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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.'"

3 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Perens' theory of money vs. health by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Funny

    You have achieved the proper balance of health and money when you can hold your breath for as long as it takes to make a dollar.

  2. Heard about this... by nathan+s · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...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.

    1. Re:Heard about this... by quatin · · Score: 2, Informative

      Concussions are your body's natural reaction to abnormal stresses to your brain. Heavy padding IE. Football, Boxing causes the hits to be just light enough for you not to get a concussion, but still enough to cause brain damage. This is why MMA has fewer deaths/brain cases (Hollyfield) than boxing or football. In MMA, if you suffer a strike to your head with force, you get a concussion and the competition is over. In a boxing match, because of the heavy gloves you remain conscious and continue to fight leading to literally hundreds of head blows in a single match. Same thing happens to football. How many times did Troy Aikman receive a concussion from a sack and then be out and playing in 3 minutes? Count the number of times linemen get full force tackles. That force gets transferred to the head, but because of all the padding and helmets, they remain conscious and still play.

      Fact of the matter is MMA is one of the most safest full contact sports.