This sport is actually gaining some popularity in Europe, I thought that some club members would want to get a sampling of what chess boxing is all about. The only club member I know of that may qualify for chess boxing is Nikolai Arytunov who is a strong Category A Player and has/is trained as a boxer recently.
I've actually chessboxed, myself. I used to box in college before my leg really started to hurt, and one day a few of the boxing kids from the next door Virginia Military Institute asked we, the boxers from Washington & Lee, if we'd like to try chessboxing matches instead of our usual sparring. With an innocent gleam in MY eye, at least, we acquiesced, and it actually became fairly popular. Not sure if they still do it these days. The rules we used were these:
ReplyDeleteThe competitors go head to head in 12 alternating rounds, 2 minutes of boxing (with headgear, we were amateurs) then 4 minutes of chess (with each player required to make at least one move during each round). Standard rules of amateur boxing and tournament speed chess apply. The time control for the entire chess game was 12 minutes per player for the game with no time delay. If all 12 rounds elapse without a decisive result, the match is a draw even if one competitor would be well ahead on boxing points or on the board. (This deviates from the standard rules, but we liked the idea of rewarding going the distance by hanging on in a lost position/while being knocked around)
Defeat in the chess or the boxing by any method during any round results in the loss of the match by the defeated player. TKOs, resignation, checkmate, getting flagged, getting knockouted, etc. all count as defeats. In the chess game, draws may not be agreed. If an insufficient material to mate draw occurs, the match is immediately drawn, regardless of the boxing in the match so far. If a threefold repetition, 50 move rule, or stalemate draw occurs, the player who did not claim the threefold repetition/the player who did not claim the 50 move draw/the player who delivered stalemate may force his opponent to fight one more round of boxing. If that round of boxing elapses without a decisive result, then the match is a draw.
I liked these rules because they were a bit more exciting than the standard chessboxing rules. And I was quite happy to escape with an undefeated chessboxing record- I went 9-0, with 7 wins by checkmate, 1 win by TKO, and one win by KO. It was good times.
Wow! Thank you for sharing with us, Caley! I want to roundly declare although I did box in my early days as a teen I never considered chess-boxing as a venture. I would have difficulty separating the chess pieces from the stars I was seeing (and my teeth).
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely much harder to play chess while you're sucking air and remain a little fuzzy (and/or suffering from kidneys that feel like they're on fire) from the last boxing round. And it also definitely changes how you box if you know you're considerably better (or worse, for that matter) than your opponent at chess.
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