Poker is often considered a mind sport rather than a traditional physical sport. While it doesn’t require physical exertion like football or tennis, it demands intense mental stamina, strategic thinking, emotional control, and long periods of focus—similar to games like chess or eSports. Organizations like the International Mind Sports Association have even recognized poker as a mind sport. So while it may not fit everyone's definition of a sport, it certainly shares many qualities with competitive, skill-based activities that are.
To me, poker is a mental sport that involves strategies of people against people, rather than people against machines or computers. It is, without a doubt, an interactive sport between humans that involves the reasoning of the mind. It is different from a game of chance where the outcome depends mainly on luck or chance, such as in lottery games or card games, where the outcome depends solely on the result of the draw.
I feel that poker more closely resembles skilled gambling rather than a sport.
Poker simply has too many variables that are not in the players control, whereas in sport most of the time the the best sportsman or the person who performed the best on the day, will end up with the win because they have enough control over the variables in their performance.
Poker simply has too many variables that are not in the players control, whereas in sport most of the time the the best sportsman or the person who performed the best on the day, will end up with the win because they have enough control over the variables in their performance.
It's not classed as a sport, partly because it's not physical. It does contain many elements though such as training, stamina, skill, competitive tournaments etc. As some has said maybe a mind sport like chess but certainly not a traditional one. The gambling side also detracts from it being labelled as such.
