Chess Boxing

Presented By:
Nagham Ajouz
ID:201820462
Content:
1. Definition
2. History
3. Requirements
4. Object of the game
5. Player and Equipment
6. Scoring
7. Rules
8. Weight Classes
Definition
Chess boxing, or chessboxing is a hybrid sport that
combines two traditional
pastimes: chess and boxing. Contestants compete in
alternating rounds of chess and boxing.
The basic idea in chessboxing is to combine the two
disciplines, one demanding mentally, the other physically,
into a merger sport that demands the most of its competitors.
 The governing body of chessboxing is the World Chess
Boxing Organization (WCBO)

Chessboxing was invented by French comic book

artist Enki Bilal and adapted by Dutch performance
artist Iepe Rubingh as an art performance and has
subsequently grown into a competitive sport. Chessboxing
is particularly popular in Germany, the United
Kingdom, India, and Russia.
History
• The concept of chessboxing was first coined in the 1979 kung fu film Mystery of Chessboxing made
by Joseph Kuo.
• The first chessboxing event was put on by Dutch performance artist Iepe Rubingh. 
• Rubingh's idea to create a new sport fusing the two disciplines, chess and boxing, originates from the
1992 comic Froid Équateur, written by French comic book artist Enki Bilal, that portrays a
chessboxing world championship.
• In the comic book version, however, the opponents fight an entire boxing match before they face
each other in a game of chess. Finding this to be impractical, Rubingh developed the idea further
until it turned into the competitive sport that chessboxing is today, with alternating rounds of chess
and boxing and a detailed set of rules and regulations.
• An earlier version of combining chess and boxing was said to have taken place in a boxing club
outside London in the late 1970s. The Robinson brothers were in the habit of playing a round of
chess against one another after a training session at their boxing club. However, no direct correlation
can be made between the Robinson brothers' chess playing and chessboxing. The same goes for the
kung fu movie Mystery of Chessboxing as well as the Wu-Tang Clan song "Da Mystery of
Chessboxin" (1993).
The first chess boxing competition took place in
Berlin in 2003. That same year, the first world
championship fight was held in Amsterdam, in
cooperation with the Dutch Boxing Association as
well as the Dutch Chess Federation and under
the auspices of the World Chess Boxing
Organization (WCBO) that had been founded in
Berlin shortly before. Dutch middleweight
fighters Iepe Rubingh and Jean Louis Veenstra
faced each other in the ring. After his opponent
exceeded the chess time limit, Rubingh won the
fight in the eleventh round, going down in the
history books as the first-ever World Chess Iepe Rubingh
Boxing Champion.
2005–2008: First champions
• Two years after the first world championship, the first European Chess
Boxing Championship took place in Berlin on 1 October 2005. 
• Present-day chess boxing commentator Andreas Dilschneider was
defeated by Tihomir Dovramadjiev (FIDE Master) when he resigned in
the ninth round of chess, crowning the latter by being the first European
Chess Boxing Champion.
• The event was covered by a number of world popular magazines and
media, including Eurosport, CNN, the Los Angeles Times,  Die
Welt, and ChessBase.
• In 2006, more than 800 spectators filled the Gloria Theatre in Cologne for
the world championship qualification fight between Zoran Mijatovic and
Frank Stoldt. The 36-year-old Frank Stoldt, who was a former UN
peacekeeper in Kosovo and Afghanistan, won when his opponent resigned
in chess in the seventh round.
• After qualifying to fight for the title in 2006, Frank
Stoldt went up against American David Depto in
November 2007 in Berlin to fight for the first world
championship title in the light heavyweight division.
More than 800 tickets were sold for the event at the
Tape Club in Berlin, making it the biggest chess
boxing title fight to that date. Frank Stoldt defeated
Depto in the seventh round and thereby cemented
Berlin's status as the leading city in the chess boxing
world and becoming the first German world
champion.
2008–2011: Growth

Chess boxing first received credit from the International Chess

Federation FIDE, in April 2008; its president, Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov, took part in a chess boxing demo fight
in Elista. In 2008, chess boxing clubs were founded
in London and Krasnoyarsk. Created in 2009, the Los Angeles
Chess boxing Club was the first of its kind in the United
States and was directly followed by the New York Chess
boxing Club in 2010. The Boxer in Munich also opened in 2010
and offers chess boxing training. In addition to the WCBO's
initially European and later world championships taking place,
the scene at the London Chess boxing Club grew as well. In Kirsan
2011, the first international club matchup took place, with Ilyumzhinov
Berlin and London in the ring.
 2011–2014: Professionalism and world growth
• In 2011, the WCBO and with it the global chess boxing community made the biggest leap forward in its
development to date with the foundation of the Chess boxing Organization of India and its expansion in
Asia, including Chess boxing China and the Chess boxing Organization of Iran, which was founded in
2012.
• Furthermore, the third chess boxing organization in the United States, USA Chess boxing, was founded in
2011 and the European movement was being reinforced by the foundation of the Italian Chess boxing
Federation in 2012. What's more, the professionalization of chess boxing started to take shape in the
second decade of the 21st century. In addition to the WCBO becoming a registered association under
German law in 2014, the Chess Boxing Global Marketing CBGM GmbH—called Chess Boxing Global,
CBG—was founded; it as of May 2013 is responsible for organizing all professional chess boxing fights
worldwide and above all, for the organization of the Chess Boxing World Championships.
• The Chess Boxing Organization India was founded in 2011 by kickboxing official and former Indian
kickboxing and karate champion Montu Das. With this, the growth of chess boxing in Asia gained
momentum, with the first Chess Boxing Organization in Western Asia already being built in the following
year by another experienced official in the kickboxing world, Fereydoun Pouya, who started the Chess
Boxing Organization Iran.
• At the same time, the process of making chess boxing a professional discipline reached a
milestone: The 2013 World Championship in Moscow was the first chess boxing event
organized and marketed by Chess Boxing Global.
• With three world championship fights in one night, more than 1,200 spectators, and a
standard of fighting never seen before, the first CBG event set new standards in the history
of chess boxing, with Leonid Chernobaev leading the way.
• He has been able to make a name for himself with more than fifteen years of chess-playing
experience, and in the boxing world as Marco Huck's and Yoan Pablo Hernández'
sparring partner, and having fought over 200 amateur bouts.
• He won the light heavyweight title against Indian fighter Shailesh Tripathi after a technical
knockout in the eighth round (boxing).
• Sven Rooch secured his title in the middleweight class division—winning against Jonatan
Rodriguez Vega after the Spaniard resigned in the seventh round (chess), and Russian
Nikolay Sazhin won the heavyweight title against Gianluca Sirci by checkmate. Thus,
Sazhin (heavyweight), Chernobaev (light heavyweight), and Rooch (middleweight) would
all go down in chess boxing history as the first Chess Boxing Global World Champions.
• In terms of its development into a mass sport, there was much success in 2013 and early 2014
for the chess boxing world. There were more competitors in the second and third Indian
Championships in the summer of 2013 and early 2014 than in any chess boxing events ever
before, with more than 245 fighters of varying age and weight class, taking place in Salem and
Jodhpur, respectively. 
• Furthermore, the chess boxing community in London—under the command of London Chess
boxing and the WCBA—has continued to grow constantly since 2011 and by now stages chess
boxing events for 800 or more spectators regularly four to five times a year at the Scala, King's
Cross.
• Late 2014 also saw the Finnish Chess boxing Club being founded in Helsinki by five members.
Since 2013, there has also been a Moscow Chess Boxing club.
2015: Present
Chess boxing events in 2015 were produced by London Chess boxing under
the WCBA—two events at Scala, Kings Cross. The second event, in June 2015,
The Grandmaster Bash!, saw the British, European, and IBF light-welterweight
world champion Terry Marsh fight and defeat Dymer Agasaryan. Terry
Marsh is the first professional boxer to compete in chess boxing and has
competed in three fights since June 2014 in London and still remains unbeaten in
his career.
Chess boxing has also become more popular among young, poor women in
India, where the sport has been seen as an alternative to traditional roles.
Actual numbers of local federations are officially registered in some countries,
such as:
China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Great
Britain, India, Iran, Italy, Madagascar, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Russia,
Terry Marsh
 South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, and others.
In 2016, then-FIDE president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, publicly announced to Top
Sport his desire to include chess boxing in the Olympic games.
Requirements
• A chessboxer must have strong skills in both chess and boxing to be permitted to
compete in a professional chess boxing fight.
• The current minimum requirements to fight in a Chess Boxing Global event include
an Elo rating of 1,600 and a record of at least fifty amateur bouts fought in boxing or
another similar martial art.
• One deciding factor in chess boxing is that the fighters have to mainly train in speed
chess; the skills required by speed chess are different from those for chess using classical
time controls.
• However, chess boxing is not only the ability to master both sports but above all, to be
able to withstand the constant switch from a full-contact sport to a thinking game, round
after round.
Object of the Game
The object of chess boxing is to either beat your opponent in
alternate rounds of chess or boxing. Matches can be won from
either discipline with the chess coming down to check mate or
forfeit and the boxing in either a stoppage or points decision

Players & Equipment

• Players go head to head in chess boxing and the match starts with a four minute round of chess.
• The players then go into the ring for a three minute round of boxing before again returning to the
chess board.
• The match consists of 11 rounds in all (6 rounds of chess and 5 rounds of boxing) with 1 minute
intervals between rounds.
• Each player has boxing gloves which are removed for the chess round. Head phones are given to
the players when taking part in chess so not hear advice from the audience.
• The chess side of the game is played out over a 12 minute clock and is essentially ‘speed chess’.
Officials may step in if they believe a player to be stalling in the chess rounds to force them into a
move within 10 seconds.
Scoring
• The boxing rounds are scored as per a normal boxing match on points.
• Unless the chess game has seen a conclusion – and this is very rare in
the sport – then the game will go to count back on boxing points.
• In the event that the boxing is a draw then the win will go to the player
playing the black chess pieces (due to the first-move advantage in
chess).
A chess boxing match can end by any of the following:
Knockout
• Victory by knockout or technical knockout in boxing
• Victory by checkmate in chess
• Loss due to exceeding the chess game's time control (9 minutes with no
increment)
• Victory due to disqualification of opponent by the referee, e.g., due to inactivity,
due to overextended playing time (chess or boxing rounds following multiple
warnings).
 This rule prevents a player who is in an obviously lost position in one arena
Black is checkmate
from stalling to attempt to win in the other
• Loss by resignation (chess or boxing rounds)
Rules of Chess Boxing
• Players must not deliberately waste time
when playing the chess discipline of the
game. If the referees deem that they are then a
10 second penalty will be placed.
• Players must have an understanding of both
boxing and chess disciplines.
• Players must have a chess rating of at least
1800 to compete in the sport.
• Players can win from either the chess or
boxing rounds.
• 6 rounds of chess and 5 rounds of boxing will
be completed unless the contest is stopped
with a winner in a previous round
Weight classes
Like boxing, chessboxers are divided into weight classes. Currently, the following apply to professional
chess boxing events of Chess Boxing Global (as of October 2014):

Men (17 years+)

• Lightweight: max. 154.324 lbs (70 kg)
• Middleweight: max. 176.37 lbs (80 kg)
• Light heavyweight: max. 198.416 lbs (90 kg)
• Heavyweight: 198.416+ lbs (90+ kg)
Women (17 years+)
• Lightweight: max. 121.254 lbs (55 kg)
• Middleweight: max. 143.3 lbs (65 kg)
• Light heavyweight: max. 165.347 lbs (75 kg)
• Heavyweight: 165.347+ lbs (75+ kg)

For amateur and youth chess boxing bouts under the flag of the WCBO, weight classes are graduated in
6-kilo steps. Exceptionally, event hosts can classify into 10-kilo steps.
THANK YOU!