Chessboxing Storming the Athletic World

samzenpus writes "Have you been craving an athletic competition that combines the raw physical energy of a chess match and the strategic acumen of boxing? Crave no more. Chessboxing is here. No really, Chessboxing. As the name suggests, Chessboxing combines rounds of chess alternating with rounds of boxing. If there is no winner after 11 rounds, the match is awarded to the fighter with the most points in the boxing ring. Dutch artist, Iepe Rubingh, created chessboxing in 2003. He says, 'I got the idea from a Serbian comic. It looked great. I wanted to see if it would work.'"

Comments

Heard about this...

[nathan s]

...it seems to me that anyone intelligent enough to be particularly interested in chess wouldn't be overly enthusiastic about the possibility of brain damage over time from being struck in the head repeatedly. Concussions aren't funny. I mean, I'd hate to lose a game of chess to some 400-lb gorilla who got in a few lucky shots, and if you did this with any serious enthusiasm, your game of chess would almost certainly degrade over time.;)

I train in martial arts, but I avoid schools where being struck in the head is seen as a core part of training (I think MMA is fairly idiotic for this reason), and I think go is a much more interesting game overall. Combine go with something like a triathlon and I might find the idea more appealing as a mind-and-matter competition.