Same. It seems to be a US thing. Coming from eastern Europe, I saw the school debate idea a few years ago in some movie and learned it's a serious sport thing only a month ago or so. (Where I also learned the competition level is pretty twisted / often relying on min/maxing rules)
It's definitely not a common concept. I've heard of chess boxing before this.
Not counting online games, I've played many 100s of games of chess with many dozens of people, mostly strangers, incl 12-year-olds (when I was 12) and not once did a dispute or difference of opinion arise about the legality of any move (incl en-passant moves).
What is the name of this strange country where players who are not just starting out don't know the rules of chess?
I had never even heard of that (although I'm by no means an avid chess player). I think I'll have a hard time convincing my friends that's a real rule.
There are inter-college Chess competition. A few US Universities are serious about it and they do have people getting scholarships to play on the chess team.
I love the idea of being somewhere that (a) what the world chess champion does is big news and (2) there are resources dedicated like this to the broadcast of chess matches. American culture is just so ostentatiously mauvais ton in comparison with so many other countries (my other point of comparison was being in England in ’93 and watching a game show where it was clearly a competition of intellectual skills and the winner’s prize was a dictionary—I just cannot imagine that being on American television).
I am a high schooler in the US who's played chess for around 4 years now. Chess has been popular at my school since COVID (perhaps 1/20 people played it), but around February of this year it suddenly exploded in popularity to maybe 1/5 people. I have no idea why.
It's definitely not a common concept. I've heard of chess boxing before this.
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