Knight to south paw

Chess boxing is my new favourite sport.

“The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the #1 thinking sport and the #1 fighting sport into a hybrid that demands the most of its competitors – both mentally and physically.
In a chessboxing fight two opponents play alternating rounds of chess and boxing. The contest starts with a round of chess, followed by a boxing round, followed by another round of chess and so on.
A contest consists of 11 rounds, 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing. A round of chess takes 4 minutes. Each competitor has 12 minutes on the chess timer.”

I can’t help but think that it’s one of those sports that will be forever dominated by participants from the former USSR.

It would seem that in order to ensure chess players can last more than one round one of the only qualifications for the competition is the ability to play chess… but competitors should be a little worried.

One of the Klitschko brothers, Vitali, holds a PhD in sports science. He’s no dummy. And he and his brother are both keen chess players and world heavyweight boxing champions… from Wikipedia…

“Both Vitali and his brother are avid chess players. Vitali is a friend of former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik and the two have played, with Kramnik always winning. Vitali has commented that “chess is similar to boxing. You need to develop a strategy, and you need to think two or three steps ahead about what your opponent is doing. You have to be smart. But what’s the difference between chess and boxing? In chess, nobody is an expert, but everybody plays. In boxing everybody is an expert, but nobody fights.””