Chess boxing
Encyclopedia
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
with boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
in alternating rounds. Most of the world championships have been held in Berlin. Ten events organised by the World Chess Boxing Organisation
World Chess Boxing Organisation
The World Chess Boxing Organisation is the governing body of the new sport chess boxing. The WCBO was founded in 2003 and has its headquarters in Berlin, Germany...
have been held in Germany overall. In London, England there have been 10 international chessboxing tournaments since 2008. Several other chessboxing events have taken place around the world, including in Los Angeles, Nantes (France), Reykjavík (Iceland), Amsterdam and Krasnoyarsk (Russia) although Berlin and London in particular have emerged as the most important centres for chessboxing. The sport was invented by Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh
Iepe Rubingh
Iepe B. T. Rubingh is a Dutch performance artist and chess boxing founder.As a performance artist, Rubingh blocked off intersections in Berlin and Tokyo to create major traffic congestion. He was jailed for 10 days for the Tokyo action....
, who was inspired by a French comic book 'Le Froid Equateur' by artist and filmmaker Enki Bilal
Enki Bilal
Enes Bilal is a French comic book creator, comics artist and film director.-Biography:Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Slovak mother and a Bosnian father who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor, he moved to Paris at the age of 9. At age 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied...
. Chess boxing is now growing in popularity. Participants must be skilled as both boxers and chess players, as a match may be won either way.
Structure and rules
A match consists of up to eleven alternating rounds of boxingBoxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
. The match begins with a four-minute chess round. This is followed by three minutes of boxing, with rounds of chess and boxing alternating until the end. There is a one minute break between rounds. Speed chess is used, a form in which each player has a total of only twelve minutes for the whole game.
Competitors may win by a knockout
Knockout
A knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking...
, achieving a checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
, by the judges' decision, or if their opponent's twelve minutes of chess time is exceeded. If a competitor fails to make a move during the chess round, he is issued a warning and he must move within the next 10 seconds. Repeated warnings may result in a disqualification. The players put on headphones during the chess portion so that they do not hear any shouted assistance from the audience or the live chess commentary. If the chess game reaches a stalemate, the scores from the boxing rounds are used to determine the winner. If the boxing score is also a tie, the player with the black pieces wins.
History
The hybrid sport was envisioned in 1992 by cartoonistCartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Enki Bilal
Enki Bilal
Enes Bilal is a French comic book creator, comics artist and film director.-Biography:Born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Slovak mother and a Bosnian father who had been Josip Broz Tito's tailor, he moved to Paris at the age of 9. At age 14, he met René Goscinny and with his encouragement applied...
, and chess boxing was featured in his graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
Froid Équateur. Iepe Rubingh brought the concept to life, fighting under the name "Iepe the Joker". Rubingh felt the method described in the book, a boxing match followed by a chess match, was impractical. He instead decided on alternating rounds of chess and boxing.
A similar concept was featured in the 1991 Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
film Uuno Turhapuro—herra Helsingin herra, where the hero plays blindfold chess
Blindfold chess
Blindfold chess is a form of chess play wherein the players do not see the positions of the pieces or touch them. This forces players to maintain a mental model of the positions of the pieces...
against one person using a hands-free telephone headset while boxing another person. It is not known if Bilal was aware of the movie. There was also a 1979 movie by director Joseph Kuo called "Ninja Checkmate"; the English-dubbed USA version was known as the "Mystery of Chess Boxing". It does not feature chess boxing, but it is probably the inspiration for the Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island that consists of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. They are frequently joined by fellow childhood friend Cappadonna, a quasi member of the group...
song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" on their first album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
Enter the Wu-Tang is the debut album of American hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, released November 9, 1993, on Loud Records and distributed through RCA Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during 1992 to 1993 at Firehouse Studio in New York City, and it was mastered at The Hit Factory...
(1993). Wu-Tang Clan producer RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
is a fan and advocate of the sport.
The earliest chessboxing reference occurs in London in 1978 when two brothers Stewart and James Robinson began chessboxing at the Samuel Montagu Boys Club. Iepe Rubingh was unaware of this before being shown the picture at the Berlin vs London press conference in June 2011.
The sport is governed by the World Chess Boxing Organisation
World Chess Boxing Organisation
The World Chess Boxing Organisation is the governing body of the new sport chess boxing. The WCBO was founded in 2003 and has its headquarters in Berlin, Germany...
(WCBO), whose strapline is "The smartest toughest (wo)man on the planet." The first world championship was held in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
in 2003 and was won by Iepe Rubingh. The First European Chess Boxing Championship took place in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
on October 1, 2005. Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev
Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev
Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev is a Bulgarian chess FIDE Master and chess boxer. He won the first WCBO European Chess Boxing Championship, in October 2005. Titschko defeated Andreas Schneider in the event; Schneider conceded defeat after seven rounds...
of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
defeated Andreas "D" Schneider of Germany, who conceded in the seventh (chess) round.
2006
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
. Zoran "the Priest" Mijatovic opened with the Queen's Gambit
Queen's Gambit
The Queen's Gambit is a chess opening that starts with the moves:The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known chess openings. It was mentioned in the Göttingen manuscript of 1490 and was later analysed by masters such as Gioachino Greco in the seventeenth century...
. Zoran's opponent, a 37-year old former UN Peacekeeper named Frank "Anti Terror" Stoldt, was well prepared and dominated in both the chess board and the boxing rounds. In the seventh round (chess) Mijatovic realized he was three moves away from being checkmated and resigned.
2008
In April 2008, the World Chess Federation FIDE posted a video on its website showing its president, Kirsan IlyumzhinovKirsan Ilyumzhinov
Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov is a Kalmyk multi-millionaire businessman and politician. He was the President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010, and he has been the President of FIDE , the world's pre-eminent international chess organization, since 1995...
, playing a friendly chess boxing match in Elista
Elista
-Twin towns/sister cities:Elista is twinned with the following sister cities. Howell, New Jersey, United States Lhasa, Tibet, China. Ulan-Ude, Buryat Republic, Russia-See also:*Geden Sheddup Choikorling Monastery*Burkhan Bakshin Altan Sume-External links:...
. That same month, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's first Chess Boxing club was begun in London by the Great Britain Chess Boxing Organization's founder Tim Woolgar
Tim Woolgar
Tim Woolgar is the founder of The ChessBOXING Organisation, the first United Kingdom chessboxing institution. He is the current holder of the title, British Heavyweight Chessboxing Champion...
.
In July 2008 in Berlin, a 19-year old Russian mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin won the "World Champion" title in chess boxing by defeating Frank Stoldt. Stoldt resigned in the 5th round (chess) after losing his queen.
2009
November 28, 2009 saw the light heavyweight world championship bout between chess boxers Nikolay "The Chairman" Sazhin and Leo "Granit" Kraft, at the Ivan Yargin Palace of Sport in KrasnoyarskKrasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
, Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, before a crowd of 2000. Sazhin, a native of Krasnoyarsk, had previous amateur boxing experience, having fought in 95 previous bouts (winning 85), and possessed a chess Elo rating
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
of 2005; however, he had recently suffered an injury to his knee. His opponent, Kraft, was four years younger (at 17 years of age); he was born in Gomel, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, but was representing the German Chess Boxing Organisation. Although younger, Kraft had fought in 50 amateur boxing fights (with a record of 45 wins), and had an Elo rating of 1997.
The fight opened with the Gruenfeld defense, and was followed by the first boxing round, which was largely dominated by the younger Kraft. The return to the chessboard in the third round saw Kraft castling
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
early, and the resulting play saw Kraft having to defend his king. Sazhin continued in the subsequent boxing round, taking the upper hand in the fight. However, once they returned to the chess board, Sazhin used up too much time attacking Kraft's king. Thus by round eight Sazhin was forced to win by knockout or lose on the board. This he failed to do, and, on returning to the chess board, Sazhin resigned the match.
Required chess skill
World-class chess-boxers must not only be experienced boxers, but must also be at least Class AChess expert
Chess expert is a title given by the United States Chess Federation . It is awarded to chess players rated from 2000 to 2199. Players rated above that are masters while players below that are class players. Approximately 400,000 chess players have USCF ratings, of which approximately 4000 are rated...
strength as chess players. For example, Nikolai Sazhin has an Elo rating
Elo rating system
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in two-player games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-born American physics professor....
of around 1900, roughly corresponding to high Class A or low expert level, while European chess boxing champion Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev
Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev
Tihomir Atanassov Dovramadjiev is a Bulgarian chess FIDE Master and chess boxer. He won the first WCBO European Chess Boxing Championship, in October 2005. Titschko defeated Andreas Schneider in the event; Schneider conceded defeat after seven rounds...
is a FIDE Master with a rating over 2300 and has won multiple chess competitions.