Seconds to knockout - or checkmate

In Berlin, there is time and space for original ideas such as chess boxing – a combination of two taxing mental and physical challenges, meant to provide a new take on masculinity

ON A SWEATY SUMMER evening in Berlin, tourists with rockabilly hair and tattoos are enjoying beer and burgers outside “White Trash Fast Food” restaurant.

Beside them, at the “Platoon” art hall made of shipping containers piled four high, hipster locals head into a talk with the founder of Berlin’s “Tresor” techno club.

Behind the art hall painted military green, in a scrappy courtyard, two dozen men are taking lunges at each other.

We’re at a training session for Berlin’s intellectual fight club – the world’s first ever “chess boxing” association. There are more than 100 members in the German capital, from writers and estate agents, students and jobless people; other chapters elsewhere in Germany and around the world – from Los Angeles to London, Reykjavik to Russia – have taken the number of members to more than 1,000. The founder and president Lepe Rubingh, a bearded, bespectacled Dutch performance artist and promoter, is watching the training session ahead of the chess boxing tournament in three days’ time.

“We need a new concept of masculinity in our society, in a time that demands ever-greater levels of specialisation,” says the 37-year-old. “Chess and boxing are the most taxing mental and physical challenges going and, by combining them, we feel it is possible to provide a new take on masculinity, to present oneself in a much broader way with a good combination of brains and brawn.”

The essential characteristic to succeed at chess boxing? “Cold-bloodedness,” he says, grinning. “And mercilessness.”

In the open-fronted hall, 21-year-old Berliner Tilman Kohls, sweat dripping in sheets from his shaved head, takes a break from training.

“I’m a lazy oaf really, I only came across this when I had a look to see who trained at the hall and heard they offered chess boxing,” says Tilman, whose sporting background lies in jujitsu. After a year in training, he says he’s ready for his rookie bout.

“The challenge, which I like, is to concentrate entirely on the chess after a round of boxing, not to allow oneself to be rushed and make a bad move, to force yourself to come down and concentrate.”

Across the open hall is his future opponent, Sven Pueschel, a long-time chess player.

“To balance out the mental exertion, chess players often look for a physical compensation, so chess boxing is perfect for me,” he says. “But this isn’t gentleman-like, it’s real boxing. You have to be dedicated, train hard, and bring the same ambition to both disciplines.”

Three days later, a crowd is swarming around the Platoon art hall for the fourth chess boxing tournament, which takes place under the slogan: “Who is the smartest tough guy in Berlin?”

Watching the final preparations is marketing manager Sebastian Nicke. “We see ourselves as producing intelligent entertainment and hope to be able to build it up even further with partners around the world,” he says.

Though he doesn’t fight himself, he sees the attraction of the new sport. “Some women are attracted to men who pound other men’s faces in, some women like nerds who win at chess. The overlap that chess boxing provides is irresistible to women, the men are like modern-day gladiators.” So it’s all about sex? “You could say that,” he grins.

There’s a definite whiff of pheromones inside the sweaty art hall where a noticeable number of unaccompanied women ignore the efforts of the gold-chained men around them to attract their attention with bottles of champagne.

As a warm-up act, writer Helmut Kuhn climbs into the ring to read from his book Gehwegschäden (“Pavement Damage“), which draws on his experiences in the Berlin chess boxing club.

“It is all about control,” he reads. “The boxing doesn’t control the chess, the chess controls the boxing. The trick is to control your adrenalin when it’s hard to even concentrate.” He leaves the increasingly restless audience with a bit of self-help psychology: “The key to your brain is in your body, the key to your body is in your brain.”

By now, the crowd is packed between the green corrugated metal walls, the air is heavy. It’s fight time.

A compere in a sky-blue jacket enters the ring and explains the rules using the chess board placed in the ring’s centre.

A match comprises 11 alternating rounds, starting with chess. Each chess round lasts four minutes, boxing three. Opponents have a total of 12 minutes on their chess clock and the winner is decided by knockout, checkmate or if their opponent runs out of time.

“Men will fight, kings will fall,” intones the compere dramatically, in English. “At the end of the night, one will stand before all.” With a blast of music announcing their arrival, the first bout is a face-off between rookies Arik Braun and Felix Bartlet.

With solemn faces, they don headphones playing sea noises, sit and sink into thought. Chess grandmaster Arik is light years ahead of Felix on the board. Then the bell rings, the chess board is lifted carefully out of the ring and the tables, figuratively, are turned as IT consultant Bartlet, 16 years the senior, gives Braun a merciless, though unfocused, pounding.

The battle is eventually decided on the chess board when, despite getting extra time, Bartlet’s clock runs out in the last round. Braun is bloodied but triumphant; brains have beaten brawn.

The audience is getting into the swing of things for the second rookie match when, after a slow first round of chess, a visibly electrified Tilman goes for Sven with a single-minded fury. After soaking up a four-minute hail of Tilman’s punches, Sven falls to the tarpaulin. A knock-out.

“Real eye-of-the-tiger stuff!” shouts one delighted audience member.

Tilman is more modest when he emerges from the changing room.

“I saw he was nervous at the end of the chess round, so I just decided to keep at him,” he says as the nurse returns from examining Sven.

“He’ll live to fight another day,” she says. “At least he recognised his girlfriend.” After a musical interval involving projections of Transformers and a young, body-building Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s time for the main event.

The joint is jumping – and sweating – when the 24-year-old student Nils “The Berlin Bull” Becker faces off against Tim “CSI” Benfeldt from Kiel.

The visitor is more aggressive in the first chess round, pulling out his bishops for attack, before the bell rings and the gloves go on.

After a slow start – “stop cuddling each other” a voice in the dark cries – Becker delivers a stinging blow to Benfeldt’s larynx and the second first-round KO of the evening. The national chess boxing championship is decided before it even began.

The audience streams out, earlier than expected, but not unhappy. “It’s not about ogling two half-naked men,” says Hanna Ureahn. “It’s about enjoying the mix and the interaction of two contrasting skills.”

Her friend, Lars Bachmann, is convinced chess boxing will prove to be Berlin’s gift to the sporting world. “You have to give original ideas like this time to develop,” he says. “Only in a city like Berlin is there still time and space for original ideas like chess boxing. And I think this is going to grow.”