The people from Cologne experienced their first chessboxing evening, last Friday (21st of April) in the venue called Gloria. Champagne bottles were emptied, the ringgirls were yelled at and the Hip Hop ‘Illicit’ from the Netherlands rocked the audience.

This time the WCBO presented an exciting speed game of chess at grandmaster level and two chessboxing fights.

The main fight of the evening between ‘Anti Terror’ Frank Stoldt and Zoran ‘The Priest’ Mijatovic was won by the police officer from Berlin: Frank Stoldt.

The fight was pretty much in balance, both in the ring and on the board, until the 5th round of chess. Mijatovic overlooked an intervening check, through which he lost his rook. He tried to knock out Stoldt in the next boxing round. But Frank was experienced and strong enough to hold against ‘The Priest’s’ attacks. Zoran resigned in the 7th round just before he would have been checkmated. This fight marked a new era in chessboxing; never before two such experienced chessplayers and boxers stood toe to toe in the ring! ‘Anti Terror’ Frank has now qualified himself for the world title fight next year.

The Cologne championship in middleweight was won by Jan Mielke. This local derby was a very exciting one. Mielke had a small advantage in chess and Stefan Dittrich had a small advantage in boxing. At the end Mielke survived the three boxing rounds and won the game ‘cause the time on Dittrich’s clock was running out in the 7th round (chess round). Mielke declared after the fight that he was very lucky, ‘cause he wouldn’t have survived another boxing round.

The speedgame of chess between GM Florian Handke and IM Georg Seul was won by Grandmaster Florian Handke. The game was in balance for most of the time until Handke could free one of his pawns which gave him the advantage needed to win the game.

- by Iepe Rubingh
Originator and Founder of Chessboxing