Sunday morning at Gleason\u2019s<\/a> in partnership with Chessboxing NYC, and cost $40 for a drop-in, $20 for Gleason\u2019s members or $60 for unlimited. <\/p>\nAs the name suggests, contests alternate between 11 rounds of chess (six rounds) and boxing (five rounds), 3 minutes each.<\/p>\n
When time expires, contestants pause their match, don boxing gloves and step into the ring before it\u2019s back to the game board.<\/p>\n
Victory is achieved through knockout, checkmate, time forfeit on the chess clock, resignation in either discipline or referee stoppage.<\/p>\n
Contestants participating in one of the training sessions. Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
Ironically, Medley believes that boxing is more important, quipping, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like you\u2019re asking who would win in chess boxing Prime Mike Tyson versus Prime Magnus Carlson.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Alex Selden, who runs Chessboxing NYC with his wife Cassandra Angelini-Vazquez, told The Post that the match is more \u201cdictated by chess.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say 70% of matches end with checkmate or losing on time [for the chess game],\u201d said Selden, a three-time Nassau County chess champion. However, he noted that chess players need to be fluent enough in fisticuffs \u201cso they don\u2019t get potentially knocked out in the first boxing round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chessboxing NYC\u2019s husband and wife founders, Cassandra Angelini Vazquez (R) and Alex Selden (L). Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
The somewhat subterranean pastime dates back to a 1992 comic by French graphic novelist Enki Bilal, before Dutch performance artist Iepe Rubingh staged the first live chess boxing match in Berlin in 2003, before it gained popularity around Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cPutting them together makes you a pretty unique character,\u201d Selden said.<\/p>\n
He first saw a clip of the sport in 2013 while attending college in Syracuse and thought it\u00a0was uniquely suited to Gotham, given the city\u2019s legendary boxing and chess scenes.<\/p>\n
During spring of 2020, Selden was awaiting a call from Rubingh to discuss the future of the brains and brawn biathlon. <\/p>\n
But the phone never rang. He learned later that Rubingh had died that morning.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s as much of a physical workout as it is a mental one. Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was kind of a lightning bolt moment where it was like, \u2018We\u2019re going to do it no matter what,\u2019\u201d declared Selden.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the COVID-19 pandemic, he devoted six months to learning boxing with various trainers while simultaneously starting a chess club called Bushwick Chess so they could \u201cmake connections\u201d in that world before splicing the two pastimes.<\/p>\n
Despite Bruce Silverglade, the owner of Gleason\u2019s gym, helping accelerate the craze, die-hard boxers didn\u2019t know what to make of the activity at first. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were like, \u2018Why are those people hitting bags and then playing chess?\u201d Angelini-Vazquez pointed out.<\/p>\n
Many women are chess-boxers. Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
Today, NYC boasts three major chess boxing clubs \u2014 Chessboxing NYC, ITC Chessboxing and Manhattan Chessboxing. <\/p>\n
Angelini-Vazquez said the sport attracts a highly \u201ceclectic crowd,\u201d ranging from finance to tech guys and even people hailing from jiujitsu and other martial arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have a bit amount of women that are interested in it because for them it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, if there is chess, maybe the boxing is more accessible,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The hybrid pastime attracts people from all walks of life, ranging from stock brokers to architects. Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the appeal of this somewhat incongruous pursuit? \u201cBeing just fit is overrated, being the smartest is overrated. Being good at both is fun. I think also it\u2019s cathartic to do both things at once,\u201d Angelini-Vazquez explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s kind of like a mental triathlon,\u201d she said, adding that it offers a fun, lighthearted respite in a city where people often take everything too seriously.<\/p>\n
Chess boxers conduct drills during one of the weekly training sessions. Cassandra Angelini Vazques<\/p>\n
However, mastering this hipster-sounding activity is no mean feat.<\/p>\n
Along with his weekly chess-boxing training, Medley competes in weekend chess tournaments, does private lessons throughout the week, and even wakes up at 6 a.m. to practice boxing at his local gym.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just how good you are at chess, how good you are at boxing,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s how hard can you dig through and reach and hold on to that chess player when you are in that primal zone because you\u2019d be surprised how much your chess ELO (rating system for chess players) drops after one boxing round.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 2019 study of boxers and Muay Thai fighters<\/a> found that just three 3-minute sparring rounds resulted in memory problems and impaired communication between the brain and muscles.\u00a0<\/p>\nThen, of course, there\u2019s the head trauma concern.<\/p>\n
Even Medley admits that the sport is \u201ckind of contradictory\u201d given that chess is viewed as \u201cgood for your brain\u201d while boxing is, well, the opposite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, he adds, \u201cYour brain and your body are actually just decaying every day,\u201d he said. \u201dAnd none of us are getting out of this alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selden emphasized that organizers are taking a responsible approach to the pastime. \u201cIt\u2019s real punches to the face, this is real boxing, this is real chess,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no gimmick about it. Safety first is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because chess boxing is not sanctioned by the New York Athletic Commission, bouts are relegated to exhibitions and amateur showcases.<\/p>\n
He hopes that being battle-tested in NYC\u2019s notoriously strict combat sports scene will help legitimize a pastime that\u2019s often viewed as some underground bloodsport.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to get cozy with USA Boxing in such a way that we can start having regular competitions here,\u201d he said. \u201cBut also having copycat clubs pop up, maybe in the greater New York area or in the Tri-State area. I think there are a lot of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They throw a mean \u201ccheck\u201d right hook.\u00a0 It\u2019s April 18 and Max Medley is having an amateur sparring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,53923,282,407,890,82,26074,75027],"class_list":["post-693298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chess","tag-exclusive","tag-fitness","tag-lifestyle","tag-sports","tag-violence","tag-workout-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}