

That's true, understanding or the amount of pleasure from the game doesn't make it belong to one group or the other.

To play chess all you need to know are the rules, so it's for anyone 6-7 years of age and up.  How good you are and how seriously you take it doesn't equal how much you enjoy the game.

If you mean at the highest level, it's a game for young adults, 19-40 or so, it would be interesting to average the ages of the top 10-20 players.

Wow .. ur Rating's real high ,RealityMate !

Certainly in terms of playing at the top level, players have a definite shelf life.  Whether this is because of the stamina needed to compete or the fact that the mind will deteriorate as the years roll by, I don't know.  Chess is also similar to languages (and virtually everything else, I guess) in that if you don't learn when young, you're never going to fully learn. 

Culturally and historically, the game has been seen as an adult one and it would be interesting to see how much of the boom in scholastic chess can be traced back to Fischer-Spassky.  I don't know if Erasmus High had a chess club when Fischer was there, but I've never seen it mentioned.  Anyone know?

It's a game for kids and adults who never really grew up.

Adults most likely. Right now chess seems most popular with people between 35-70 due to the rise adn fall of chess popularity through the sixties and early seventies

GMs are actually getting younger and younger. There are more of them between 25-30 than there were 30 years ago.

I'd say chess is more of an adults game, but there are a lot of gifted kids that are extremely good at chess at ages as young as 10 and 11. Either way, kids can play against adults in tournaments, which makes an interesting twist on the usual age seperations in other sports.

im 14 and i know a whole load of kids who play chess! so definately not an adult sport atm. but historically probabally was more adult based

Is breathing an adult or child activity?  To me a child's game is one you typically abandon as you grow older.  On the other hand, chess is much easier to learn as a child, it is very hard to become a good chess player if you didn't learn the game as a child.

So you an your mates expect to give up chess once you get older?  Or I guess you said at the moment.  So supposedly you and the kids you know set the trend for the rest of us?

I knew someone would get me on that.  Go, Infernape!

I agree, Kids (like me) now are very competitive and chess is being played a lot by kids nowadays. Kids are also evolving to being very strong players.

 If his rating is 600, that's not bad.  He can remember how knights move, and yes, he is really a chess player.

I think  a "kids' game" is one you outgrow as you grow up, like Candyland or Hi Ho Cherry-o.  An "adults' game" is one with rules too complex for kids to learn.

If that's the case, Chess is neither.

To get on a favorite soapbox of mine, I have occasionally called Chess a kids' game as it is played in the United States, because of certain ways that the Chess culture has evolved.  Most importantly, tournaments are too danged expensive.  I know several people who say they would play in them, except for the cost.  However, they are willing to send their kids to them, because they see it as a teaching experience for them.  Around here, and I suspect elsewhere, there are more kids than adults playing in tournaments, and that would probably be true even if you got rid of tournaments played specifically as part of high school or grade school chess programs sponsored by the schools.

Well of course with a rating of 600 they know how knights move... most of the time anyway... it's just they forgot to check and thought it was your bishop sitting on c6, otherwise they wouldn't have taken that pawn.

I like this explanation, I'll +1 to that.

This may be a silly question, but have the kids memberships surpassed the adults yet in USCF?  If not then I know it's at least close.  There's a high rate of turn over though... enroll a few bus loads of grade-schoolers and where are they in 2 years?  Not playing chess anymore.  Scholastic chess is more about an extra-curricular scholastic activity than it is about chess... but I suppose they're still chess players.  The tourneys I go to have more adults than kids... but the few Jr high and high-schoolers that do come are quite strong, as you'd expect (the ones that graduate to adult tournaments... the ones actually interested in chess).

All this is to say, I think if you eliminated school sponsored/scholastic chess there would definitely NOT be more kids than adults in chess.

 I agree halfway.  I never go to school sponsored tournaments, but most of the kids I play against got their start in such tournaments.  However, most of the adults I know in Chess got their start in such tournaments, they just did it several years ago.  If you eliminated all those extra curricular Chess clubs, I think organized Chess would collapse.

However, if you simply go to an ordinary USCF rated tournament around here and counted the kids, and counted the adults, the numbers would be close.