Did anyone play organized sports?

[T.D.]

I'm not getting into whether or not chess is a sport. It obviously is not.

Paul asserted its "bloodthirsty" I called bullshit and see no reason to change my mind after watching that video.

You may call me a literalist, I don't care. Don't compare chess to boxing for blood thirstiness when no blood is spilled. Is it tense? Sure looks that way.

But until a chess babe loses an eye, it ain't bloodthirsty, and no one could possibly claim that it is.

I can't believe people missed out on this -- Chess-Boxing!

The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1821639,00.html

Not to get too Veblenesque, but a society that comes up with things like this, or paying people to play video games, or snowboard (and now off-road unicycling!) just doesn't have its priorities in order.

I'm very familiar with the "chessboxing" stories, as is Conn (and various other chess enthusiast posters who follow the Chessbase site).

It's always been clear to me that chessboxing is essentially an extravagant (I can't come up with the right quasi-synonym for "degenerate" that I've been searching for) performance art spectacle cooked up for jaded urbanites. There's a large element of tongue-in-cheek to the Chessbase coverage.

[T.D.]

I note that there is a movement to have chess made an Olympic sport...

Should Chess Be an Olympic Sport?

This movement has previously surfaced, but was unsuccessful. Ironically, the "Chess as Olympic Sport" campaign encountered bitter resistance from many chessplayers, who balked at the stringent IOC/WADA drug-testing regimen (relatively moderate doses of caffeine, for instance, would be verboten).

A lot of chessplayers are nonconformists (no shit, Sherlock!), and vehemently opposed to bureaucratic testing. And there were serious cost implications: for instance, American FIDE- [international chess federation] rated tournaments would have been required to conduct costly dope testing, which organizers couldn't be expected to afford.

[Royal Oak]

I've played competitive cricket for the past 3 years. I played at school, with a complete lack of success.

I started again partly to see if I could actually play, and partly to get out of the house on Sundays (I'm MWC). I've developed into a very mediocre player, playing for a poor team (3 wins from 40-odd games in the last 3 years), but I can't think of anything better to do on a hot sunny day.

Grey, cool and damp days are a different matter....

I'll tell you what though, I very rarely watch cricket on TV any more, and I used to be glued to it.

Edited November 26, 2008 by rdavenport

[Dave James]

A bit off topic perhaps, but what bothers me a fair amount in youth sports these days is making sure everyone gets a trophy, like there are no losers, you're a winner just for competing. Talk about life lessons. Seems to me you're doing kids a disservice when you pretend that there isn't any difference between winning and losing. They're going to find that out for themselves soon enough, so why perpetrate this charade just because they're kids. IMO.

Up over and out.

[Jazzmoose]

Competitive chess.

Don't laugh. It's as bloodthirsty as boxing.

Sorry but unless you have blood-splattered pieces, I call "bullshit".

I must admit, I've never seen anyone's ear almost get detached from their head in chess...

[Jazzmoose]

A bit off topic perhaps, but what bothers me a fair amount in youth sports these days is making sure everyone gets a trophy, like there are no losers, you're a winner just for competing. Talk about life lessons. Seems to me you're doing kids a disservice when you pretend that there isn't any difference between winning and losing. They're going to find that out for themselves soon enough, so why perpetrate this charade just because they're kids. IMO.

Up over and out.

Well, if they wise up, the kids will tell the adults to shove the trophies up their collective ass and go have some fun.

[connoisseur series500]

When Paul explains how competitive chess is eager for or marked by the shedding of blood, violence or killing, then I'll withdraw my claim of "bullshit".

You're just being literal-minded. Psychologically, it's gory stuff.

This is it exactly.

Part of the definition is "a desire for violence." Well, it fits chess as much as it does boxing, only the violence lies in breaking down your opponent's ego. If you were to say to Sugar Ray Leonard that boxing is just violence and blood, he would laugh in your face. Boxers such as he enter fights believing that their technique defends them against harm. Fights often end violently (including Sugar Ray's) but chess ends violently as well.

Even though Irina Krush is a professional, I bet it took her a few weeks to recover from that loss in the Woman's championship, just as it takes a boxer several weeks to recover. Just because she wasn't physically abused doesn't mean that violence wasn't involved. Her ego was temporarily crushed. To make an analogy, people suffering from serious depression are considered "sick and in need of hospitalization." They may not be physically sick in the same way as someone with a fractured arm, but the medical profession knows better and classifies them as seriously ill and in need of equal if not more attention.

I am not interested in discussions dealing with whether chess is a sport or not. Who cares? But my point is that it is as bloodthirsty as boxing. In fact, the parallels between the two "sports" are uncanny. They are not team sports, and the contestant is on his own. He tries to breakdown his opponent both mentally and physically--yes the two are connected. Our mental wellbeing does not exist independently of our physical being.

The likely winner of a chess match isn't necessarily the most intelligent person just as the winner of a boxing match is not necessarily the strongest physically. There is art and technique involved; but mainly it comes down to the win to will. Sugar Ray said that he won his fights because he wanted to win just a little more than the other guy did. Similarly, chess is not for gentle souls. Gentle and intelligent people don't last long in competitive chess. They do other things. It is simply too violent for their tastes.

Madness runs through the game's best players. They tend to become highly paranoid. The paranoia comes from the belief that they are always defending their ego against other players. Others are out to not checkmate them but to destroy their egos and world construct. It is very telling that few competitive chess games ever end in actual checkmate. People resign ahead of it; the actual end is too painful and only someone who didn't commit their ego and drive into the game would actually play it out to checkmate. When you devote several hours to the game at hand; and have invested your entire ego and view of life into the game, then it is absolutely crushing to lose.

Again, I can see how someone like Dan is oblivious to this, as he hasn't played high level tournament chess. No doubt to him, chess is some gentlemanly game played by aristocrats. Well that's far from the case. It is a very bloodthirsty sport or art, or whatever. It is definitely COMPETITION; and it likely doesn't appeal to more gentle and intelligent people like Tom Storer, because the need to win is an absolute requirement for high results in the game.

Myth 1: the best chess players are the most intelligent

Myth 2: the best boxers are the strongest

[connoisseur series500]

Here's a great video that illustrates my point. This is a blitz game played between two grandmasters. It isn't as openly emotional as the Krush-Zatonskih game, but the testosterone is flying bigtime. The two not only look like they want to tear off the other's head but actually try to through chess moves.

Take note that at the :58 second mark of the video, Akhobian grabs a queen in anticipation of an eventual pawn promotion. Nakamura glares and says, "you kidding?" and grabs one as well.

Tell me these guys aren't bloodthirsty, Dan.

Edited November 27, 2008 by connoisseur series500

[James]

As a raw freshman in high school the coach's eyes lit up when he saw me. Why? Because at the time I was 4' 8" and 84 pounds. His dreams for finding a flyweight had finally come true! Sadly for him, I hated the sport. Loved the training part

(cross-country running, rope climbing etc.) but hated the grappling with sweaty dudes in stifling hot rooms part. The fact that a junior just ten pounds heavier than me pinned me in less than four seconds didn't help either.

Then it was on to soccer, swimming and water polo. I enjoyed modest success in water polo, since I grew up in the water, had great stamina and my short stature wasn't the drawback it was in other sports. Pretty much sucked at the rest.

[rockefeller center]

1:17 til end: looks like the players next to Akobian | Nakamura got slighty distracted from their own match.

[Dan Gould]

Here's a great video that illustrates my point. This is a blitz game played between two grandmasters. It isn't as openly emotional as the Krush-Zatonskih game, but the testosterone is flying bigtime. The two not only look like they want to tear off the other's head but actually try to through chess moves.

Take note that at the :58 second mark of the video, Akhobian grabs a queen in anticipation of an eventual pawn promotion. Nakamura glares and says, "you kidding?" and grabs one as well.

Tell me these guys aren't bloodthirsty, Dan.

Sorry, not feeling it. And aside from the glance, when are they even looking at each other? They both stare at the pieces almost exclusively.

And funny how you wrote about resigning games instead of going to checkmate - that certainly makes a helluva big difference with boxing, where it is extremely rare for anyone to quit on the stool. They are more likely to get knocked out or have the ref stop the fight.

An alternative description might be that people who make chess their lives invest so much in it that it is crushing to lose. Couldn't that be said of other competitive sports? Doesn't make the competition "blood thirsty".

[Jazzmoose]

Again, I can see how someone like Dan is oblivious to this, as he hasn't played high level tournament chess. No doubt to him, chess is some gentlemanly game played by aristocrats.

I think you're missing Dan's point, not vice versa. He doesn't think chess is a gentlemanly game played by aristocrats. He thinks chess is a game. Period. What you are describing applies to ALL games, sports, etc. whether you approach them that way or not. When I was a kid a lot of people refused to play Monopoly with me, because when I played I was out to completely humiliate my opponents. It's the only way I knew to play. But I didn't delude myself into thinking I was playing a bloodthirsty sport.

[connoisseur series500]

You're not convinced. Well that's okay.

I know better because I participate in it, and have felt and given out the violence.

btw, they don't look at each other in part due to the guarding of one's own ego. You don't want to show fear or hesitancy to your opponent.

Incidentally, I'm a good chessplayer, but if I were to face either of these players in a rated game, I would be so afraid that I would likely be already beaten before sitting down, just as Marvin Hagler or Mike Tyson had already beaten their opponents before the fight started.

Same intimidation.

Edited November 27, 2008 by connoisseur series500

[connoisseur series500]

Again, I can see how someone like Dan is oblivious to this, as he hasn't played high level tournament chess. No doubt to him, chess is some gentlemanly game played by aristocrats.

I think you're missing Dan's point, not vice versa. He doesn't think chess is a gentlemanly game played by aristocrats. He thinks chess is a game. Period. What you are describing applies to ALL games, sports, etc. whether you approach them that way or not. When I was a kid a lot of people refused to play Monopoly with me, because when I played I was out to completely humiliate my opponents. It's the only way I knew to play. But I didn't delude myself into thinking I was playing a bloodthirsty sport.

No you miss the point.

You can lose a game of monopoly and walk away ego intact the next day. Same with a basketball game or whatever. But boxing and chess are different. You are forced to rebuild yourself--something intrinsic within yourself afterwards.

When you lose a game of chess after investing your ego and years of study and belief in your thought processes, you are forced to reevaluate the way you think. It is very painful and sometimes violent. This is so because you can't blame a teammate for losing or blame fate, or blame luck or whatever. Boxing and chess are unique in the sense that you are thrown out there to face yourself and your opponent in the battle. Luck and the help of teammates are absent. I believe these two sports are very similar, only one is physical and the other mental.

Suppose you were forced to reevaluate your entire 40+ years of thinking, Moose. How would you feel? Well chess does that.

I'm not at the highest levels. I can lose a game and walk back to my daily life, but I'm not a chess professional. It would be different if I was. Chess professionals have learned to be as objective about themselves as much as possible, but often they go mad after their career ends (as Bobby Fischer did.) And if they don't go mad, they certainly become strange and eccentric and definitely not "normal."

Edited November 27, 2008 by connoisseur series500

[rockefeller center]

Boxing and chess are unique in the sense that you are thrown out there to face yourself and your opponent in the battle. Luck and the help of teammates are absent.

Unique? No way.

[Quincy]

Boxing and chess are unique in the sense that you are thrown out there to face yourself and your opponent in the battle. Luck and the help of teammates are absent.

Unique? No way.

Batter vs. pitcher in baseball. Golf. Tennis...

[rockefeller center]

Boxing and chess are unique in the sense that you are thrown out there to face yourself and your opponent in the battle. Luck and the help of teammates are absent.

Unique? No way.

Batter vs. pitcher in baseball. Golf. Tennis...

Fencing, ...

[papsrus]

Edited November 27, 2008 by papsrus

[Dave James]

Not exactly the same as getting flattened by Ray Lewis. If one of these guys wound up and fired a knight off the other guy's forehead as hard as he could, it probably wouldn't leave a red mark.

Up over and out.

[connoisseur series500]

Boxing and chess are unique in the sense that you are thrown out there to face yourself and your opponent in the battle. Luck and the help of teammates are absent.

Unique? No way.

Batter vs. pitcher in baseball. Golf. Tennis...

Fencing, ...

True enough, but the investment of self in a boxing bout or chess match is greater than in the other sports. You can lose a tennis match or fencing match without having to question who you are fundamentally, or at least the question isn't as profoundly personal. When you lose a chess match at the highest levels, you cannot walk away without some damage about who you ARE. I imagine fencing is technique and willpower. Tennis the same. Pitching the same. A loss in either of these games/sports doesn't lead you to question who you are in the most profound fundamental way. There is a difference. In that sense, chess is even more brutal than boxing. You don't separate your view of the world from your chessgame. It is all connected. You don't separate who you ARE from your chess game. That's why tennis players don't go mad. Chessplayers do. There is less or little separation between the sport and who you are.

I have more separation because I am not a professional; but I do invest a lot of who I am when I play a rated game. As a result, there is some psychological damage afterwards. In boxing, it's a little different, as you invest yourself physically in the most fundamental way. I suppose football might be similar, but you've got teammates and coaches involved. It's not the same one to one nakedness.

[connoisseur series500]

We all walk in our little worlds with our little personal viewpoints. Sometimes these viewpoints are challenged in discussion, and it might lead to some degree of reevaluation. But it is also easy to make excuses. "She didn't quite get my point," or "it's too hard to put into words." But people can carry these viewpoints throughout their entire lives undisturbed through their endeavors at work, in the home, or in competition.

But when you play serious chess, and invest your sum total of experience and beliefs into it (as serious chessplayers do) then your world gets rocked in a major fashion when you lose. You cannot make excuses or rationalize it away. There is something WRONG with you in some way. You must acknowledge that your opponent is superior to you. You can still rationalize to some extent: "my concentration wavered briefly and I lost but I had the better game," or "I lost the game in time pressure but my game was better," etc. We all can make excuses. I'm just saying that these excuses hold little water in the game of chess. It's all about you in a deep fundamental and profound way. People who deceive themselves with excuses, don't last long in serious competition.

I'm not saying that chess is greater than anything else. I stand by my statement that it is as bloodthirsty as boxing. There is also a remarkable similarity between the two sports. Posters here are arguing that you get physically hurt running into Ray Lewis or whatever. So what? That's not my argument. Chess is violent even if it is mentally violent. It is so violent that many of its best players became insane.

[papsrus]

True enough, but the investment of self in a boxing bout or chess match is greater than in the other sports. You can lose a tennis match or fencing match without having to question who you are fundamentally, or at least the question isn't as profoundly personal. When you lose a chess match at the highest levels, you cannot walk away without some damage about who you ARE. I imagine fencing is technique and willpower. Tennis the same. Pitching the same. A loss in either of these games/sports doesn't lead you to question who you are in the most profound fundamental way. There is a difference. In that sense, chess is even more brutal than boxing. You don't separate your view of the world from your chessgame. It is all connected. You don't separate who you ARE from your chess game. That's why tennis players don't go mad. Chessplayers do. There is less or little separation between the sport and who you are.

I have more separation because I am not a professional; but I do invest a lot of who I am when I play a rated game. As a result, there is some psychological damage afterwards. In boxing, it's a little different, as you invest yourself physically in the most fundamental way. I suppose football might be similar, but you've got teammates and coaches involved. It's not the same one to one nakedness.

Not to be contentious, but it seems to me that chess is a game of strategy. What the players are trying to do is defeat an opponent's strategy -- in a rather cold, calculated way. How closely one associates one's "self" with a given strategy seems to me to be a secondary matter -- not an essential tool of the game.

And I'm not convinced about the psychological weight you give to a boxer's sense of "self" or the investment he might have in a given outcome. In fact, in general, it's my belief that its often the fans, not the athletes, who invest way too much of themselves in their teams. Often, well-paid athletes can move past defeat quite comfortably.

EDIT: A further thought on this psychological aspect to competition. One might argue that extreme physical endurance causes the greatest psychological stress -- I'm thinking of marathon runners or tri-atheletes who must battle what amounts to a survival instinct: the mind telling them to stop subjecting their bodies to extreme physical stress.

Edited November 27, 2008 by papsrus

[rockefeller center]

It is so violent that many of its best players became insane.

Guess it's all speculation and I don't have evidence either way anyway. More opinions from other chess people:

http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/20...nd-madness.html

http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/20...-yet-again.html

I knew it all along that I don't have the mental stamina and will power to turn this into a tennis thread. Time to weep and question my existence.

Edited November 27, 2008 by rockefeller center

[Neal Pomea]

I don't think the term "organized sports" is going to make much sense in the near future, if in fact it even makes much sense anymore to children today. Much of the leisure time of children in the United States, at least in the suburbs, is so organized that all sports will be organized sports. Kids may never know the other. They will scarcely believe that once upon a time children met informally, voluntarily, and completely unsupervised on a sandlot or an empty field and picked their own sides for teams and made up the rules as they went along, etc. --- unorganized sports-- as opposed to organized sports and extra-curricular activities assigned by protective but well meaning parents, complete with leagues and schedules and adult coaching and adult umpiring/refereeing, being chauffeured around the county in SUVs, etc., with parents' weekends subservient to the god that is the supposed betterment of their children

I played organized baseball, Little League and Babe Ruth League (10-15), in centerfield, first base, and catcher. Catcher was most fun by far! Ahead of my time I got to wear my cap backwards. And I alone on my team got to see the whole beautiful field in front of me, unlike the rest of our defense.

Edited November 27, 2008 by It Should be You

[Dan Gould]

Paul, aren't the highest levels of chess played in "best of" situations? That's my recollection of the Karpov matches and others. So how do any of them survive losing one game and come back.

Another observation:

At these high levels, aren't these player so knowledgeable that they can mount different strategies and attacks/defenses? If so, why would a single loss be so destructive? He beat you in one game - big f-ing deal! The analogy to baseball is, "we were too aggressive guys, swinging at his pitch. Next time let's make him throw strikes."

Here's another question, Paul - you say that losing is so painful, so destructive to one's sense of self. In tennis, the act of "tanking" is well known, from kids up to the professional ranks. You know you're going to lose, but you don't want to lose playing your best. So you make more and more unforced errors, lose the last set 6-0 or 6-1, and you've protected your fragile psyche by allowing yourself to say "I wasn't really trying". But I'm guessing this never ever happens in chess. Maybe some of the more fragile players should consider it.

Reading those links it seems quite apparent that mentally unhealthy people are the ones who rise to the highest level. Chess doesn't cause insanity, people tending toward insanity skew the population in that direction.