Chess, one of the oldest games in human history, has enjoyed a worldwide resurgence in the 2020s. Thanks to famous competitors such as Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, the newfound popularity of online venues like Chess.com and even the hit Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit,” chess has become an increasingly available pastime for casuals and die-hards alike.

Many play the game to exercise their minds and socialize with friends, but the spotlight remains fixed on a debate: Does chess qualify as a sport?  Members of the DePaul Chess Club were eager to weigh in with their opinions.

“Just because there’s no physical activity doesn’t mean it’s not a sport,” graduate student Nicholas Riback, who founded the club as an undergrad in 2018, said. “If you do the equivalent of what chess does to your mind to your body, it would be a very hard, stressful workout.”

An avid competitor who began playing chess with friends in high school, Riback noted that the game trained him to see other sports through a different lens.

For example, as Riback explained, the role of the pawns is similar to that of a defense in soccer, tasked with protecting the backline as strongly as possible. More versatile pieces like rooks, bishops and knights make up the equivalent of midfielders and strikers, responsible for making aggressive, game-changing offensive plays.

 “(The pieces) work together in unison like a team to get to one final goal,” Riback said. “They get from one side to another, similar to soccer, basketball or hockey.”

Junior David Kalat, a past club president who is now treasurer, agrees that chess should be considered a sport. He cites the presence of tournaments, coaches and practices — commonplace factors in traditional athletics. For him, chess is competitive.

“I get excited. I have a rush of emotions when I play it,” Kalat said.

Kalat, who’s played competitively since his senior year of high school, compares the game to one-on-one combat sports such as boxing, explaining that players must be able to “find opponents’ weak points,” “draw them out” and “punch in the right spot.”

In Kalat’s mind, chess is not only a sport, it is a form of art. “When I see amazing moves, crazy sequences, … it’s a burst of euphoria,” he said.

However, not all club members agree on the game’s legitimacy as a sport.

“Chess is more comparable to a video game than a sport because you actually don’t do anything physical. It’s just moving the pieces,” argued Mohid Siddiqui, a DePaul sophomore who’s the club’s current president. “That’s why people from all age groups and genders can compete against each other.”

Siddiqui agrees that the game requires extreme mental effort and credits the top competitors in the world with seemingly inhuman processing abilities. But, he added, there are less stressful and more casual ways to enjoy chess beyond the long, untimed contests.

Specifically, he noted “blitz” and “bullet” game modes, which offer chess players time restraints that prevent players from overanalyzing every move. While this game mode allows more opportunities for missteps and mistakes, it keeps the game fast-paced, fun and bearably stressful.

“If you do anything at a competitive level, you’re going to feel some stress,” Siddiqui said. “That stress is also why I enjoy (chess) so much.”

Like many individual Olympic-style sports, chess features standardized scoring and rankings so any citizen can compare their abilities to the best in the world.

Using the Elo rating system — a common metric utilized in other zero-sum games such as basketball, soccer and football — chess players are able to compare their abilities to different players worldwide. Similarly, anyone could swim a 100-meter freestyle at their local pool and compare it to the best times in the world.

While members of DePaul’s club rank respectfully in the 1500-1600 range, the best competitors in the world garner a score well over the 3000-mark. However, boosting ratings and playing cutthroat matches are not the true goals of this group, its leaders say.

The state of the club today is one of competitive collaboration, where members circle up around intriguing games. They willingly offer advice to whoever is pondering their next move. As the competitive juices flow, friends are excited to beat and one-up each other.

But at the end of the day, the gatherings are mainly a creative and competitive outlet to step away from the rigors of life of a student.

“I started the DePaul Chess Club because I love chess,” Riback said. “There was no current club, and I wanted more people to play with.”

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