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Meet the New Chess Boxing Champion of the World

Posted by timothy on Monday July 07, @04:09AM
from the milda-shibonis dept.
Attila Dimedici writes "A Russian man has just been crowned world champion in the sport of chess boxing. Apparently the idea originated in a French comic strip from the early '90s. In 2003 a Dutch artist decided to bring the 'sport' to life. The 'sport' is played by starting a chess match in the middle of a boxing ring. After four minutes, the chess board is cleared and the opponents box for three minutes. A match consists of six rounds of chess and five rounds of boxing. A match is decided by knockout, checkmate, or points."

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Firehose:Chess Boxing by Attila Dimedici (1036002)

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  • and I can't wait to watch it.
    • Once I started RTFAing the repeated comments about concentration and ability to shift modes starting getting my attention. Modern pentathalon [wikipedia.org] started out as a way to simulate certain kinds of combat, and, for its time, made quite a bit of sense. I'm willing to bet that we'll see some very serious people start to get into this as a way to hone skills used for activities that aren't cheesy at all. A way to test one's ability to think strategically and tactically while out of breath and in pain is a damn good thing for anybody who is expected to function in combat. Even first responders in non-violent professions might gain from this.

      Gotta say, not for me, to say the least, but I'll be very curious to see how this evolves and what kinds of people end up getting into it.

    • They can't televise it!

      The First Rule of Chess Club is You Do Not Talk about Chess Club!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tom (822)

      I don't think it's ridiculous at all. Anyone trained in any martial art (not just eastern, count boxing, fencing, etc. as well) will probably agree.

      Keeping your senses and your ability to think during a fight is anything but trivial, and requires a lot of training.

      Most regular people would probably have trouble just remembering how the pieces move after a few minutes of fighting, with all the adrenaline pumping and your whole body in "I have no time for thinking" mode.

  • new sport.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rixel (131146) on Monday July 07, @04:17AM (#24081207)

    Hmmm....

    I have come up with a new sport come April

    Tax-Sex

    You sit in the middle of the Kitchen and agonize over deductions for 10 minutes, then do it doggy style on them thar reciepts.

  • Wouldn't this heavily favour brawn over brains? I mean any half decent bruiser could just avoid getting checkmated right away and then knock the nerd out in the first round.
    • All you need then, is someone who can stand a single round in the ring and isn't a complete moron. Your pure bruiser fails the knockout, then gets suckered into a scholars mate.
      • but a bruiser can punch you and keep punching, while in chess you'd have to wait for him to move before enacting your Master Plan

    • Re:I'd put money on the boxer any day (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07, @04:32AM (#24081273)

      I don't see a problem. Fighers don't fight outside their class, so why would they do it when chess-boxing. Bruiser vs. nerd would be a very odd matchup. This is a game for intellectual pugilists.

    • The chess part is speed chess, which can be quite difficult and heavily favors those who are well practiced in strategy and able to make decisions faster.

      Players are given 1 - 5 minutes each to win a game, which generally does not result in a checkmate outcome. Rather, the person whose time expires first loses. The best strategy is to set up complex positions on the board that require ample thought on the part of your opponent and watch his or her time expire.

      I would put my money on the chess player who can roll with the punches and make effective 1 second moves on the board. You can do rope a dope sometimes by letting other players move very quickly and eating up their major pieces when they make a mistake.

      M

      • Re:I'd put money on the boxer any day (Score:4, Informative)

        by 7 digits (986730) on Monday July 07, @06:53AM (#24081761)

        > Players are given 1 - 5 minutes each to win a game, which generally does not result in a checkmate outcome
        Do you actually play chess ? Blitz games often ends in checkmate, because the player with the biggest time pressure will blunder.

        I have seen my son give otb (=over the board) checkmate in rapid chess to someone 300 ELO higher than him with 3 seconds vs 5 seconds left and 8 moves.

        Of course, the player with worst position can choose not to move and lose on time, but it is the stupidest thing to do, because in chess, you can think on the opponent time

        Just look at the tie-break in US women championship [chessbase.com]. 11 seconds vs 2 seconds. Wanna bet who won ?

        Lurk around playchess.com. You'll see 1 minute bullets games (ie: 1 minute for each opponents). The average rate of play is higher than 1 move per second, and they generally finish in checkmate.

        PS: slashdot formatting is borken for me. Can' do proper paragraphs. Such is life

    • Re:I'd put money on the boxer any day (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Propaganda13 (312548) on Monday July 07, @04:58AM (#24081355)

      I thought the same thing, and figured they must have rules against this type of play.

        But then couldn't a boxer like Mike Tyson immediately win the world champion title in the second round of the fight?

      No, the WCBO's statutes foresee a minimum ELO ranking of 1800 in chess. Each competitor has to fulfil this minimum standard in order to participate in an official chessboxing fight. Someone like Mike Tyson would need years of training to reach this standard...
      In addition, there's also the zugzwang rule. When a chessboxer doesn't make a move and the referee has good reason to believe that he or she is doing this deliberately, a warning is issued. When the chessboxer still fails to make a move, a second warning is issued whereupon he or she is forced to make a move. If no move is made upon the second warning, the player is immediately disqualified.

  • Why is this not on TV? (Score:5, Funny)

    by damburger (981828) on Monday July 07, @04:18AM (#24081217)
    I have seen the future of sports and it says 'I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That's why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king,'
  • He goes head-to-head against the world champion of Kung-fu Go.
    • Quite frankly I'm waiting for Mixed Martial Arts Scrabble.

      Post Fight Interview :

      "Yeah I came out throwing hard. I was pretty much gassed with only a minute left in the round. He got me in that guillotine choke and I only barely got out. But then at the start of the next round, I hit him with a "QUOITED" on a triple word score, pretty much sealed the deal, I really want to win with a knock out, but I'll take the win on points."

  • Codeboxing (Score:5, Funny)

    by techsoldaten (309296) on Monday July 07, @04:30AM (#24081261) Homepage Journal

    Yeah, we have something like that at my company called codeboxing.

    Developers receive documentation and go off to work on something. The moment they run into an ambiguous or poorly defined requirement, they jump into the ring with the person who wrote it for up to 6 rounds of boxing. Between rounds, they refine the language of the requirement. The match is decided by a panel of managers, agreement between the two parties, or knock out.

    M

  • Battle Chess Nostalgia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eennaarbrak (1089393) on Monday July 07, @04:34AM (#24081275)
    I was rather hoping for a BattleChess like game where the players box it out to decide which piece captures which. This just sounds ... weird.

  • I'm not sure Enki Bilal would be proud... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ksempac (934247) on Monday July 07, @05:03AM (#24081371)
    I m a big fan of the trilogy (actually i m a big fan of the author), but it's kind of weird to think that chess-boxing is now real, given that in the book it is mainly used to show the violence of the distopian world.
    There is also a hockey game in the first book which ends with something like 3 goals and 5 kills for each team.
    BTW : In the book, the chess-boxing match ends with the main protagonist (possessed by a god) killing his opponent with some kind of laser shot from his eyes during a chess round.

  • Fucking Awesome (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EdIII (1114411) * on Monday July 07, @05:07AM (#24081385)

    I want to see No Holds Barred Halo Boxing. Then I get to beat the crap out of the guy who thinks hes so cool with the sniper rifle.

    Let's see you pwn me now!

    Seriously though, this is really awesome. I have never really been into boxing or UFC, but if that dude also had to beat the guy at Chess or some other game of skill, then that makes it very very interesting.

    Not just brute force.

    I can see some little nerd being undefeated in the ring since he could never lose the match within 4 minutes... but going to the hospital the day he does.

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