Not a sport

[gwnn]

You first said "all motorsports" first, and now that I bring a counterexample you said that there are some motorsports that are different? :P Yes in some motorsports you drive 3 laps in Trabants but I contend that in all top-level motorsports (the ones that people actually pay to watch) races cost the pilots very large quantities of calories. If not, then fine, for the exceptions that definition would apply. You on the other hand specifically said that for *all motorsports* it is true that you can gain weight while practising it.

[Zelandakh]

You can gain weight in F1, IndyCar or Touring Cars if you drink enough and the conditions are cool. You can gain weight at Le Mans if you eat enough between driving stints. Not doing so takes the same level of athletic ability as not eating that piece of cake or drinking a pint of beer at the local duplicate. And as pointed out, we could create a new event where bridge is played in a sauna. Does that make a difference to the sporting level involved? How about if instead of isolated rooms for the electronic environment we put the contestants in centrifuges as used by the astronaut training program? That is sure to make bridge a sport! :lol:

[gwnn]

In a Formula 1 race if you stop after every lap and eat 3 hamburgers, you would gain weight. However, pilots do not do it and instead burn about 1200-1400 calories per race (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-2350734/British-Grand-Prix-Jenson-Buttons-fitness-guru-Mike-Collier-gives-lowdown-F1-star.html - you are welcome to show a race from the South Pole where actually all the drivers gained 2000 calories if it ever happened). How are we still discussing this? I am talking about Formula 1, the competition where Jenson Button is racing, organized by FIA. It is a gruelling physical endeavor. It is not remotely comparable to bridge under any reasonable conditions. I am also talking about bridge, the game/sport that is regulated by WBF, with frequent bathroom breaks and smoking breaks. I am not talking about NASA-bridge or 'biathlon-bridge' where between every board you have to run a marathon, or kill a bear with your hands, or bridge played where each card actually weighs 10kg so you need serious physical strain to play it. As far as I know, those games/sports do not exist. You are welcome to talk about those if you think it is fun but I will ignore all your pointless hypotheticals from this point onwards. Are we clear about what we are talking about finally? Do you ever admit you are wrong or are you going to continue to force-feed Formula 1 drivers instead?

[cherdano]

Is that bridge, where people discuss online about improving their results by being in good shape, versus Formula 1, where every competitor does serious exercise about 45h per month? Those formula 1 drivers can't be serious about exercise if they aren't discussing it in an online forum!

 

P.S.: Thanks for the new signature.

[Vampyr]

Yes, agree. Linguistics is one of my favorite academic diciplines. But some discussions become muddy because it is unclear if it is about substance or about semantics.

 

I think that bridge players see this as a question of substance, while the government find it one of semantics, perhaps pretending ignorance about what is really at stake here.

[Trinidad]

In a Formula 1 race if you stop after every lap and eat 3 hamburgers, you would gain weight. However, pilots do not do it and instead burn about 1200-1400 calories per race.

How many calories do you think bridge players burnt in the Bermuda Bowl?

 

Same question for the matches for the world cham,pionship in chess.

 

And now for golf...

 

I have a decent suspicion that the golfers burn less calories than the bvridge players or chess players, despite the fact that golf is a physical activity and that they need to walk the golf course.

 

Rik

[mikestar13]

Sport: Involves enough physical activity that a 70-year-old has no chance to defeat an equally-skilled 20-year-old.

 

Game: The level or physical activity is such that equally-skilled 20- and 70-year-olds have about equal chances of winning.

 

(For partnership/team activities, substitute "partnership of" or "team of" as appropriate.)

 

Before anyone else objects: these are ideals, no activity will conform strictly to either definition. There is a clear continuum--but most activities will fall closer to one end than the other. You will be able to cite some interesting edge cases, I could do so myself if I felt like doing the research. Given this definition I assert confidently that basketball is a sport and bridge is a game.

 

The question of whether both types of activities deserve government subsides, tax exemptions, etc. is a different question. My own vote is a loud YES for both sports and games.

[Zelandakh]

Sport: Involves enough physical activity that a 70-year-old has no chance to defeat an equally-skilled 20-year-old.

This definition also seems to rule out, for example, shooting.

[akwoo]

Yes you can also gain weight during the marathon if you eat a thousand hot dogs after every mile, but that doesn't make marathon running a non-sport, only this hotdog-marathon combo a non-sport.

 

The track team at my alma mater traditionally had (or maybe still has) a race right after the end of the competitive season that involved running a mile and eating 3 Whoppers (one after every quarter-mile except the last).

[gwnn]

How many calories do you think bridge players burnt in the Bermuda Bowl?

 

Same question for the matches for the world cham,pionship in chess.

 

And now for golf...

 

I have a decent suspicion that the golfers burn less calories than the bvridge players or chess players, despite the fact that golf is a physical activity and that they need to walk the golf course.

 

Rik

You do realize that that is 1400 calories per 1.5 hours in Formula 1 versus however many calories per (I don't know exactly but let's say) 14 days x 8 hours of play? Are you contesting my claim that it is much more physically straining (in terms of top strain) to drive an F1 car than to play bridge? Zelandakh was implying that you can gain weight while participating in motorsport and I challenged him on this (by bringing up the most obvious counterexample). Do you contest my claim?

 

Of course, strictly speaking, if you don't eat at all, you will be burning calories no matter what you do, and as long as you're not doing absolutely nothing, you will be burning calories more than the physiological minimum. But agian, bounds of reason. The simple distinction that has been raised is obviously not 100% accurate and if we go down to the absolute bottom of it, then there is no way you can gain weight while strictly speaking only performing a game/sport. It is meant to be a very simple and humorous guideline to decide whether something could even possibly qualify for a sport (it does not make a definitive judgement but it does exclude some activities). No, we should not take it too literally, since it is possible to gain weight during any sport you can name since you could take 100 hamburgers with you and eat them while you are practising the sport (tennis is a prime example, Nadal could eat 10 or 20 bananas instead of 1 per sitting). It is just not something that happens or is likely to. I'm sorry, that is not how you interpret rules, except if you are trying to be deliberately obtuse. There will obviously not be a rule that we can give to a (current, non-AI) computer and press a button and it will give us a 0 (game/non-sport) or a 1 (sport). I am not suggesting that calories/hour be the first and final criterion, but perhaps it could be a first criterion to seriously think of including/excluding certain activities. By applying a little tiny bit of common sense (and lack of nitpicking), we can get somewhere.

 

I have a decent suspicion that you are wrong about bridge/chess players burning calories. The second answer here

http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7527/does-playing-chess-burn-as-many-calories-as-running

gives 68-123 kcal/hour for chess players, while this:

http://www.caloriecount.com/calories-burned-quiet-sitting-quietly-watching-a141

gives 70 kcal/hour for sitting and watching TV. For golf, the same number is 315 kcal/hour ("Golf - general", whatever that means.)

http://www.caloriecount.com/calories-burned-golf-a398

 

Golf does look like a sport to me since you need power and special motor skills to drive the ball where you want it and I would consider it a sport whether or not the players would need to walk between the holes.

 

I am not sure about snooker (although on caloriecount.com it does give 175kcal/hr and requires some physical strength and motor skills), darts (

I know it's not like this right now but I can't rationalise not linking to it), or even curling (some physical strength but not infinitely much). I am prepared to concede to any of the fans of any of those that these games are sports and I am an ignoramus. I am not prepared to do the same for chess or bridge. I suppose chess/bridge players will bring up bullet/speedball to prove that some dexterity (motor skills) is required. OK good luck with that.

 

edit: added two sentences in the middle.

[gwnn]

This definition also seems to rule out, for example, shooting.

Maybe we should rule out shooting. Nobody says that everything that is currently a sport should remain a sport for all eternity.

 

I guess that's a no then about you ever admitting you are wrong.

[Fluffy]

I think you are comparing to the wrong games. Bridge is more similar to videogames than to athletics. You won't see videogames anytime soon in Olympics. But not because of some weight or energy reasons, it is because games are evolving and no game would make it to repeat after 4 years. Untill they find a formula for selecting which videogame could participate they won't.

 

Videogame tournaments are giving million dolar prizes, they have a lot of money behind and might make it to olympics just by force one day. you know how olympic comitees work.

[Zelandakh]

Maybe we should rule out shooting. Nobody says that everything that is currently a sport should remain a sport for all eternity.

Well that is a different point. I fully accept that bridge is not physically demanding in the same way as, say, football or rugby. The point I was making is that many things that we classify as sports are also not overly physically demanding and a good definition also needs to encompass these. But if we are just going to move many of these sports across to being games or pastimes then fair enough.

 

And this goes back to the point made earlier about different cultures having differing definitions for "sport". Even within our comparatively similar European cultures many will see things with differences. At the end of the day the real difference between a sport and a game is really just the level of seriousness and competitiveness it is perceived to have within the given culture along with a certain longevity. Basically a sport is a "test of skill" while a game is "just fun". And that is why it is so difficult to really tie down a definition because a test of skill can also be fun and a fun activity will often require skill.

 

Finally, there is a difference between being wrong and seeing something with a different viewpoint. I think that the given definition of sport is wrong and have provided some reasons. You think the definition is a good one - we can disagree on this without either of us being wrong.

[gwnn]

You were wrong about "possibly" gaining weight in all motorsport, except in a very pedantic sense in which also running a marathon (if you eat enough hamburgers during the race) or playing water polo (if you are connected intravenously to pure sugar) would qualify... I do not consider that "definition" (it is not even a definition, just a rule of thumb for wholly disregarding certain activities as sports) a very good one, but it definitely applies to bridge (because all you need to do is have two cokes to counteract the ~100-200kcals you "burn" while you play it) and it definitely does not apply to "all motorsport" (because you would need to drink like 3-4 litres of coke to counteract the ~1000-1500 kcals you burn). Any more pedantry you want to engage in before you admit you are engaging in pedantry? As far as I can see, all you brought up were pedantic, snappy counterexamples of hypothetical bridge variants on treadmills or something or Formula 1 drivers drinking the equivalent of 10 cans of Coke, and no "reasons," inasmuch as reasons should be reasonable.

[Trinidad]

Are you contesting my claim that it is much more physically straining (in terms of top strain) to drive an F1 car than to play bridge?

No. Personnally I fond the "burning calories" definition of sports nonsensical. But, if one wants to go for burning calories than it is clear to me that playing bridge burns significantly more calories than "holding 13 cards and tossing one after the other on the table".

 

So, I am contesting the (implicit) claim that mind sports do not burn any calories at all.

 

To stay with your F1 comparison: Playing bridge at the retirement home should be compared to driving a car on a sunny afternoon. I consider neither of those a sport. But competitive bridge should be compared to car racing: I consider both sports. And the Bermuda Bowl can be compared to F1.

 

So far, the comparisons have gone wrong because bridge in the retirement home was compared to F1. That is not a fair comparison.

 

Rik

[gwnn]

Did you see the estimates from my post about competitive chess players? They are right there, not too many PgUps from this post. Get back to me when you've read it (or don't, but then don't pretend I have not looked up the number). Even if something is clear to you it is possible that it is false.

[helene_t]

The amount of calories burned by competitive bridge compared to formula 1 is probably settled. Whether this is relevant for the original topic of this thread is a different issue.

 

If the competitive element is enough, I suppose the miss universe contest is a sports event also. But probably most will consider hunting and parcour to be sports even if they are competitive only in a fairly broad sense. So maybe a pet show and a gameshow count also? What about speed dating or job interviews?

 

Heck, sometimes participating in pointless internet debates feels a bit like a sport.

[Trinidad]

Did you see the estimates from my post about competitive chess players? They are right there, not too many PgUps from this post. Get back to me when you've read it (or don't, but then don't pretend I have not looked up the number). Even if something is clear to you it is possible that it is false.

Where did you get the idea that I didn't read your post about chess? I didn't go back and look at it again, but I recall that playing chess burns about 1-2x as many calories as sitting on the couch and watching TV.

 

Did you read my post? I would guess that going on a Sunday drive with the car also burns about 1-2x as many calories as sitting in front of the TV. But there is a big difference between going on a Sunday drive and driving an F1 car in a Grand Prix. Similarly, there is a big difference between playing bridge (or chess) at an elderly home and playing in the Bermuda Bowl.

 

Rik

[Zelandakh]

This continuing "burning calories" discussion reminds me of another sporting cultural anomaly. When one of my work colleagues tells me "Ich mache heute Abend Sport" what they actually mean is that they are going to the fitness studio. To my English upbringing it is impossible to consider this as sport but it obviously fits well to the burning calories idea. Similarly, I do not think of hunting as sport aside from the generic term "blood sports". On the other hand shooting has a long tradition as sport even though you are likely to use fewer calories on average. The difference with both of these is competition. One could use similar analogies with Morris dancing or marching band music.

 

Are there any non-competitive events that you consider to be sports? Perhaps we can cut across the differences by finding common ground on how to define a sport. My guess is that Rik has a definition closer to mine but it would be good to get input from a variety of cultures here. If lycier or the hog are watching, Chinese and Laos definitions of sport would be particularly interesting to add to the mix.

[helene_t]

The German word "Sport" is not necessarily a translation of the English word "sport". It can also mean "exercise", depending on context. I am not sure if I would call it a cultural thing. Isn't it just semantics? OK, language use is a cultural trait, but I mean ... it doesn't necessarily say anything about German vs British attitudes to those activities. It might well, of course.

 

Anyway, in this it was a Canadian who was first quoted for suggesting using weight loss as a definition.

[gwnn]

(In the following I add italics to quotes to posts from before, whereas no italics to this last post).

Where did you get the idea that I didn't read your post about chess?

From the fact that you wrote things like:

So, I am contesting the (implicit) claim that mind sports do not burn any calories at all.

Which makes it sound like I made an implicit claim about it being zero, whereas actually I made a proper claim with numbers (not just my feelings or opinion). Actually, yes, I stand by the claim that they barely burn any calories at all when we compare the difference to the baseline to differences to the baseline of just about any other sport.

 

Also, you wrote

So far, the comparisons have gone wrong because bridge in the retirement home was compared to F1. That is not a fair comparison.

I never compared bridge in the retirement home to anything. Show me where I did (or anyone else here). I compared competitive chess, which I'm sure you'll agree that will be a comparable mental strain to competitive bridge.

 

I didn't go back and look at it again, but I recall that playing chess burns about 1-2x as many calories as sitting on the couch and watching TV.

It was 1-2x indeed, the mean being 93, which is let's say 30 kcal/hour above ~70. If you drink a can of coke (about 150 kcal), you will have gained the same number of calories than the surplus over a whole session (best case scenario for you is 30kcal/hour over the base line so 1 can of coke every 5 hours). So I contend that this pretty much disproves your feeling that

playing bridge burns significantly more calories than "holding 13 cards and tossing one after the other on the table".

Maybe you have a different definition of "significantly more" but if you can counteract it by drinking a can of coke over a session, I will not call it significantly more. Especially if you compare to jogging or whatever activity you name that is normally considered a sport (jogging is about 500 kcal/hour). From the fact that even after my post, you wrote that this 30kcal/hour is "significant," I reached the not unreasonable conclusion that you had not read my post. Either that or you are twisting words to fit your point.

Did you read my post?

Yes. It just demonstrated that you had ignored/misunderstood my previous post.

I would guess that going on a Sunday drive with the car also burns about 1-2x as many calories as sitting in front of the TV. But there is a big difference between going on a Sunday drive and driving an F1 car in a Grand Prix. Similarly, there is a big difference between playing bridge (or chess) at an elderly home and playing in the Bermuda Bowl.

This is relevant how? I don't get it. I never said anything about bridge at an elderly home. You brought it up. Why did you? I don't get it. The paper I linked to was about competitive chess players. Com-pe-ti-tive. I also agree that competitive chess is more competitive than chess at an elderly home. Did I ever dispute that? As far as I am concerned, you are the one who brought up bridge at an elderly home. What's the point?

 

To other people reading this, I suppose you will think that I have too much time on my hands and I generate drama from nowhere. Sadly I don't (have too much time on my hands) so I'm not sure myself why I engage in this sort of pointless discussions, especially ones in which posters habitually forget to read each other's posts. If I had to guess, though, it is just because this exchange is a perfect microcosm for the lack of civil exchange that is all too common, online or off, especially over much more important topics than what the optimal. It should go like this:

A: claim X1

B: corrects claim X1 with fact Y1

A: accepts the correction, perhaps thanking B. Alternatively, replies to fact Y1, perhaps it is irrelevant, perhaps Y2 negates it, etc

We're still on topic. We are talking about claim X1 and how Y1/Y2 relate to it.

 

Instead, it goes like this:

A: claim X1

B: corrects claim X1 with fact Y1

A: makes claims X2, X3, defends claim X4, negates fact Y2, Z1, ridicules assertion X5, ...

What am I supposed to do here, as person B? I can only assume that A did not read my fact Y1 and can try to reiterate it, or try to explain why X2/X3 are not X1 (despite the fact that it is obvious in plain view), etc etc etc. Yes I know I can "let it go" and stop posting altogether, but what if I want to continue the discussion? I know all these quotes and cross-posts and who knows whats can get messy, especially if poster C then replies to my fact Y5 that I made to challenge claim X15 that was a result of the 14-th move of the goalposts. This can get pretty disheartening and I don't see why a simple "oh yes you are right, X1 was partly wrong" is so painful for some people. I completely got the weight limit wrong and I wrote as much in my second post.

[gwnn]

I'm sorry, I totally misread that table. The difference is actually about 10kcal/hour (Biggest difference is "beginning-before". Mean: 8.2). The players were 1200-2100 rated chess players, so we can triple that if you like to go to the levels of Carlsen. If your point was that 1200-2100 play like the grandmothers in the retirement home, then no, that claim is wrong. Or was your point that 1200's are the equivalents of retirement home players? I guess you could say that. But decent players (2000+) also spend hours at the chess board, intensely thinking, I don't think you can reasonably claim that Carlsen spends (say) 10 times more energy per hour than they are. It would help if you could make your claim in plain English instead of relying on your feelings and mentioning retirement homes.

[Trinidad]

I claim two things:

 

1) Defining a sport as "something that burns calories" (as one of the needed qualifications) is utter nonsense.

 

2) Playing competitive bridge burns significantly more calories than either doing nothing or sitting at the table throwing cards more or less randomly.

 

For me the qualifications of a sport are roughly:

 

• 
   
  
• It is a pastime, it is not "work".¹
  
• It is not an art, music or the like (e.g. playing the trombone is not a sport)
  
• It is organized.²
  
• It is competitive.²
  
• There are objective criteria for winning (recognized rules and regulations).
  
• Skill is needed to win consistently. (i.e. there can be a luck factor, but it shouldn't dominate.)
   
  

 

¹ This doesn't mean that you can't play sports professionally. It means that its primary purpose is recreation.

² These requirements mean that the organization needs to be of sufficient size to have a meaningful competition.

 

Rik

[gwnn]

Thank you for spelling out your claims clearly this time. The first one, we will agree to disagree (I actually don't have a strong feeling about this and I never made this my top issue - I sympathised with a definition such as yours for a long time but then I realised that it's too far from mainstream so I slowly gave it up [not saying that this is necessarily a good thing] ). But what do you base the second point on? Do you see that the extra ~10 kcal/hour (even when multiplied by some extra factor for Carlsen vs 2100) is dwarfed by even a casual walk? The chess players in that study self-reported that they experienced the same strain they do in a normal game. We may doubt them of course but the number is so tiny that it's really beside the point. They were not "sitting and moving pieces thoughtlessly", at least we can agree on that. So I have no idea why you keep bringing this up.

[mgoetze]

At this point the thread should probably be moved to the water cooler...

 

When one of my work colleagues tells me "Ich mache heute Abend Sport" what they actually mean is that they are going to the fitness studio.

Yes, in much the same way as "I'm going to do some training" doesn't necessarily mean you will be teaching somebody something, or "吃饭" doesn't necessarily mean that it's rice you're going to eat, the "Sport" in "Sport machen" does not have quite the same meaning as it would if you were to say "Bridge ist ein Sport".