How to Enter the Sport of Chessboxing

Chessboxing is considered by some to be the ultimate fusion sport between the body and the mind. For up to eleven rounds, combatants battle in alternating rounds of furious fisticuffs, and careful pursuit of checkmate. Although it might seem from afar to resemble some sort of avant garde art form, it is actually an incredibly challenging sport.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Ensure that you are in the proper physical condition: even amateur boxing is not a sport for couch potatoes, or someone who hasn't broken a sweat since high school. Chessboxing also requires that you be under the age of thirty-five.
2. Participate in at least twenty boxing matches. This is the minimum number of fights required to enter a chessboxing league.
3. Develop a ELO score of no less than 1800 (the ELO rating system is used to measure relative skill in two-player games like chess, Go, and others). A rating of 1200 is common for bright beginners, but 1800-1999 is only one class under 'Expert.'
4. Train. Many chessboxers who lack a sparing partner run sprints or perform some other sort of serious exertion, pausing only to play blitz rounds of chess.
5. Those who are truly serious about a career in chessboxing can move to Berlin, the capitol of chessboxing. They have multiple chessboxing leagues, and even after-school programs for children.