Chessboxing: A Lot More than the Sum of Its Parts
 

Imagine being in a boxing match with a big nasty chap who seems more like a bull than a man, trying to beat the daylights out of you. Your head pounds and throbs from the disorientation and pain of the boxing match, as you listen to the crowd shouting in a frenzy, feeling your adrenalin pumping at full swing, and then all of sudden you have to completely stop, shift gears and attempt to focus your mind in the middle of a head-cracking headache in order to try and also win a chess match, because losing in either area loses you the entire contest.

You try to remember your last strategy and try to execute your plan on the chessboard while trying to concentrate with all your wits to keep from the distraction and intensity all around you, and try to figure out a way to squirm your way out of the mess of a position and try for a win. And oh, your time is also running out.

Multiply that intensity a few rounds then add a big dose of reality, then you have the ingredients for the kind of strain inherent in a chessboxing match.

The Mystery of Chessboxing

Chessboxing is the new sport that combines the top physical sport with the top mental sport. In chessboxing, two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing, starting with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on until a victor emerges by way of a knockout, checkmate, retirement, exceeding the time limit or a refereeing decision, with a stalemate decided on who has the highest score in the boxing round.

Most peoples’ reaction to hearing about chessboxing the first time is incredulity, and while many will dismiss it outright for what may initially seem like abject absurdity, virtually all who have seen or experienced a real chessboxing match end up in a real fit of admiring shock and awe.

Boxing is hard enough, with the mojo and skills required being for people with steel nerves. Chess is itself a very mentally taxing game that can literally exhaust a player cerebrally and emotionally.

Combine both and you have the sporting equivalent of a bomb that isn’t just made up of explosive ordnance, but one that is atomic. Not only do you have to deal with the most demanding parts of both chess and boxing, but undergo an additional level of pressure and techniques that is far more than just adding up the two.

In chessboxing, you not only have to physically fight your way to the win but at the same time also ensure you can think properly while all the pain and fury engulfs you.


Thinking Games and Martial Arts

It may be coincidence, but plenty of boxing and martial arts practitioners are avid chess players. Former undisputed heavyweight world champion Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko, Kali “Checkmate” Meehan, to name but a few, are all big on chess. Conversely, plenty of chess players are also known to practice different forms of martial arts. What may seem like a simple case of correlation to some, however, is to others a form of causation, showing an underlying connection between the desire to do battle and win, and the connection of battling not just with the body, but with the mind.

Chessboxing is perhaps the first true realization of both, and as one of its themes fittingly states, fighting is done in the ring and war is waged on the board. A true confluence of mind and body, brain and muscle.


How it Started: Life Imitates Art
The concept of chessboxing started more than a decade ago when Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh was inspired by Enki Bilal’s Froid Équateur which conceptualized the combination of chess and boxing.

Years after, Rubingh now an accomplished artist, starts putting into practice the germ of an idea conceived many years ago and began implementing something no one thought could be done and made popular, and the real chessboxing concept was born.

Rubingh is a free thinker and thought innovator not too different from some of his contemporaries who blur the boundaries of what is possible, but is unique in turning what was at first a conceptual art project into something that is quietly sweeping Europe with the single-minded advance of a sport whose prime mover has a confidence that is as unwavering as a boxer on the verge of a checkmate.

“A lot of art projects simulate reality and act as if they are real,” says Rubingh. “There are artists that set-up a political party or some other organization, many of which were meant to make a statement or have a flavor of irony. Chessboxing on the other hand, is not simulating reality, but rather shapes its own reality.”

Rubingh would eventually cement the sport into reality as one of the sport’s historic milestones would take him to take a seat in a table together with Simon Gribling, director of the Dutch Chess Association and Arnold Vanderlijde, an official of the Dutch Boxing Association to discuss and hammer out what would become the rules of chessboxing and its myriad possibilities, both organizations ultimately giving the new sport its endorsement.

The first test fight was held in the Platoon Cultural Development court in Berlin, culminating in more events until the first championship in May 12, 2003 between Rubingh and Luis “The Lawyer” in Amsterdam’s pop temple Paradiso, with an ending that is as poetic as it was suspenseful, seeing Luis getting the upper hand at chess after succumbing to Rubingh in the boxing portion, but ultimately losing to Rubingh after running out of time.

The sport continues its progress globally with a showfight in Tokyo on April 17, 2004, and ultimately closing 2005 with the first European Chessboxing Championship on October 1 giving rise to the Bulgarian victor Tihomir “Tigertad” Titschko playing his pawns well and winning in the chess round with a skillful adaptation of the Sicilian Dragon against Andreas “D” Schneider of Berlin.

More shows and fights are scheduled, as the sport continues to spread its wings worldwide. But for Rubingh, it is an art project that has blossomed beyond his expectations; an idea whose time has come. He is the sport’s first true victor, not just because he was the first chessboxing champion, but because his is a story that may seem clichéd but true, of how your parents were right, that dreams implemented with conviction do come to fruition.

He also has the benefit of time being on his side, as there is sure to be more action-packed events underway; but chessboxing is now at a point when its validity isn’t in question. And as they say, the rest is history.