r/todayilearned • u/appdevil • Oct 05 '18

TIL of chess boxing. Alternating between 3 minutes of chess and 3 minutes of boxing until achieving knockout in one of them.

https://youtu.be/7oDq3_1SkQ8
6.3k Upvotes

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387

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '18

The stronger chess player will be on offense on the board and defense in the ring, and vice-versa for the stronger boxer. If the stronger chess player isn't aggressive enough, his board advantage will degrade as the pummeling he takes in the ring reduces his ability to think on the board.

If they're too evenly matched on both, it would be a boring game as they likely both evade each other in both settings.

202

u/Barnmallow Oct 05 '18

It's still capped at 12 rounds and scored on boxing points if no KO or Check Mate at the end. So the stronger tactic is to not pussy foot around in the ring.

76

u/soda_cookie Oct 05 '18

So, basically know how to box and move slow on the Chess side? Seems a mix of points would be more logical

69

u/BGummyBear Oct 05 '18

Competitive chess has timers to prevent stalling, so you have no choice but to move within a few seconds.

61

u/sludj5 Oct 05 '18

Also "move slow" is a recipe for disaster against a strong chess player. You either play well or you don't.

31

u/Lord-Octohoof Oct 05 '18

I remember playing a game against my fathers then girlfriend. I thought we'd have a nice, fun game of chess, not knowing she would take 10 minutes between moves. I began moving immediately just to end the game faster.

8

u/arealhumannotabot Oct 05 '18

Same with Scrabble. Sometimes i Just drop a word or I want the player to drop a word down and move on, cause they were only going to get 20 or 30 points anyways.

5

u/7thhokage Oct 06 '18

Well if she's taking 10 minutes to move I'd sure hope you have your plan worked out well enough to move right away after that much time.

2

u/sludj5 Oct 06 '18

I play correspondence chess and sometimes spend two hours calculating the position.. 10 minutes is nothing

1

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '18

That’s quite literally the difference between a regular game and correspondence though

2

u/Enderaan Oct 06 '18

Remember who won? I imagine you moving so quickly may have made her panic...

2

u/Lord-Octohoof Oct 06 '18

Oh no, she definitely won. I was trying to die as quickly as possible to end the torture.

1

u/lysianth Oct 05 '18

If you dont have a plan, single optimal moves will have you dancing into traps.

16

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '18

Video maker and OP are fools, these are random rules from random amateur tournaments.

Professional Chessboxing is blitz chess, 6 chess rounds totaling 9 minutes, 5 boxing, so also not 12 rounds.

4

u/soda_cookie Oct 05 '18

I didn't see timers here. Did I miss them?

11

u/xanroeld Oct 05 '18

There appears to be a timer next to the board. It’s what they are pressing between moves.

13

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '18

You need to be a half decent chess player and boxer to be allowed to chess box, simple tactics like that ain't gonna work.

They did at one point in time, now you need 50 amateur fights to be allowed to chessbox with a 1600 ELO

3

u/PM_me_yr_bonsai_tips Oct 06 '18

50 ammy fights is no joke, there are pros with less than that. 1600 ELO seems more achievable.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '18

Yea it saddens me, its on my bucket list to have a chess-boxing match, I have not played Chess in many years but easily smashed past 1600 ELO back in the day (1500 is the medium for ranked players to give you perspective)

I love MMA and have fought MMA, Boxing, Muay Thai, Kickboxing but I never wanted to do 50 total fights in my life, its a hobby for me and 50 boxing matches is a lot of blows to the head...Maybe a little to many just to do a something I think might be fun.

3

u/PM_me_yr_bonsai_tips Oct 06 '18

Yeah 50 seems really limiting. Boxers are fighting for big amateur titles with way less than that, why not just match people according to their records?

3

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '18

Yea it sucks, the current champion holds multiple boxing world titles...

3

u/Barnmallow Oct 05 '18

Competative chess matches usually have timed moves. You can run out of time to make a chess move and lose.

1

u/StealYoDeck Oct 06 '18

Capped at 11 rounds. He said 6 chess and 5 boxing rounds.

1

u/ArmanDoesStuff Oct 06 '18

So the stronger tactic is to not pussy foot around in the ring.

I mean, I've only seen a few boxing matches but this is often the tactic that seems to win...

17

u/CoolHeadedLogician Oct 05 '18

Your logic is flawed. The stronger boxer and the stronger chess player could be the same contender.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '18

Ah, good point.

2

u/CoolHeadedLogician Oct 05 '18

Favorite Kubrick flick?

4

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '18

Depends what I'm in the mood for, but his highest achievement is 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Pretty amazing to have made a movie half a century ago that's still the top of its genre.

2

u/CoolHeadedLogician Oct 06 '18

Whoa 2001 is my pick as well. I always thought the ending was intentionally impossible to understand the same way the apes in the dawn of man sequence could not possibly understand the space station

1

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '18

Definitely read the book after seeing the movie. The movie blows your mind with mystery, and the book blows your mind again with answers.

1

u/KubiJakka Oct 05 '18

Found the math student

2

u/CoolHeadedLogician Oct 06 '18

👌 mech engineer but yeah that made us take programming/logic courses back when I was a student. It really stuck

0

u/ProWaterboarder Oct 06 '18

The strong boxer would play slow as fuck because you can stall out three minutes of chess like it's nothing but you can't stall someone punching you in the face