We've profiled over 20 chess players over the years: champions, contenders, and even one robot(!). Today's subject is Belarus-born Israeli grandmaster Boris Gelfand, who came within a hair of the World Championship back in 2012. If he had won, we would have written a profile immediately; instead, he had to wait eight years. His loss(?).

So, all these profiles got us thinking: we stuff chess players in the hodgepodge Uncategorized category. Perhaps they belong in Athletes? Believe or not, numerous countries consider chess a sport. They even publish chess news on sports pages of newspapers. (Back when there used to be newspapers...) And look at Gelfand, if that's not a face of an athletic superman, we challenge you to find one!

After giving it some thought, we decided to leave chess players in Uncategorized. Putting them in Athletes will put us on a slippery slope. If chess is a sport, what about checkers? (We have that one profile of a checkers champion.) Poker? (Quite a few profiles there.) Backgammon? That guy who has a bunch of world records, including upside-down juggling? Competitive eating? (It's on ESPN and everything!)

Sorry, chess players. You are not athletes. At least Gelfand finally got his profile, be it uncategorized...