11/08/2021
Before i start writing about Chess Boxing i thought let me introduce you to the founder of this wonderful sport Late Mr Iepe Rubingh.
We all know most of details of the famous show "The Queens Gambit" but I am not sure how many of you know that it was dedicated to Late Mr Iepe Rubingh. He was a Dutch Artist, Story teller, Entrepreneur, Innovator Artist and the founder of hybrid sport Chess Boxing. Not only him being the founder of Chess Boxing but he also became the First World Champion of ChessBoxing and recorded his name in to Guiness Book of World Records.As a performance artist, Rubingh blocked off intersections in Berlin and Tokyo to create major traffic congestion and was famously playing as "Joker" artist. He was also the President of "Chess Boxing Global" marketing company for Chess Boxing along with being the President of "World Chess Boxing Organization"
Mr Rubingh said in an interview that he never thought of creating any sport and Chess Boxing didn't even think about it but he read it somewhere in the comic published in 1992 by Yugoslavian-French cartoonist and storyteller Enki Bilal, Froid Équateur. Further he added that once he was sitting with his friend in the Bar and they were discussing something and Iepe said i have started with Boxing and his friend said me too. So Iepe said lets have a fight and he said yes let do it differently by playing Chess as well. They use to play Chess in school days so that they thought of combining and seeing the intensity of the same. From that they thought this are two number One sports Chess In Thinking and Boxing in Fighting and came up with a combination of the same. The first chessboxing match took place in Berlin in 2003 and the first world championship fight was held in Amsterdam the same year. Rubingh understood Chessboxing as a massive social sculpture, questioning traditional masculinity.
More details has been very well written by Frederic Friedel Editor in Chief of famous Chess company Chess Base. Here is the link.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/iepe-rubingh-1974-2020
http://www.iepe.net/
In India it was the former National Karate Champion 1995 and Former National Kickboxing Champion Mr Montu Das who is based in Kolkata came to know about Chess Boxing while surfing online, he was really impressed with this hybrid sport and thought of promoting this sport in India. He contacted Mr Iepe and communicated with him for almost a year to convince him for getting affiliation in India. Mr Das organized a demo fight in Kolkata on 27th Nov 2010 where 1500 people witnessed this fight. Seeing this Mr Iepe was so impressed and after number of Conversations he believed that Mr Das is the right person to promote Chess Boxing not only in India but world so he made him the Vice President of Chess Boxing Organization of the World.
https://chessboxingindia.org/about-us/
This years National is being organized in memory Of Iepe Rubingh kindly come and visit the Nationals in Kolkata
