Rarely do brains and brawn come together in this way. A Russian was crowned world champion earlier this month in the sport of chess boxing.
Mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin, 19, competing under the name “The President,” knocked out a 37-year-old German policeman.
The loser said he was simply too punch-drunk to fend off checkmate.
PHOTO: EPA
“I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That’s why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king,” he said.
Berlin is home to the world’s biggest chess boxing club with some 40 members, and it is in an old freight station here that the two men settled the matter.
The match began over a chessboard set up on a low table in the middle of a boxing ring.
Stripped to the waist, wearing towels around their shoulders and headphones playing the lulling sound of a moving train to drown out the baying crowd, the men played for four minutes.
Then off came their reading glasses and on went the gloves.
For three minutes they beat each other and then, when the bell went, the chessboard was back in the ring and they picked up the gentlemanly game where they had left off.
“This is the hard part. You are out of breath, but you have to keep your wits about you,” said David Steppeler, a 33-year-old instructor at the local chess boxing club.
A chess boxing match consists of six rounds of chess and five in the ring, but it can also end suddenly in knockout or checkmate.
A French student who came to watch, Jelena, said the idea seemed “a bit mad” at first.
“But in fact it’s really gripping to watch.” (AFP)
兼具冷靜頭腦與發達肌肉者少之又少。一位俄國人本月稍早榮登棋拳賽世界冠軍。
以「總統」名號出賽的十九歲數學系學生尼克萊．薩辛，擊敗了一位三十七歲的德國警察。
敗陣的選手說，他當時太過暈頭轉向，以致於慘遭將軍。
他說：「我第四回合挨了很多拳，影響到專注力，所以才會在第五輪時犯下大錯：沒看見對方步步逼近國王。」
世界最大的棋拳賽俱樂部位在柏林，有四十名左右的會員；位在一個舊貨運站的棋拳賽俱樂部也是兩個男人一決勝負之地。
比賽從擺放在拳擊場中央的一張小矮桌上的棋盤開始。
腰部以上赤裸、肩膀上披著毛巾的兩名選手頭戴耳機，一邊聽著蓋過觀眾咆哮聲、且能使人平靜的行進火車聲，一邊進行四分鐘的棋賽。
然後他們摘下眼鏡、換上拳擊手套。
進行三分鐘拳賽後，鈴聲響起，棋盤又被重新搬上拳擊場，選手又紳士地繼續進行剛剛未完的棋賽。
當地棋拳賽俱樂部三十三歲的教練大衛．史戴普樂說：「最困難的部份是，你已經喘不過氣了，但還要保持理性的判斷力。」
一場棋拳賽包括六回合棋賽和五回合拳擊賽，但若有人被擊倒或被將軍，比賽也會立刻結束。
一位來看比賽的法國學生潔玲娜說，一開始她覺得這個想法「有點瘋狂」。
「但事實上，比賽過程真的很吸引人。」（法新社�翻譯：袁星塵）
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