Feral Jundi

  Ok, I am sure I will get a lot of crap over this one, but I thought it was intriguing.  As ridiculous as it sounds and looks, I imagine that it is incredibly difficult to think between rounds of boxing to play the chess game.  And imagine replacing boxing with mixed martial arts, and now you will bring in the American market?  Or they will laugh it out of the ring. But back to the concept and it’s potential value.

   Anytime you can add stress to your decision making process during your training is a good thing.  It sounds like with this sport, the biggest hurdle for the athletes is to be able to control their adrenaline to play the chess game after the boxing part.  That has great application to the security and military industry.  To be able to think out a strategy while completely pumped up on the ‘go juice’ is a very tough thing to do.  For some, it increases their ability to think quickly and for others it clouds it because of a total adrenal overload(fog of war, tunnel vision, slowed time).  And with our industry, that kind of situation can happen in the form of an ambush.  Your adrenaline is pumping and you have to think quick to save your life and the lives of others.  Sure you fall back on your training, but you still have to work out the problem when your brain is in overdrive.  

     But yes, I kind of agree that this would be ridiculous to watch.  But to participate in such a sport would really add a new level to the concept of refining or working out your tactical thought processes.  Sure you can do pushups in between firing your weapon at the range to add stress.  But imagine trying to play a game of chess between sets of all out boxing or mixed martial arts? Now that is building snowmobiles.(with the music of Wu Tang Clan playing in the background)LOL  –Head Jundi

A chess boxing match in Berlin, 2007

Chess boxing

From Wikipedia

Chess boxing is a hybrid sport which combines the sport of boxing with games of chess in alternating rounds. Chess boxing fights have been organized since early 2003. The sport was started when Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh, inspired by fictional descriptions of the sport in the writing of Enki Bilal, organized actual matches. To succeed players must be both skilled chess players and skilled boxers.

 Structure and rules

A match between two opponents consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxing and chess sessions, starting with a four-minute chess round followed by two minutes of boxing and so on. Between rounds there is a one minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The form of chess played is speed chess in which each competitor has a total of twelve minutes for the whole game. Competitors may win by knockout, checkmate, a judge’s decision or if their opponent’s twelve minutes of chess time elapses. If a contestant does not make a move in the chessround, he will be issued a warning by the referee. At the second warning the contestant will be disqualified.

 History

The concept was envisioned in 1992 by cartoonist Enki Bilal, and a match of chess boxing was a major plot point of his graphic novel Froid Équateur. Iepe Rubingh, a Dutch artist, was inspired by Bilal’s book and brought the concept to life in the spring of 2001, fighting under the name, ‘Iepe the Joker’.

Chess boxing was featured in the 1991 Finnish movie Uuno Turhapuro – herra Helsingin herra, where Uuno plays blindfold chess against one person using a hands-free telephone headset while boxing another person. It is not known whether Bilal was aware of the movie.

In addition, there is a 1979 movie by director Joseph Kuo called “Ninja Checkmate” whose USA dubbed version was known as “Mystery of Chess Boxing”. It does not feature chessboxing as understood in this article. This movie is likely an inspiration for the Wu-Tang Clan song “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'” from their first album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993).

The sport is governed by the World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO), whose motto is “Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board.” The first world championship was held in Amsterdam in 2003 and was won by Iepe Rubingh himself. The First European Chess Boxing Championship took place in Berlin on 1 October 2005 when Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev of Bulgaria defeated Andreas ‘D’Schneider of Germany after the latter conceded defeat in the seventh round.

On April 21, 2006, about 400 people gathered in the Gloria Theatre, Cologne, to see two chessboxing matches. Zoran ‘the Priest’ Mijatovic played the Queen’s Gambit. Zoran’s opponent, 37-year old former UN Peacekeeper Frank ‘Anti Terror’ Stoldt, was well prepared and controlled both the chess board and the boxing rounds. In the seventh round (a chess round) Mijatovic was three moves away from being checkmated, so he resigned. 

In April 2008, the World Chess Federation FIDE posted a video on its website in which its president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov played a friendly chess boxing match in Elista.

Also in April 2008 the UK’s first Chess Boxing club was launched in London by Great Britain Chess Boxing Organisation founder Tim Woolgar.

A 19-year old Russian Mathematics student Nikolai Sahzin won the title of “World Champion” in chess boxing by defeating Frank Stoldt in Berlin in July of 2008. Stoldt resigned in the 5th round after losing his queen.

Required chess skill

World-class chess-boxers are not just good boxers but are skilled chess players as well. For example, Sahzin has an Elo rating of around 1900 while European chess boxing champion Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev has won multiple major chess tournaments.