Chess Boxing Clubs

I thought that Chess Boxing would be a hit for a short time, bring in some fast cash for the manager of the club, and then quickly die out. Such is not the case.

Chess boxing is growing, and they are having a world championship meet for the Cruiser weight title in chess boxing, on September 1st. And on Jun 23rd 2007 (this weekend) they are having a match in Berlin.

This sport has captivated me since I first heard of it last year, and if a club popped up locally I would totally join it! I think it is a great test of mind AND body, and not many sports have both as well Incorporated as chess boxing. Playing a game of chess, then getting punch drunk, then playing another round of chess, repeated time after time certainly is a great test of the constitution of the mind and body! So lets get this sport into America!!!

Here is a little something that might interest you, It is a Chess Boxing Video Clip using windows media player. For those of you savvy German it should be doubly interesting, I'm afraid all I understood was the words discipline (probably spelled differently) Amsterdam, and boxer.

Chess Boxing (My 100th post!)

Chess Boxing has grown from a small tournament in cologne to gain international recognition. Chess boxing gyms can be found springing up all over the world, for the express purpose of training people in the worlds number one thinking sport, chess, and the worlds number one fighting sport, boxing! The first chessboxing gym opened in the Berlin district of Mitte, soon you may have one in your own district. Chess boxing enthusiasts hope to get enough worldwide recognition to become an olympic sport, and it is very possible that it could become so.

WCBO.com World Chess Boxing Organization now offers a few chess boxing T-shirts for sale.

the world chess boxing organization also has a newsletter you can sign up to, it is free, very interesting, and informative.

Chess Boxers from the USA are in demand right now, right now WCBO is recruiting chess boxers in the US for the express purpose of holding a chess boxing match in Los Angeles, there are very few limitations on this invitation, you have to be under age 35 with an estimated ELO of 1800. Here is an application form to fill out, you could be the next world champion chess boxer. Also if you are interested here is an email address you can use to find out more about chess boxing participation.

contact@wcbo.org

Chess Boxing ChessBase News Update

Original article from: www.chessbase.com

Chess boxing? Putting players in a boxing ring for chess and boxing? The crowd screaming for blood and piece sacrifices? Our recent report described the setup, now the organisers have sent us a report and pictures to prove that they are really serious about this new discipline.

This is the real thing, no holds barred. Iepe the Joker Vs Luis the Lawyer, Germany versus Holland. The two WCBO-title candidates are supermotivated to sweep their opponent from the board and the ring. Iepe 'The Joker' (29) in everyday life is a well known artist in Berlin. His opponent Luis 'The Lawyer' (30) is a lawyer in Amsterdam. The two Chessboxers each weigh 75 kilogramm, have been doing hard work training for months, and can't await fighting for the title of World Champion at the Amsterdam pop-temple 'Paradiso'. Iepe (1,80m) is coached by the two Germans Jan Schulz (chess) and Johnny Camara (boxing); Luis (1,85m) has support from the Netherlands by the Vice World Champion in Kickboxing Richard van Altena and chesstrainer Herre Trujillo.

The course of the world championship match

Iepe the Joker won in the 11th and last round of the match, which is a chess round (the match starts with four minutes of chess, followed by two minutes of boxing, then chess again, and boxing, etc; max 6 rounds chess, 5 rounds boxing). Luis the Lawyer ran out of time and his flag fell.

The match had two faces: Iepe was much better in boxing than Luis who seemed somewhat paralysed by the tension – overconcentration probably. But Luis was better than Iepe in chess: Luis with the white pieces allegedly punished Iepe for his opportunistic play, and had the advantage of one piece and two pawns. His problem: time. It took him too much time to win his chess game. This added to the drama. People knew Luis could win his chess game with a few more moves, but he didn't make it (chess commentators informed the audience about the game, the moves, right ones, bad ones, whose position was better etc., the audience could see the time of a big screen as well as the digital chessboard).

Same thing for the boxing: the drama lay in the fact that Luis 'just' needed to survive the boxing. But he got quite a few hits. The referee gave him two counts to eight to make sure he was okay (a third eight counts would have mean technical knock-out and the end of the match). But Luis survived the boxing and had one more round of chess left to win the world title – but alas, mind and body refused to make the right moves in time...

About the crowd: the Paradiso in Amsterdam was packed with around 800 people. The atmosphere was great, people were curious and willing to see the unexpected. It was in the air that something new was happening. During the evening the cheering of the crowds grew, and there was lots of excitement. During the main program, the match between Iepe and Luis, you could feel the tension that came along with the match. Who would win, chances in the hands of both players. The crowd was diverse: people from both chess and boxing world were present (officials, players, chess- and boxlovers), as well as young and nightlife people and people from the artworld. A nice blend of people which was exactly the idea: to bring together certain worlds and cultures that are seemingly different, but then again have more in common than one would think.

About the future: A chess-boxclub will be established in Berlin this spring – the first one. Training programs will be developed for this new sport. New chess-boxers need to be recruited soon. In Berlin, but also in the rest of Europe and the world. Who will challenge the world champion? New chess-boxing galas are planned to be organised in Tokio and Berlin – and who knows: in Athens during the Olympic Games?

What more to know? Perhaps I should stress that this event was organised with support of the Royal Dutch Chess Association (KNSB) and the Dutch Boxing Organisation (NBB). They have been part of the process in its early stages and, for example, took part when the rules of this new sport were developed. Perhaps it's interesting to mention the old Latin saying 'mens sana in corpore sanem' (healthy in mind and body) which intentionally goes with this new sport. And also the WCBO's credo: fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board!

To conclude: until January 12th there will be an exhibition about the WCBO and the 1st world championship in Showroom Mama in Rotterdam. Some people tend to forget: Iepe is an artist to begin with!

See Original Article And Some Pictures From: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1348

ESPN On Chess Boxing

Brett Forrest wrote the article on Chess Boxing and witnessed the fight night in Cologne, it is written in a very exciting kind of taste and yet is imformative at the same time, along with the article comes several pictures and a highly intresting video clip of the first Chess Boxing Championship in Cologne. Here is part of the article.

By Brett Forrest, Special to ESPN.com
Photos and Video Production by Nik Kleinberg


COLOGNE, Germany — How weird is too weird? How freaky too freaky? At what point does charm call out for ridicule? These are the questions that arise when considering the new "sport" of chessboxing.

It is Friday night, and doubtless there are better things to do than to pack into a refurbished theater of blue movies and focus the eyes on a couple of anonymous Europeans crouching over a chessboard. They marshal tiny pieces against one another in a battle of quiet strategy. Sound and movement are of the faintest quality. It is as though you have barged into a stranger's parlor. There may yet be time to sneak away.

But then a bell rings and the hall fills with loud music. There are hoots and yells from the darkened sections of seats, along with other signals of unshackled enthusiasm. When the bell rings once more and the eyes refocus, you notice the chess players have begun to punch each other in the nose and in the ribs. There is blood. This is a fight, and it's not bad at that, the theater having transformed into an arena of genuine athletic pursuit. This is no parlor game after all. It is chess and it is boxing, and doubt has begun to fade into curiosity. This may be strange, but it is strangely worth a look.

Iepe Rubingh is the creator of Chess Boxing, he devolped his ideas from a comic story he once read. This version of chessboxing conforms, more or less, to the comic book representation. There is no blinding of participants, but there is a fin de siecle feel to the whole affair, with Rubingh talking an awful lot about how the sport combines elements of the complete man, one who is prepared for any eventuality, not a pure brute, not a hopeless nerd. Rubingh foresees a day when his sport will gain Olympic status and even go on to resolve implacable global conflicts. "The future chessboxer will be a grandmaster and a professional boxer," Rubingh says. "Chessboxing could even solve the problem in the Middle East. I want to hold a chessboxing match between an Israeli and a Palestinian, and the winner will get to decide what happens to Israel."

Iepe Rubingh is not crazy; he just sounds like it. He's as crazy as one need be to pull off something like this, prevailing upon people to take chessboxing seriously.

Rubingh is as much showman and promoter as he is anything else. Testament to this is the fact that he was able to attract 800 people to the first World Championship of Chessboxing in November 2003 in Amsterdam. Rubingh himself fought in that match — after nine months of training, transforming the Joker into a chessboxer — against a boxer called Luis the Lawyer. Rubingh won the title, and then took his show on the road a year later, with a showcase in Tokyo, where he fought against a guy called Yoichiro the Wicked. Last September, Rubingh held the first European chessboxing championship, between a German and a Bulgarian, in Berlin. This match served to promote the opening, also in Berlin, of the first all-chessboxing gym, which now has 40 or so members, all of them sliding off the gloves at the end of each sparring round to wrap delicate fingers around tiny chess pieces.

Thats all of the article I want to insert but you can read the original article and watch the video clip on ESPN.com. Oh and about that part where Iepe Rubingh wants to solve the Israel\Palistine wars with Chess Boxing... I think he must be just a little crazy!

Chess Boxing Rules

Here are the basic rules of Chess Boxing:
Two contestant's duke it out with each other in 11 successive alternating rounds, six of them are chess matches, and five of them are boxing matches. The battle opens with a game of chess. The chess board is placed on a portable table directly in the center of the boxing ring, when the first chess match is over, the table is quickly carried out of the ring and the boxing match begins. Each round of chess lasts four minutes. Following every round of chess, the bell rings, and the chess board is then removed by designated people. The chess board is quickly removed and is followed up by a two-minute round of boxing. Contestants win by way of checkmate, knockout, referee's decision, or if his rival takes more time than the allotted total of 12 minutes for a complete game on the chess board. That's the basics of chess boxing, this is still a new sport but it is recieving more and more recognition, you could find yourself watching it on TV soon.

Here is a photo gallery with some pictures taken from the chess boxing event in Cologne: Chess Boxing Photos

Chess Boxing!

The World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO) has taken the patronage of this new sport under its wing. It propagates the spread of chessboxing to all five continents. Upcoming stations planned for chessboxing events in 2006 are Cologne and New York. August 2005, the first chessboxing gym opened in the Berlin district of Mitte.
The task of the WCBO is to train people in the no. 1 thinking sport and the no. 1 fighting sport, and in the combination of both. In the future new training methods will be developed in cooperation with experts from both sport worlds, sport scientists and neurologists.
One of the goals of this new sport is the old ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body: mens sana in corpore sano. During a chessboxing fight the control of aggression plays a big role. That's why WCBO's motto is: "Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board".
Original article taken from: http://site.wcbo.org/content/index_en.html

If you are interested in this new combination of sports, there is an Internet Magazine called ChessBoxing.com that comes out with all the latest news linked with Chess Boxing.