What is chess boxing, and how did it become a sport? | ESPN 8: The Ocho

inspired by a comic chessboxing was never meant to be just a sport chessboxing is a philosophy not in the sense of life in the sense of survival I'm people ruling I'm a Dutchman from Rotterdam and I'm the inventor and creator of chessboxing you probably think what the heck is chessboxing well it's the combination of the number one thinking sport with the number one fighting sport and ultimately we're on the quest for the smartest and toughest men or woman on the planet [Applause] [Music] my father was a carpenter he was a big boxing fan he had a boxing back in his carpentry and we always used to box there my mother didn't allow me to go to to a boxing gym I always wanted to go and fight but she didn't allow me my father teach me the game of chess years later when I was studying in Amsterdam I used to play a lot of chess with my friend shall no offense to her and then I moved to Berlin and I picked up boxing in his old GDR boxing gym and when I came back to Amsterdam I met my friend Sean we faint stay in the bar and we were having our second beer by the way and I told him well I feel creator started boxing and you know like gives me a lot of energy and he says wow me too and there were five friends and they all turned around they said well why are they gonna do a fight because you know how boys are and he said like you want to fight me yes sure I want to fight and then it all came together because I recalled this comic where there's a depiction of a chess boxing fight and I said to John we we're gonna do a fight but we're gonna do it different then we're gonna measure ourselves on every potential level we're gonna do a chess boxing he said what let me figure out the rules we said sure let's do it and eight months later we ended up in an old church in front of a thousand people doing the first chess boxing match [Applause] yeah the first fight first chessboxing fire was intense it was my first boxing fight and everybody who's been in the ring knows that this is like it's like almost like losing your virginity I wasn't the best box in the world neither was I the best chess player in the world but we happened to be the first to chess boxes in the world there were a thousand people who didn't know what to expect in this old church and we were really well prepared actually and we had an awakened defense with black which is a very defensive opening and because I knew I was the better chess player I wanted to you know like wreck jonahwy into a complex situation I was betting calculating and then it was the first boxing roster the first chess round then we went into the first boxing lab which is the second round and after training the first punches I felt like wow this feels good and if they're really good then coming back to the chessboard in the third round I over estimated my whole position and I basically destroyed my whole strategy and I started pushing the after which is basically the worst thing you could do in a lacking defence my chess trainer was it was going man this is the heart thing you know to master in chess boxing and this is what we trained but it was the first fight and it everything wrong he was pushing it in the chest so I pushed it in the boxing round but I couldn't get through I mean I got through but he didn't go down so that's when we ended up in the in the last boxing around the 10th round so I come out guns blazing jhana be fencer he's not in the game you can see it he's not throwing any punches he doesn't feel confident I'm like almost every punch that I throw is hitting my friend I'm ready to finish him off and that was when the bell went off and at this moment people were just like completely into the game it over screaming thing what is going on this is so intense east gyres guys are fighting like like crazy it trying to outwit each other on the chessboard and and you know your heart is racing and there's a lot of adrenaline and testosterone all in your body I think I had like 12 minutes on the chest Ironman and Louie had like close to close to a minute I think there's a rule in the end game you always have to bring your King to the center to help him you know getting the pawns to de to the last row and he's just not seeing it anymore you know it takes off my last poem which means it's a draw it's a technical draw because black doesn't have any mating material but I want every box in fight which would give me the win of the fight he's not bringing his kingdom to play and it's very easy to see now but if you're sitting there with your heart raising all these people scream you're full of testosterone and adrenaline there's oxygen being pumped in your must to your muscles not a lot into your brain is really difficult to see it and the only way is not seeing it so now I've got the knight and my King on the lost road of defending but with the last bits that I got and he's not being able and look at his chest armor it's six seconds he can still reach checkmate but no this is not gonna work I can still block it I'm looking at the chest I'm a five seconds four three two one that's it so I won the fight and became the first just boxing world champion because Jean Louie faints like exceeded this chest time limit it was a draw on the chest but I want all the boxing Iran's so that made me win the fight but probably by now you think like what are the rules of chess boxing in chess boxing a match consists of 11 rounds six rounds of chess alternate with five rounds of boxing each round lasting three minutes each fighter has only nine minutes on the chess timer you win by checkmate or knockout whichever comes first exceeding the chess time limit also leads to defeat if there's a draw in chess there's another boxing round if there is no decision in that extra round the boxing points are counted if that is a draw the one playing with the black pieces wins if the referee sees that a fighter is stalling for time during chess he gets a warning and ten seconds to make a move if he doesn't he will be disqualified this dynamics of alternating rounds works very well so there's a lot of tension because somebody is trying to push it in the chest the other one is pushing it in the boxing and then there's there's a great dynamic in there the goal of the rulebook was always that the both sports had to be in balance she can't rely on the chest she can't rely on the boxing they worked quite well from the beginning we changed the rules a bit because the chess was too dominant so we had four minutes of chess and two minutes of boxing and we we changed it to three minutes of chess and three minutes of boxing and now we have more than thousand fights worldwide on a daily basis and we have the 60% statistic in the chest that fights are being won at 40% in the boxing were quite happy with that yet but we're constantly monitoring the fights and the statistics thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for more sports highlights and analysis be sure to download the ESPN app and 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Channel: ESPN

Views: 429,788

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Id: 8ZGHrzE8bqc

Length: 7min 34sec (454 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019