Chess Boxing is a new sport, literally combining the brawn of boxing and the brain of chess. It is a biathlon sport that tests the mental capacity of fighters by alternating rounds of boxing and speed chess. Think of fighting a boxing round, then switching immediately to a chessboard and clock, with heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, head and body stinging from blows, and then making purely decisions under the pressure of the clock.   The sport has developed a popular following in Europe, evidently, since its main site, http://wcbo.org/ is offered in English, Russian, German, and Spanish. An old German friend of mine always Chess and Boxing had a lot in common – both being games of strategy, where both deal blows to the opposite side. The objectives cannot be achieved simply by acting recklessly, but eventually you can wear down your opponent, take away their weapons, and inflict greater and greater damage. Boxing could be contact Chess. The opposite could also be true, Chess is cerebral boxing.

A quote from the site:

Chessboxing

The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the #1 thinking sport and the #1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.

In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on.
A contest consists of 11 rounds, 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing. A round of chess takes 4 minutes. Each competitor has 12 minutes on the chess timer.

A round of boxing takes 3 minutes. Between the rounds there is a 1 minute pause, during which competitors change their gear. The contest is decided by: checkmate (chess round), exceeding the time limit (chess round), retirement of an opponent (chess or boxing round), KO (boxing round), or referee decision (boxing round). If the chess game ends in a stalemate, the opponent with the higher score in boxing wins. If there is an equal score, the opponent with the black pieces wins. (Link to source).

Interestingly, Chess Boxing may have a double benefit, cleaning up both the sport of Boxing, and the sport of Chess, as both of these arts have had their reputations sullied in recent years by scandals.

More videos at the chess boxing website…

The Chess Boxing I am writing about here is certainly not to be confused with the Chinese Chess Boxing, a form of Kung-Fu, and one of the great early classic early Kung-Fu movies, The Mystery Of Chess Boxing:

There could be more hybridisations of physical sports with intellectual pursuits to come. Now we have Chess Boxing. What could be next? MMA and Rubic’s cubes? Or Muay Thai and Jenga? How about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and jigsaw puzzles? Call it, dare I say, Jig-Jitsu?

How about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and jigsaw puzzles? Call it, dare I say, Jig-Jitsu?