Just now I found an article titled "Why Chess is really an extreme sport", at the following link.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... reme-sport

It was published in 2014, but I think it should be posted here for discussion if it has not been already.

Herein are mentioned two Chess players that died, probably from the heavy demands on body and mind that a nail-biter game of Chess can impose on the player.

Given that Go is also a game that can, at its highest levels of play, impose heavy demands on body and mind, I wonder if it is possible to suffer physical ailments from playing very strenuous games of Go, especially if one is not in top shape.

I have trouble relating to that article. I just cannot imagine putting that much effort into a game of go. If should be played for enjoyment, not torture.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Some famous go player (Kageyama?) said that amateur go comes from pleasure while professional go comes from suffering. Given that it is clear that professional tournament go is physically demanding. Playing at professional levels also requires physical stamina, something many sports also demand. I suppose there could be consequences of over exertion playing go; one might be that your play itself gets worse from over-doing it.

If you are not convinced yet, just read Yasunori Kawabata's novel "The Master of Go", that describes the retirement match between Honinbo Shusai and Kitani Minoru in 1938.
Time limit : 40 hours per player.
Honinbo Shusai used 19 hours 57 minutes of thinking time, Kitani Minoru 34 hours 19 minutes, divided into 14 sessions. and the game proceeded until the end in spite of the master's serious health problems.

It seems according to those of you in support of this position, that your logic can be simplified down to "doing something for a very long time = sport". Let's explore other possible examples:

* staying in bed for 2 days
* sitting on the toilet for a long time
* reading the Game of Thrones series

etc. All sports by your standards.

No, neither Chess nor Go is a physical sport. The statement is nonsense on its face. You do not get lactic acid build-up from playing Go. Nor do you stress your cardio-pulmonary system.

Go requires intense concentration. Intense concentration over long periods of time is tiring. That's the end of it.

I disagree, it has been known for a long time that professional chess players need to do physical training to play at peak performance because extended concentration and stress takes both a physical toll on the body, and a mental endurance that can only be exerted with the help of physical exercise and training. Besides extending mental endurance excercise helps deal with increased heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline responses and other stress factors on the body that can occur in an intense game of chess. Extreme games have been known to make players physically ill and unable to continue.

Physical exercise helps the thinking process. Go and chess both require intense thinking, so naturally, physical exercise is beneficial for a good result.

Does this mean go is a physical sport? Depends on your definition of "physical sport", I suppose.

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be immersed

Heart rate sometimes goes through the roof.

Sweating, altered perception of sound, time and vision.

Dry mouth, difficulty keeping a steady hand.

Watching a horror movie is also not a physical sport.

There are a lot of similarities between sports competitions and go competitions and organization of training, but this does not make it a physical sport, it makes it a competitive endeavor.

I wouldn't call it a "physical" sport, but it is a sport that has a physical component to it. At least chess is rgulated by international organizatons that liscense and oversee sports organizations around the world. This is one of the reasons that the players in the World Chess Championship were required to be tested for doping like they do in other professional sports: due to international sports regulations.

Hi,
I would not define Go a physical sport, still it is for sure a sport.
I think that the definition of Mind Sport fits well and Go was included in the Olympics of Mind games since 2008 together with Bridge, Chess, Draughts (Checkers), and Xiangqi (Chinese chess): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Mind_Sports_Games

I think that the division of grades in Kyu/Dan classification that originated in Japan for Go ratings and became the standard for Martial Arts is a good point also to say that Go can be compared to a Martial Art itself as well.

The Italian Federation in the past had affiliated to the CNSA (National Coordination of Sports Association) a federation of not Olympic sports mainly partecipated by not Oplympic Martial Arts (Ju-Jitsu, Savate, Muay Thai, Aikido, Sambo, Kendo, Dragon Boat, Surf, Racquetball, Fitsball, Korfball, Air Sport, Flying Disc, Power Lifting, Body Building, Minigolf, Darts), as you can see half of the members are Martial Arts Federations.

Just my 2 cents,
Galation

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When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time.
Jonathan Hop - So You Want to Play Go?

Janice Kim, a 3 dan Korean professional, claims in her books "Learn to Play Go" that Go is considered a form of martial arts in eastern Asia .

Yes, I always heard that it was considered a martial art, but I do not consider martial arts to be sports. Neither does Wikipedia by the sound of it.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) like Ultimate Fighter, as well as full contact kickboxing and most other full contact martial arts, including possibly western boxing and Freestyle/ Roman-Greco wrestling are all considered sports, and they are all martial arts. Tai Chi even has a competitive full contact form. There are several martial arts in the Olympics including Judo. Just google, "is martial arts a sport".

Once again I mentioned full contact which Igo is not. Nevertheless I think it is still considered a sport though perhaps not a physical one. I know they have been lobbying to get Chess into the Olympics, but the thing that has been preventing it is that if they let Chess in, then they will have to allow a plethora of other games similar to Chess such as those perhaps mentioned by Galation in the Olympics of Mind Games. I would like to see it happen though.

I consider Chess and Go to be more physically strenuous than say physical sports like golf or bowling...

I guess it all comes down to semantics like mentioned in the post below, but I'll leave you with this

http://londonchessconference.com/a-question-of-sport/

I think these types of discussions always come down to semantics ("physical" in what way? "Sport" in what way?), so I'll just throw in my two cents with this:

While physical health can definitely helps one's go playing, I would not in any way consider it an athletic activity.

And a good rule of thumb is that if they need to argue semantics, then their position has no meaningful basis.

Lastly, I offer this dénouement: if Stephen Hawking in all his frailty can play Go, and via a computer interface he most certainly can, then Go is not a sport.

Call it the "Drew-Hawking Conjecture" if you like!

Hi,
I think that we can agree to the fact that GO is not a physical sport.
Following the second question arised: is GO a sport?, I made a fast research about the word "sport" in the dictionary and, to my dismay , I verified that the 1st definition recalls physical activity and only in the 2nd one refers to amusement activities.

This said, the dictionary stick to the most used meanings in common contests, but the "correct" and original meaning of a word is given by the etymology.
So I look the word "sport" in Wikipedia and found this explanation:
And from the same source:

With this definition: do you think that Go is in fact a sport ...only for amateurs/non professional players?

Please note that this distinction can be made to all professional sports like soccer or baseball

I personally think that IGO is more like to an inner research, to a Martial Art of the spirit and a way to follow (道 Do), but I understand that both a professional, scientific and sporty approach can be applied as well and that GO give me great amusement too

Galation

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When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time.
Jonathan Hop - So You Want to Play Go?

That is interesting because I have often thought to myself that professional sports are more business and entertainment than sport. In my own mind I have always associated the pleasure and leisure aspect, in a physical context, with sport.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

This thread sheds a new light on the length of some other threads in this forum. The length of this thread should be close to zero but apparently we still find a lot to discuss.