Is poker a sport?

[CodeBreaker]

By definition, a sport requires an athletic activity. So no. Neither are video games.

So chess isn't a sport?

 

[weed]

let's ask @Seano what he thinks.

he believes there's no skill required to play poker.

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/...ll-or-luck-poll.2934429/page-2#post-103219383

 

[mjmj]

So chess isn't a sport?

No, it's a game. Has anyone ever called chess a sport?

 

[Madmick]

No, it's a game. Has anyone ever called chess a sport?

Yes, there was a concerted effort starting nearly 25 years ago to refer to the grandmasters as "athletes", I shit you not. It eerily foreshadowed what some have tried to do with professional video gamers. Recall that the first major eSport league was actually called the CPL aka "Cyberathlete Professional League". Again: I shit you not.

So tryhard, and so counterproductive. I think the organizers thought at the time that if you sell gamers as athletes it would be more acceptable to the mainstream. What they didn't realize is that the reason athletes are revered has nothing to do with that. Athletes are every bit as useless as pro gamers or game streamers. At the end of the day, they have no utilitarian purpose beyond providing entertainment, and the business/industries they create for other laborers by virtue of that attraction.

Therein is what people really care about: the money. Just look at how suddenly professional gaming entered the mainstream consciousness once the story of a 16-year-old kid winning a $3 million dollar pot for the Fortnite World Cup happened. Everyone was talking about it. It created real buzz. It's not that any of those people give a shit about gaming, or play games themselves.

And why? The money.

It was always about the money. It's why athletes are celebrities. The overwhelming majority of people don't really give a shit who can kick or shoot a ball into a goal or hoop. Their attention is maintained thanks to the money. The money conveys the power and relevance they envy. I'm reminded of a lesson imparted by Martin Scorsese's character in his cameo in Robert Redford's incredible film Quiz Show (one of the greatest and most underappreciated movies of the 90's), and my God did it prove to be sage insight after what we saw with James Holzhauer and Ken Jennings here in the young 21st century.

To paraphrase, he tells our brilliant but naive protagonist, "The people never cared about the trivia. They don't care about the knowledge. They never tuned in to watch that. The thing that had them reaching for their remotes, kept them glued to the couch, was to see how high the money would go. They tuned in to watch the money."

 

[the ambush]

Yahtzee is not a sport. There lies your answer.

 

[MarkyMcFly]

I have an Oculus Rift that i often play Table Tennis Vr on, so I know a thing or two about sports and athletic displays. Poker is not a sport

 

[Seiryoku Zenyo]

It's just a game. A cards game used to gamble.

 

[surrealworlds]

Ugh....the word you are looking for is competition. It's a competition. Sport implies athletic competition with an emphasis on the athletic part. Chess, Poker, Videogames are not sports they are competitions.
Esports is a marketing term.

 

[PinkFlammingo]

A sport is an athletic competition.

Poker is just a competition.

 

[Clippy]

 

[Bargey]

It's a sport in the same sense that Monopoly, Yahtzee and video games are sports.

So in other words, not at all. They're games.

Was anything more than the first two replies needed?