Chess and boxing

Recently a chess champion wrote me a series of EMAILS detailing similarity between boxing, a sport that I love, and his sport of Chess. Originally published on boxingscene.com. Enjoy

Tom

Chess Champion Talks Boxing

Most recently, I had a chance to collect some pearls about Chess and found how often these proverbs fit the sport of boxing.

Chess proverb one: “There is no such thing as a certain answer in chess, also there no such thing as the best move.”

How true is that in boxing? Most pundits, including yours truly, predicted Spinks to defeat Judah. Not only did Judah win but he also knocked Spinks out. Nor was this the first time the unexpected happened in boxing. In the De La Hoya-Hopkins fight, De La Hoya came out swinging and unleashing his lethal combinations but to no avail. Hopkins outsmarted both the pundits and De La Hoya.

Chess Proverb Two: “There is the positional play, attacking play, open positions, semi open positions. All those positions can be achieved by different openings.”

Hopkins merely positioned himself to counterattack the more aggressive De La Hoya. Instead of boxing, De La Hoya moved forward and into Hopkins trap. Hopkins merely positioned himself to better counter De La Hoya. In the ninth round, he checkmated De La Hoya. (In boxing terms, he knocked De La Hoya out.)

Chess Proverb Three: “Sometimes players change style as years go by…but chess like boxing requires both good defense and attack in order to keep the game going well.”

In his earlier career, Ali was a boxer and mover. He danced around the ring but as he got older, the legs no longer had the same spring to move. Against Foreman, Ali danced for the first round but he observed that Foreman cut off the ring effectively. It would be only a matter of time before Foreman would trap a tiring Ali, so Ali changed game plan. He played rope-a-dope and allowed Foreman to tire himself out. Ali used defense to slip some of the heavier punches and counter with sharp accurate punches. Ali showed both good defense and good offense. The final result was checkmate in the eighth round.

Chess Proverb Four: “A master knows a good opening, can play form any position and play you good.. A grandmaster will also play like that, except instead of drawing the game, he will find or create small positional advantages and grind you down to a pulp.”

Article Author: Tom Donelson

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