Chess Platform to Measure Calories Burned by Playing Chess Online
FIDE Online Arena, the official gaming platform of the International Chess Federation, advances personal health in e-sport by introducing a new feature to measure calories burned by playing online.
Starting from today, FIDE Online Arena, the official FIDE gaming platform, which is operated by World Chess, will track and display the calories users burn during an online game of chess. Whilst calorie tracking is already widely used across offline fitness and sports, including chess, it has not previously been used as a feature in e-sports.
FIDE Online Arena is hoping that calorie tracking in e-sports will spread and there will be increasing encouragement for healthier lifestyle decisions. After each online chess game, which can last anywhere from 30 seconds to 45 minutes, an estimated number of calories burned during the game will appear alongside the game results. Players will also be able to track cumulative calories burned over a week, month, or even a year. During an average 5-minute game, an online player will typically burn only 4 calories, but with online players often playing many games the cumulative total can build rapidly.
This is thought to be the first time in online sports that athletes and casual players alike can access their calorie expenditure insights and trends using an integrated calorie calculator. The FIDE Online Arena has developed a unique and innovative tracking module that takes into account multiple key indicators including but not limited to, the player’s weight, height, and age (if known) as well as the speed of play, time, game intensity and the difficulty of each game.
Whilst this is a first for e-sport, in 2019, ESPN released surprising data relating to in-person chess. The published data concluded that chess players can use up to 6,000 calories a day during an in-person tournament, three times more than an average person consumes in an entire day. The study took into account research on calorie consumption and calories burnt by physical exertion and heightened mental activity.
Ilya Merenzon, CEO of World Chess, commented: “Supporting good health, both physical and mental, is hugely important, especially in modern societies which face the challenge of increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Therefore we are excited that FIDE Online Arena is using the latest technology and understanding of physiology to promote physical health for chess players around the world.
‘The research findings about the calories burned during chess reinforce the status of chess as a physical as well as an intellectual challenge, a global sport that is good for your mind and also your body.’