Welcome to Chessboxing Prague

What is Chessboxing?

Chessboxing is hybrid discipline combining Chess and Boxing.

The idea first come from a comic book "Froid equateur" written by french comic writer Enki Bilal in 1992, which has inspired dutch artist Iepe Rubing who then codified the rules in 2003 that are still applied during official competitions.

Enki Bilal (french comic writer) and Iepe Rubingh (dutch artist) the creators of chessboxing during an Intellectual Fight Club (IFC) in Paris, 2019.

Rules of chessboxing

Chessboxing is a sport combining boxing rounds with a game of rapid chess, in alternance, every 3 minutes. It starts and ends with chess and each round lasts 3 minutes.

Winning can be obtained both on the chessboard, through checkmate, resign, loss on time or illegal moves, or on the ring via arbiter decision, TKO, or knock out.

Chessboxing fights can last from 5 rounds (3 chess rounds alternating with 2 boxing rounds as during the WCBO Amateur World championship qualifying rounds) up to 11 rounds (6 chess, 5 boxing like in the IFC or WCBA).

Chess or Boxing - winning stats: for shorter fights, the better chess player is often the winner. For longer periods 9-11 rounds, the stats show that a win is equally likely to occur during a boxing or a chess round.

How to train with us

For fun and discovery:

Everyone with a good spirit is accepted, beginners in boxing and/or chess, we will make sure you learn something new and/or leave you physically satisfied.

Despite our fighting spirits, the chessboxing club of Prague is an open-minded and friendly group, we welcome everyone with a similar mindset, no matter your background or motivations.

Chessboxing is funny and healthy before all.

For competition:

Whatever experience you have, we can guide you into becoming a competitive chessboxer: preparation for the amateur world championships, participation in a chessboxing gala in Europe or fighting and visiting other European clubs.

Equipment:

To train with us you will need inside shoes, hand wraps (4-5m), gloves (from 14oz - 16oz), and a mouth guard.

Contact us:

To avoid any suprise on the availability of our trainer, please contact us by e-mail or whatsapp before coming to the gym, see Contacts.

Planning

We are currently training on Sundays from 5pm to 6:30pm

at Kutil Gym Táboritská 16, 130 00 Praha 3-Žižkov

Trainer

Our trainer is Valentin MARCEL.

He is the current middleweight chessboxing world champion (WCBO league) and currently fighting in the Intellectual Fight Club league, he has a 4-0-0 record in chessboxing fights

He comes from a chess player background with a FIDE rating of 2062 Elo and more than 3 years of boxing experience.

He is one of the managers of the chessboxing club of Paris from 2019 where he also finished a PhD. in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

He now works in Prague as a researcher in Robotics at the Czech Technical University and spreads the chessboxing mania with him.