Brain and brawn: Chessboxing set to sizzle in the city
Can you imagine Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand offering his services as sparring partner to Muhammad Ali, the former world heavyweight champion? Or for that matter Ali volunteering to pit his grey cells against Anand at a table with a chess board separating the two?
You couldn’t have imagined a thought as outlandish as that by the wildest stretch of your imagination simply because of the bipolar nature of the two disciplines.
However, in the purview of ‘chess boxing’ envisioning something as bizarre as the two legends slugging it out is kind of easy. In it’s most basic sense, chess boxing is a sport where aggression and calmness go hand in hand and fist to fist - if you like.
The sport is over two years old in the country with the body governing the sport within India’s shores formed in 2011. The sport is in its infancy, but officials are nurturing it and hope it will grow through events like the one in the city yesterday. The first Nationals will be in Jaipur in May.
Throwing light on this unique sport Deepak Patil, one of the officials, told Mirror: “There are five rounds in a game. It begins with three minutes of chess (1 minute 30 seconds given to each player where he has to make a move in 20 seconds) and a three-minute round of boxing. A chess boxing game comprises three rounds of chess and two rounds of boxing.”
Former boxer Shailesh Tripathi was among the first Indians to compete internationally. And he said: “The sport tests your endurance and brain reflexes. I was a boxer and learnt chess. I was facing Belarussian Leonid Chernobaev, who had participated the World Series Boxing. He was good at chess too. Chernobaev went on to win the game with technical knockout.”
According to him, the sport is demanding by nature.
“After a mentally tiring three-minute round of chess, going all out in ring, only to return to the board, is not easy. The hard blows to your body and head leaves you dazed making it difficult to make a move in 20 seconds. The match ends with either a checkmate or a knockout. If the player lasts all the 11 rounds then it’s the points that matter,” Tripathi explained, adding that international matches consist of six rounds at the table and five in the ring.
You couldn’t have imagined a thought as outlandish as that by the wildest stretch of your imagination simply because of the bipolar nature of the two disciplines.
However, in the purview of ‘chess boxing’ envisioning something as bizarre as the two legends slugging it out is kind of easy. In it’s most basic sense, chess boxing is a sport where aggression and calmness go hand in hand and fist to fist - if you like.
Over 70 players attended a demo event organised by the Maharashtra Chess Boxing Organisation at Thakur College yesterday.
The sport is over two years old in the country with the body governing the sport within India’s shores formed in 2011. The sport is in its infancy, but officials are nurturing it and hope it will grow through events like the one in the city yesterday. The first Nationals will be in Jaipur in May.
Throwing light on this unique sport Deepak Patil, one of the officials, told Mirror: “There are five rounds in a game. It begins with three minutes of chess (1 minute 30 seconds given to each player where he has to make a move in 20 seconds) and a three-minute round of boxing. A chess boxing game comprises three rounds of chess and two rounds of boxing.”
Former boxer Shailesh Tripathi was among the first Indians to compete internationally. And he said: “The sport tests your endurance and brain reflexes. I was a boxer and learnt chess. I was facing Belarussian Leonid Chernobaev, who had participated the World Series Boxing. He was good at chess too. Chernobaev went on to win the game with technical knockout.”
According to him, the sport is demanding by nature.
“After a mentally tiring three-minute round of chess, going all out in ring, only to return to the board, is not easy. The hard blows to your body and head leaves you dazed making it difficult to make a move in 20 seconds. The match ends with either a checkmate or a knockout. If the player lasts all the 11 rounds then it’s the points that matter,” Tripathi explained, adding that international matches consist of six rounds at the table and five in the ring.
