Early years

The first chessboxing competition took place in Berlin in 2003.^[16] That same year, the first world championship fight was held in Amsterdam,^[17] in cooperation with the Dutch Boxing Association as well as the Dutch Chess Federation and under the auspices of the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO) that had been founded in Berlin shortly before.^[18] Dutch middleweight fighters Iepe Rubingh and Jean Louis Veenstra faced each other in the ring. After his opponent exceeded the chess time limit, Rubingh won the fight in the eleventh round, going down in the history books as the first-ever World Chess Boxing Champion.^[19]

WCBA and WCBO

By 2012, Rubingh in Berlin and Tim Woolgar in London had become the two shining lights of the chessboxing scene. Rubingh's events tended to have a more serious tone, while Woolgar's brought a party atmosphere and larger crowds. These two champions of the new sport were unable to agree on forming a unified style, which eventually left the sport with two governing bodies: the World Chessboxing Association (WCBA) and the WCBO. This period in chessboxing history was immortalised in the film By Rook or Left Hook – The Story of Chessboxing.^[20]

2005–2008: First champions

The first European Chess Boxing Championship took place in Berlin on 1 October 2005.^[21][22] Present-day chessboxing commentator Andreas Dilschneider was defeated by Tihomir Dovramadjiev (FIDE Master^[23][24]) when he resigned in the ninth round of chess,^[25] crowning the latter by being the first European Chess Boxing Champion.^[26][27] A video report by German television channel RBB^[28] presented the event in detail.^[29] In 2006, more than 800 spectators filled the Gloria Theatre in Cologne for the world championship qualification fight between Zoran Mijatovic and Frank Stoldt. The 36-year-old Frank Stoldt, who was a former UN peacekeeper in Kosovo and Afghanistan, won when his opponent resigned in chess in the seventh round. After qualifying to fight for the title in 2006, Frank Stoldt went up against American David Depto in November 2007 in Berlin to fight for the first world championship title in the light heavyweight division. More than 800 tickets were sold for the event at the Tape Club in Berlin, making it the biggest chessboxing title fight to that date. Frank Stoldt defeated Depto in the seventh round and thereby cemented Berlin's status as the leading city in the chessboxing world and becoming the first German world champion.^[30]

2008–2011: Growth

Chessboxing first received credit from the International Chess Federation FIDE, in April 2008; its president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, took part in a chessboxing demo fight in Elista.^[31] In 2008, chessboxing clubs were founded in London and Krasnoyarsk.^[32] Created in 2009, the Los Angeles Chessboxing Club was the first of its kind in the United States and was directly followed by the New York Chessboxing Club in 2010. The Boxer in Munich also opened in 2010 and offers chessboxing training. In addition to the WCBO's initially European and later world championships taking place, the scene at the London Chessboxing Club grew as well. In 2011, the first international club matchup took place, with Berlin and London in the ring.^[33]

2011–2014: Global expansion

In 2011, the WCBO and with it, the global chessboxing community, made the biggest leap forward in its development to date with the foundation of the Chessboxing Organisation of India and its expansion in Asia, including Chessboxing China and the Chessboxing Organisation of Iran, which was founded in 2012. Furthermore, the third chessboxing organization in the United States, USA Chessboxing, was founded in 2011 and the European movement was being reinforced by the foundation of the Italian Chessboxing Federation in 2012. In addition to the WCBO becoming a registered association under German law in 2014, the Chess Boxing Global Marketing CBGM GmbH – called Chess Boxing Global (CBG) – was founded; it as of May 2013^[update] is responsible for organizing all professional chessboxing fights worldwide and above all, for the organization of the Chess Boxing World Championships.

The Chess Boxing Organisation India was founded in 2011 by kickboxing official and former Indian kickboxing and karate champion Montu Das. With this, the growth of chessboxing in Asia gained momentum, with the first Chess Boxing Organisation in Western Asia already being built in the following year by another experienced official in the kickboxing world, Fereydoun Pouya, who started the Chess Boxing Organisation Iran.

At the same time, the process of making chessboxing a professional discipline reached a milestone: The 2013 World Championship in Moscow was the first chessboxing event organized and marketed by Chess Boxing Global. With three world championship fights in one night, more than 1,200 spectators, and a standard of fighting never seen before, the first CBG event set new standards in the history of chessboxing, with Leonid Chernobaev leading the way. He has been able to make a name for himself with more than fifteen years of chess-playing experience, and in the boxing world as Marco Huck's and Yoan Pablo Hernández's sparring partner, and having fought over 200 amateur bouts. He won the light heavyweight title against Indian fighter Shailesh Tripathi after a technical knockout in the eighth round (boxing). Sven Rooch secured his title in the middleweight class division—winning against Jonatan Rodriguez Vega after the Spaniard resigned in the seventh round (chess), and Russian Nikolay Sazhin won the heavyweight title against Gianluca Sirci by checkmate. Thus, Sazhin (heavyweight), Chernobaev (light heavyweight), and Rooch (middleweight) would all go down in chessboxing history as the first Chess Boxing Global World Champions.^[34]

In terms of its development into a mass sport, there was much success in 2013 and early 2014 for the chessboxing world. There were more competitors in the second and third Indian Championships in the summer of 2013 and early 2014 than in any chessboxing events ever before, with more than 245 fighters of varying age and weight class, taking place in Salem and Jodhpur, respectively.^[35] Furthermore, the chessboxing community in London—under the command of London Chessboxing and the WCBA—has continued to grow constantly since 2011 and by now stages chessboxing events for 800 or more spectators regularly four to five times a year at the Scala, King's Cross.

Late 2014 also saw the Finnish Chessboxing Club being founded in Helsinki by five members. Since 2013, there has also been a Moscow Chess Boxing club.

2015–present

Chessboxing events in 2015 were produced by London Chessboxing under the WCBA—two events at Scala, Kings Cross. The second event, in June 2015, The Grandmaster Bash!, saw the British, European, and IBF light-welterweight world champion Terry Marsh fight and defeat Dymer Agasaryan. Terry Marsh is the first professional boxer to compete in chessboxing^[36][37] and has competed in three fights since June 2014 in London and still remains unbeaten in his career.

Chessboxing has also become more popular among young, poor women in India, where the sport has been seen as an alternative to traditional roles.^[38]

Actual numbers of local federations are officially registered in some countries, such as: China,^[39] Costa Rica,^[40] Czech Republic,^[41] Finland,^[42] France,^[43] Germany,^[44] Great Britain,^[45] India,^[46] Iran,^[47] Italy,^[48][49] Madagascar,^[50] Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines,^[51] Russia,^[52][53] South Africa,^[54] Spain, Turkey,^[55][56] Ukraine,^[57] USA,^{[58][59][60][61][62]} and others.

In 2016, then-FIDE president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, publicly announced to Top Sport his desire to include chessboxing in the Olympic games.^[63]

On 11 December 2022, content creator and YouTuber Ludwig Ahgren held a chess boxing event, called the Mogul Chessboxing Championship, at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. The competition's bouts featured other content creators.^[64] The event's live viewership peaked at over 315,000 viewers on YouTube.^[65]

Decisions

A chessboxing match can end by any of the following:

• Victory by knockout or technical knockout in boxing
• Victory by checkmate in chess
• Loss due to exceeding the chess game's time control; see fast chess
• Loss by resignation in either discipline
• Disqualification of one fighter by the referee in either discipline following multiple warnings (for extended inactivity, overextended playing time, rule infractions, etc.)
  • This rule prevents a fighter who is in an unwinnable position in one discipline from stalling to attempt to win in the other.

If the chess game ends in a draw before the final round, one more round of boxing is held. If this round also ends without a clear victory, the fighter who is ahead on boxing points wins the overall bout. If the chess draw occurs in the final round, the fighter ahead on points is immediately declared the winner. In either case, if the bout ends with both fighters tied on points, the one playing the black chess pieces wins the bout, due to not having the first-move advantage in chess. This scenario has not yet occurred in practice as of 2022.

Weight classes

Like boxing, chessboxers are divided into weight classes. Currently, the following apply to professional chessboxing events of Chess Boxing Global (as of October 2014^[update]):

WCBA/WCBO (2003–2012)

CBG (starting 2013)

This section needs to be updated. (May 2017)

• 2013: Nikolay Sazhin  Russia – heavyweight, in Moscow against Gianluca Sirci  Italy
• 2013: Leonid Chernobaev  Belarus – light heavyweight, in Moscow against Shaliesh Tripathi  India
• 2013: Sven Rooch  Germany – middleweight, in Moscow against Jonathan Rodriguez Vega  Spain

World Chess Boxing Association

The World Chessboxing Association (WCBA) is a legally recognized umbrella organization for chessboxing. It was founded in 2013 and is based in London, England. English heavyweight chessboxing champion Tim Woolgar is its current president. The WCBA originated from the London Chessboxing Club after having separated from the WCBO. It was founded by Woolgar in 2013 to accelerate the development of chessboxing. WCBO champions are also managed and recognized by the WCBA.^{[citation needed]}

World Chess Boxing Organisation

The World Chess Boxing Organisation (WCBO) is the leading umbrella organization for international amateur chessboxing. It is based in Berlin, Germany, and legally recognized as a nonprofit organization by the German government. Iepe Rubingh founded the WCBO directly after the first chessboxing fight in 2003. Its goal is to establish the WCBO as the worldwide organization for the sport of chessboxing. The WCBO aims to collect and link all active chessboxing clubs worldwide under one roof. It was legally recognized as a registered association by Berlin's district court in 2014. The WCBO was the official organizer of the chessboxing world championships until it recognized Chess Boxing Global, following its statute, as the exclusive marketing agent for professional chessboxing fights, in 2013. Chessboxing inventor and WCBO founder Iepe Rubingh is also the current chairman. The first honorary member is comic book artist Enki Bilal, whose comic inspired the invention of chessboxing.

Chessboxing Nation

London Chessboxing is a brand under which the sport of chessboxing has been promoted since 2008^[75] in London, England. Although the sport has been practised in London since 1978,^[76][77] the home of chessboxing in London today is Islington Boxing Club, where London Chessboxing hosts regular training sessions.^[78][79]

The first-ever chessboxing event hosted in the UK under the brand was at Bethnal Green Working Men's club in Hackney by Tim Woolgar on 15 August 2008. Other notable venues include Chelsea Old Town Hall,^[80][81] The Grange Hotel in St Pauls,^[82] and the Royal Albert Hall.^[83][84] Their events are hosted at Scala, King's Cross,^[85] York Hall, and The Dome, in Tuffnell Park. The events are also broadcast on the livestreaming service Twitch.

In 2021 London Chessboxing rebranded as Chessboxing Nation in order to compete with Chessboxing Global; however, Chessboxing Global collapsed following the death of Iepe Rubingh.^{[citation needed]}