chess boxing. What boxing experience ???

I've read that to become a chess boxer you not only need at least a FIDE Class A rating or higher (1800+) but you also need boxing experience but I can't seem to find what they mean by boxing experience. Are they looking for approval from a offical boxing training, a record of "??" amount of wins, do you have to be your regions champion ? Can someone shed some light on this for me ?

No, it simply means if you dont want to get KTFO'd with the quickness you should have some training.

Of course having a few fights under your belt would be preferable as well.

i doubt you need to be very good just to enter into it. I watched some 'high level' chess boxing a while back someone posted here, and the technique was pretty bad, looked like they had pulled some people off the street to fight, they just threw haymakers at each other the whole time.

I'm hoping it catches on over here, it's like the sport was tailored specifically to my interests.

I'd be up for chess boxing, my current performance at chess is ~1820 otb and I have 5 years of martial arts experience, sounds like it's made for me!

Can someone summarize how the scoring works?

pumpupthevolume247 wrote:

I'd be up for chess boxing, my current performance at chess is ~1820 otb and I have 5 years of martial arts experience, sounds like it's made for me!

Using martial arts isn't allowed

boxing is a martial art^ jus a western one.

I have no idea why anyone would want to combine these activities.

Graywacke wrote:

Can someone summarize how the scoring works?

You win by checkmate, flagging your opponent or knocking him out if the chess game is drawn then your only able to win by tko. I'm not sure how much time is givin for the actual chess game.

I believe its 5 mins chess followed by one round of boxing.

the problem i see with this system is that a person may stall a chess game to get to the boxing. for example I may be down a queen in a game, which i would usually resign, but could play on and try to win the boxing.

Even if i only have a king and am getting chased by queen or rook and king, I may just play out the game to get a round of boxing.

Perhaps a chess TKO could be awarded if a strong engine evaluates one sides disadvantage to be at maybe +/- 5.00 or more?

Or just completely abandon this shambles of an idea for a sport.

Any idea what it is/where i can find them to read.

@scottrf, It is a bit of a shambles, but it's interesting and im hoping it takes off.

What I can't tell is whether or not these rules would favor a competitor who is above average in one discipline and weak in the other, over a competitor who is average in both disciplines.

They surely just favour a knockout puncher. Even terrible players can survive for a few moves in chess, a puncher can knock out any amateur without much trouble.

Tyson vs Carlsen would be a mismatch in favour of Tyson. Even now.

It takes 3(!) illegal moves to forfeit. Is that designed for trial and error?

Didn't see anything about that. I guess no pro boxers can compete?

Carlsen has the thumbs-out fist common with women. I think I'd have to go with Nakamura (of the four GMs) based on this photo.

If only regular boxers were matched according to their abilities and experience!

But that's another topic.

Good question 

nah. Aronian. I have no idea what nakamura is doing with his hands.

I actually lold at kamsky's.

I've read thru the official rules and seen both official and "entertainment" matches. For these youtuber (content creator) matches they don't seem to be as strickt. For example one competitor pointed chess pieces and looked at audience to get confirmation if their move was any good before touching the piece. Well.... firstly higher skilled chess player probably wouldn't even need audiences help but this would ofc be clearly against the rules.

For actual official matches there are limitations where stalling is still possible (its a tactical move after all... if its allowed by rules and makes sense to do then player should do it - we see this in other sports as well such as american football) - but if arbiter sees you not playing to try and get to the opposing king, if you repeat your moves too often or in some other way try and waste time too much (there isn't a clear limit for how long a turn can take but if arbiter sees you being indecisive, then arbiter can start 10 second countdown under which the player has to make a move or if the countdown reaches 0 they lose on the spot.

Also it seems like on these official matches it rarely is a mismatch. They seem to try and pick at least similar chess elo levels for most matchups but also similar size, reach and weight for boxing. These entertainment matches sometimes pick mismatches - but that kinda works since the rules are tad different (less rounds, less time on chess clock, i think boxing rounds are shorter too) which gives more variety. So while some matches can be bit bs - we have seen both better chess player win on chess and better boxers win on ring - and that variety is probably more fun to watch (especially for long events with multiple matches in same night).

So i wouldn't be that worried about stalling being key issue. The rules clearly are written that already in mind. And the sport is relatively new. The modern form kinda created in 1993 or something and first actual official match was iirc in 2003. Im sure that if players start abusing some mechanic, rule or factor they will just add a new rule or rewrite existing one to guarantee entertaining matches without bs. Just like how basketball did for the 3 second rule because one tall person used to stand next to the basket waiting for a pass. Or how offside and 2 line pass rules were added to make game more tactical instead of people just being able to run next to the net. Heck, regular boxing changes rules constantly even to this day. In england they made a rule where amateur can only have 6 boxing matches. Then they have to turn into competitive boxer. This rule change was made in 2022!

For a 20 year old sport it doesn't look that bad for competitiveness. Only thing i am not sure of is: are there enough interest (from sponsors and audience) to support it and enough competitors to have fair and equal matches? I guess time will tell.

Oh btw its not 5 min of chess followed by boxing. Official rules give both player 9min on chess clock. They start with chess, play it for 3 min total, then they box for 3min, then they chess for 3 min and box and chess and.. for 11 rounds (combined with chess and boxing).. that is 6 rounds of chess so 18 minutes total time.. and since both have 9 min on clock that is all the time they can ever use. Matches either end in checkmate, stalemate, time running out from 1 player or ko/tko.

For these entertainment matches i saw slightly different time limits and rounds. Just 7 rounds total, chess had 2+2+2+4 minute rounds, 5 min on each opponents clock. Boxing was either 2 or 3 min, can't remember. And it kinda doesn't matter as those matches aren't serious.