Chess Boxing: World's Dumbest Competition?

[Auggie]

Rick Reilly / espn.com

"There is a sport -- chess boxing -- that sounded just so deli-ciously dumb I almost didn't want to know what it really was. I just liked saying it, "Chess boxing."

snip

"Chess boxing involves two combatants alternating six rounds of chess (four minutes) and five of boxing (three) until one of them is either checkmated on the board or knocked out in the ring, or time runs out on the chess clock. In that case, whoever is ahead on the cards of the judges is the winner.

Anyway, I set out to meet a real, live chess boxer and see a real, live chess boxing match. We decided the best of the European chess boxing seemed to be in London, where a former Channel 1 BBC reporter named Tim Woolgar was attempting to promote -- and win -- the UK's first sanctioned chess boxing match.

There are things you figure you'll never see in your life as a sportswriter and one of them is a regulation- size boxing ring next to four waterproof chess boards, full of pieces, with fighters alter-nating rapidly between knocking each other's blocks in and knocking each other's queens off. But this is what I came upon at the Islington Boxing Club in north London. Three men were on one side and three on the other, each sweating like B.B. King onto the boards, trying to clear their eyes so they could make their moves and punch their speed chess clocks. Each player had twelve total minutes of time to make his moves in the allotted six rounds of chess. If the player ran out of time, he lost the match. Suddenly, a buzzer would ring and they'd all put back on the one glove they'd taken off, and climb into the ring and start punching each other."

MORE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5083962

[madinmaryland]

1. Uhh..

[Auggie]

2. LOL

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Actually, that looks more like a member of my staff than like me . . .

Spitfire and offspring

[MarshalltheIrish]

4. A reminder of why I love Rick Reilly

I loved this article so much I shared it on Facebook. Too, too damn funny. The descriptions of the action and the interviews are perfect for his sardonic writing style.