Boxing, Diving, and Tennis… Chess!!!
- Chess Friends Books
- 3 minutes ago
- 6 min read
Howdy! It’s the Chess Friends!
In one of our posts last year, we discussed whether chess is an art, science, or sport, coming to the conclusion that chess is a combination of all. Chess players are artists, scientists, and, yes, they are athletes. They train hard, face challenges and setbacks, and compete in the battle of the minds.
Chess is not only a mental sport. To endure long classical games, or race against time in blitz matches, chess players should be physically fit. Read our buddy and fellow author WGM Jennifer Shahade's thoughts on that, and check out her chess cross-fit training video there! Or read about fitness regimes of top grandmasters!
As they say, Mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body), so it’s no surprise then that people started combining other sports with chess to benefit both the brain and the body.
Today, we’re going to introduce you to three amazing chess hybrid sports: Chess Boxing, Chess Diving, and Chess Tennis! Let’s get to it!
Chess Boxing
The Man Benji
Of all chess hybrid sports, the most famous is probably Chess Boxing! Often described as a combination of brain and brawn, or hooks versus rooks, Chess Boxing is a competition where two players battle against each other for either checkmate on the chessboard or knockout (KO) on the boxing ring, whichever comes first, during the 11 alternating rounds of chess and boxing (6 of chess + 5 of boxing).
First, you start by playing a rapid chess game, in the middle of the boxing ring, but there’s a catch. After 3 minutes, the chess clock is stopped, and the platform with the chess table rises to the ceiling. You put your boxing gloves on, a mouth guard in, and switch to have a boxing bout, which also lasts 3 minutes. After that, the gloves are off, the chess platform is back down, and you go back to the game of chess you paused. This cycle continues until you either win by checkmate or KO. You can also win on time on the chess clock, or on judges’ points on the boxing ring if the chess game is drawn and no KO is delivered.
The idea of chess boxing competition came from a 1992 graphic novel Froid Équater by French artist Enki Bilal. (Last summer, I reviewed another chess-related graphic novel, check it out!) In 2003, Iepe Rubingh of the Netherlands organized the first ever chess boxing competition in Berlin, and later established the World Chess Boxing Organization (WCBO).
The first world championship was held in Amsterdam, and won by the founder himself, Iepe Rubingh. Since then, the sport gained popularity, spreading around the world, and many countries established their own national chess boxing associations, training the athletes to compete at the national levels and to represent their countries on the world stage. It’s intense!
Usually, there are men and women sections in the lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight categories, and you must have a chess Elo rating of at least 1600 to battle for the world title! Recently, during the 7th World Chessboxing Championships held in Serbia, American FM James Canty III, a friend and hero to the Myth Sarang, became Super Heavyweight Chessboxing World Champion! Congrats!
While for some, Chess Boxing could be an attractive sport combination, personally, I don’t think I’m interested in boxing, with or without chess. If you read our blog, you probably know that my favorite sport besides chess is volleyball!
In fact, my volleyball club, Spaceneedle Volleyball Foundation recently organized THE FIRST EVER…
CHESS VOLLEYBALL EVENT!
Yes, my volleyball club rocks!
Held on October 18, 2025 to celebrate the release of The Chess Friends’ book Q&A Chess, the chess volleyball event featured rapid and bughouse chess matches, followed by 2-on-2 short court volleyball games. It was great to share both sports with everyone, and we hope to do it again sometime!
For now, I, the Man Benji, am here to claim for historical reference that the Chess Volleyball hybrid sport was founded by Spaceneedle Volleyball Foundation in Seattle in 2025! That’s right!
Diving Chess
The Legend Vivaan
Diving Chess is branded as “The Ultimate Physical and Intellectual Challenge” by divingchess.org. The chess board and weighted pieces are on the bottom of the pool! To make a move, you must dive under the water, make a move, while holding your breath. When it’s your opponents’ turn, you can come up for breath then dive right back down for the next move!
This variant was developed by Etan Ilfeld, a bookstore owner, and chess master, in 2012 for the Mind Sports Olympiad. Some legends of the sport include World Champions Zyon Kollen of the Netherlands, Michal Mazurkiewicz of Poland, Alex Freeland of the United Kingdom, and Josephene Damen of the Netherlands.
Many got to watch Diving Chess recently in the Freestyle Diving Chess Championship in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals, where several top chess players competed. American GM Hans Niemann took the title over fellow American GM Fabiano Caruana, with GM Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan taking third and GM Vidit Gujrathi of India taking fourth. You can see a short video of this event here: https://youtu.be/ANjWGKEQp00?si=EmSReNcWtQuGDHn1.
To do diving chess, you will need a heavy enough board to stay sunk on the bottom of the pool surface, as well as magnetized pieces so they don’t float up and can maintain their position on the board. The official diving chess set, used during the freestyle event, specifically for this sport, can be found here: Diving Chess Set - Mind Sports Olympiad. It’s $399!
I enjoy swimming and being in the water and can hold my breath for a really long time. That helps in singing too! I would love to try Diving Chess someday! Let me know if you want to set up a match and have access to a pool! I can bring the chess stuff!
Chess Tennis
The Myth Sarang
I am both an avid tennis player and a competitive chess player, and I am very excited to share with you guys a sport I recently learned about called chess tennis, the best of both worlds. Fun fact: World #1 tennis star Carlos Alcaraz plays chess, and World #1 chess star Magnus Carlsen plays tennis! Carlos once said: "In chess, like tennis, you get lost for a moment and the game is already mixed up. In this aspect they are two quite similar disciplines." You can learn all about chess tennis at chesstennis.org. Here's a summary.
The object of chess tennis is to beat your opponent(s) in alternating rounds of chess and tennis. A 2-player chess tennis match consists of 7 rounds: 4 chess and 3 tennis. There is also a 4-player version of chess tennis, where each person plays 2 of the 4 blitz chess games, and in tennis they play doubles with their partner. The winner of the best of seven rounds wins the match! You may be saying chess matters more then since there are four chess rounds and three tennis rounds, and you would be right! Even if you lose all three rounds of tennis but win all four rounds of chess, you win 4-3, in traditional chess tennis scoring anyway.
Draws can happen in any round as well. You can win a tennis round 7-5 but if it's 6-6 then 7-7, that round is a draw and the players/teams get a half point each. For chess rounds, stalemate is a draw and the players/teams get a half point each. Other traditional chess drawing methods don't apply, like 50-move-rule, mutual agreement, repetition, etc. If the match is tied 3-3 after alternating rounds of chess and tennis, Armageddon chess rules apply to game 7, meaning black has draw odds, so if they draw they win. To compensate for this advantage, white has 3 minutes while black has 2 minutes and 30 seconds. If the final seventh round is also a tie (via stalemate) then the player/team who played black will be the winner of the match.
All you need to play is a tennis court, your racket and ball, and a chess board, set, and clock. A water bottle is probably a good idea too! Maybe a small table for the board too next to the court. I found this cool diagram for how a chess tennis match works on the World Chess Tennis Association, or WCTA, for short. I learned a lot and got most of my information from here. Their website again is chesstennis.org. Here’s their diagram, explaining:
Here we see why they get a letter before the match, as whoever gets the letter A will start with the white pieces. We also see the team to serve first is always team B in tennis. Well, I hope y’all enjoyed learning about Chess Tennis as much as I enjoyed writing about it! The World Chess Tennis Association (WCTA) runs chess tennis tournaments and French Grandmaster Sébastien Mazé is the current World Champion, winning the World Championship in 2024 over German Grandmaster Dennis Wagner. The previous World Champion, crowned in 2018, was French Grandmaster Laurent Fressinet. Maybe us Chess Friends could organize a chess tennis event someday! We all play both sports! Hope to see you on a court soon!
Three Cheers, Fellow Future Master Chess Friends!
The Man Benji, The Myth Sarang, The Legend Vivaan