Blatantly Random

Chess Boxing - Greatest Sporting Idea Ever

Filed under: Other — Malcolm Owen @ 10:38 am

Some of us like chess. That would be a very low number. The rest wish chess had more in terms of action in it, to make it at least exciting to those that have trouble following it. Boxing has it’s fans, but some wish it had a more intellectual element to proceedings. Well, what if the two are combined…

Stripped to the waist, wearing towels around their shoulders and headphones playing the lulling sound of a moving train to drown out the baying crowd, the men played for four minutes. Then off came their reading glasses and on went the gloves and the mouthguards.
For three minutes they beat each other and then, when the bell went, the chess board was back in the ring and they picked up the gentlemanly game where they had left off.
[Chess Boxers Slug It Out - News.com.au]

Chess Boxing originated in a comic called Equator Cold in the early nineties, but it has since become a very “real” sport. And a tricky one at that.
If you have the snot knocked out of you in the boxing, you won’t have the time of day for the chess even if you are doing well, as the recovery from the boxing makes things harder. If you are really good at chess, you can hopefully take the opponent out before another round of boxing, and vice versa for the boxing if you can’t play chess to save your life.

Olympic Commitee: Add Chess Boxing to your list of olympic sports. It’s more exciting a prospect to me than synchronised swimming…