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Dazed from having caught a stray punch I shuffled over to the line of chess boards and stared at the pieces.

I could barely remember whos go it was, let alone think about how I might protect my king.

Squinting I tried to ignore the middle-aged man behind the table taking out what looked like some serious frustrations on a heavy punch bag.

READ MORE: Teen went from taking drugs and carrying a knife at 18 to being saved by boxing

Sweat dripped onto the plastic table as the digital clock on the side showed time was running out.

Calculating the least risky move based on my limited knowledge of chess would be hard enough, but it was almost impossible with the boxing combination Id just practiced still swimming in my head.

But thats the point because this is chess boxing.

The sport, where opponents alternate between rounds in the ring and time on the chessboard, is one of North Londons more unusual workouts.

Im one of nearly 20 people who came down on a cold Saturday morning to a training session in Islington.

Its not the typical crowd youd see pounding leather at your local gym, but that doesnt mean you should underestimate them.

Its normally chess fans who want a bit more, one of the organisers, Gavin, told me. Lots of people in the boxing community kind of think were taking the p***s out of their sport.

Although Gavin and his friends are definitely not making fun of the sport you can understand why people might be sceptical.

And the row of tables lined up with chess sets and clocks against one wall of the gym attracts some quizzical looks from those whove turned up to box.

But you shouldnt knock it before you try it.

Because, as I found out quite quickly, your appreciation for both skillsets is only elevated when you give it a go.

Like many people, I didnt believe chess boxing was an actual thing when I was first told about it by a friend.

He said that the venue, attached to a pub across the road from our school famous for 3 pints and free pool, also held these strange bouts once in a while.

You can win either by knockout or checkmate, he added.

It sounded ridiculous, but it turned out to be true.

Events have been taking place at the Dome club in Tufnell Park for years and the chessboxers practice not far away at Islington Boxing Club.

Their training sessions on a Saturday are always welcome to newcomers who want to Get fit! and Get smart!

The session begins with a quick pair of laps around the park the boxing club is in.

Its absolutely freezing, but not too strenuous.

That wasnt a sign of what was to come.

Back inside the group are throwing jabs and hooks as the boxing coach, Zowie, takes us through a series of ever more complex combinations.

If youve never done boxing before, you might think that you just have to throw your arms around, perhaps youve watched two fighters grappling in the ring and wondered whether its all about brute strength.

But, as anyone who's been tasked with throwing a combination will know, the sport requires as much brainpower as it does muscle.

It might be because its early on a Saturday, but it takes a while to get the routines down.

But just as soon as that is crystallising in the head, theres a shout of Chess.

As soon as that shout is made everyone has to leave the spot where they were throwing punches and pair up to play someone for a quickfire chess match.

Those familiar with the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit will know that in chess circles there are faster versions of the game which can be just as intense and exciting as the traditional format.

But being about as fresh to chess as they come Im just hoping I remember where the pieces move.

Thankfully my opponent realises that Im far from an experienced player and spends most of the time coaching me on how best to protect my pieces.

The most striking thing about it is that especially when the chess clock is ticking down the intensity of the game is on the same level as the boxing.

You are filled with equal anxiety about how to protect yourself.

Just like when you are boxing and an ill-timed slip leaves you with a punch in the face, the wrong move of a pawn suddenly lose a more valuable piece or worse.

The coaches never gave us too long to dwell the board, however, youd be catching your breath when the shout suddenly goes up that you need to do 20 burpees.

Its like trying to do a maths exam and having it interrupted by an overly enthusiastic PE teacher.

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The boxing side of the class gradually ratchets up in intensity until at the end everyone is wearing headguards and doing some light sparring.

As pairs of fighters jostle for space in the gym, circling each other and throwing combinations of punches the contrast from the stillness of the chess is more pronounced.

But even then the similarities between the two are there to see, the timing and strategy of boxing can be just as nuanced.

Although theres not getting away from the fact that if your heads not in it you might catch a punch in the face.

If you leave your head on the chess table, you might be in trouble and after an hours hard work its a real test of endurance.

I was flagging by this stage and forgetting where to put my hands. So much of boxing is about co-ordination and when you are tired you might know you need to raise your right elbow to block a hook, but its your left one that comes up.

As the session comes to a close I was a sweaty mess, but also my brain was tired.

It was hard to know which hurt my head more, the boxing or the chess.

Do you take part in an unusual sport? Contact zak.garnerpurkis@reachplc.com with your stories

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Inside London's brutal chess club where you have to punch each other between games - My London

In an essay for TheArticle published on December 7 last year, Jay Elwes posed here a provocative question: who was the greatest artist of the twentieth century? Ella Fitzgerald was Jays answer. I would prefer to nominate Marcel Duchamp, about whom I have also written previously in this column. Duchamps reputation is based on both his art and his chess, and the key link between the two was the incorporation into his art of a maxim of the sublime chess strategist, the Latvian Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch: that beauty resides, not in optical appearance, but in the pressure of thought behind what is openly visible, audible or perceptible by any of our senses.

This brings me to that celebrated poem by Charles Baudelaire, in which he extols the possibility of trans-sensory perception, in other words: Synaesthesia. I have examined various translations of Baudelaires Correspondances, without finding any of them particularly adequate to convey his message of a carnival of variegated sensual resonance, criss-crossing and liberated from borders or barriers.

Here then is my own stab at rendering the spirit of the original.

Baudelaires Correspondances

Of living pillars is all nature madeThis temple resonates with words we find confusedSymbolic forests line our strange paradeThe trees watch us, not hostile, not bemused.

Then mingling echoes reach us from afarA shadowy abyss, a mystic unityVast as the darkness, yet shining with lights clarity.Scents, colours, sounds, converse without a bar.

The perfumes fresh, like stroking infant skinSweet tones of oboes, verdant as the plainsAnd others, rich, triumphant, corruptingAn infinite expanse tempts us at no expenseAmber, musk, incense, balsam and, yes, myrrhAll chant in transport of the spirit and the sense.

John Cage, the avant garde composer of the utterly silent piano piece Four minutes thirty three seconds, learned chess so that the man of silence might better communicate with Duchamp, the artist of invisible thought. In 1968, Cage and Duchamp played chess, with a board wired up, connecting chess with music, to reflect each move as a musical note. The manifestation was called Reunion. I knew Cage well, and in conjunction with Barry Martin, I organised a birthday party for him at the Chelsea Arts Club. Teeny Duchamp, Marcels widow, was a guest of honour and the cake was created in the shape of La Fontaine, Duchamps notorious inverted urinal (pictured above). One of the wittiest cartoons I ever saw was a picture of a public lavatory, with the urinal missing, having been violently wrenched off the wall. The caption proclaims: Duchamp was here!

For a man of silence, Cage was consistently accompanied by raucous, noisy and dramatic events. Once, while playing chess with him in my Kensington flat, a burglary took place in the apartment beneath us, during the course of which the front door was hacked open with an axe. On another occasion, during a performance at the Tate Gallery of Cages String Quartet, the cellist suffered an epileptic fit. I questioned Cage afterwards. Surely this was a Duchampian chance event, demanded at some random moment by the musical score? Cage denied this and put the incident down to genuine chance.

I was later fortunate enough to acquire a recording of the music created at Reunion. When trying to play it back, the disk was utterly silent. I should have seen that coming.

Who now bears the banner of Duchamp in both art and chess? I can think of two contemporary artists who do. Patrick Hughes combines the two and its impossible to avoid the detection of checkered patterns in his thought provoking reversals of Renaissance perspective.

Then there is Barry Martin (above left), official artist for the world chess championships of 1993 and 2000, involving Garry Kasparov, Nigel Short and Vladimir Kramnik, has acquired an official FID (World Chess Federation) rating and packs thought even into the vacant interstices of his works. Some of his work depicts the protagonists of the chess championships, others flood the canvas with abstract shapes, pyramidical, vertical, hinting both at nature, the passing of the seasons, even cities, such as Venice, and monumental human constructions.

Barry describes his own work thus: Rhythm, colour sensation, application, amount, proportion, composition all play their part, but against theorising comes the felt! Its here that the unknown begins to form and the conduit of the artist starts to unmask the amorphous shapes from the shadows; rhythms create contrapuntal movement, as in music. Stand-out colours, such as vertiginous green, resonate a distinct chord that gives a key to how further colours in juxtaposition appear to inform and enrich the viewers experience. Peripheral vision plays a firm hand in keeping this dialogue going!

In keeping with Baudelaires trans-sensory celebration, and in the Duchamp / Cage tradition, Barry has now teamed up with the chess-loving concert pianist, Jason Kouchak (above right), originator of the giant outdoor chess board in Holland Park, to create a combined chess / music collaboration. Jason writes:

The paintings by Barry Martin, which I first saw at the Waterhouse Dodd Gallery in Savile Row last year, inspired me most deeply. Imagining four seasons in one day as an opportunity to combine colour and music as a performance art performance. When I first saw Barrys work, I felt lost between the spaces on a chromatic keyboard. A sense of being suspended between colours while searching for invisible light on the dark keys.

He continues: In my accompanying score, I am searching for colours within a black and white music framework. The concept of Chiaroscuro, the contrast between light and dark, is present in all of the musical pieces incorporating the shifts in tone, texture, and timing, as the piano moves from major to minor chords: a journey of adventure, discovery and individual expectations through colour and music. The use of silence in all the piano compositions demonstrates that the spaces between the colours, or the notes, are as important as the colours/notes themselves.

To conclude, here is Baudelaires Correspondances in the original, synaesthetic French. It is a somewhat mystical creation from the advocate of the artist as the depictor of modern life, a critic who so enthusiastically predicted the bourgeois pleasures of Manet, Monets steam driven trains at St Lazare, or the plebeian weekends of Renoirs vacationers at La Grenouillre.

From: Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

Correspondances

La Nature est un temple o de vivants piliersLaissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;Lhomme y passe travers des forts de symbolesQui lobservent avec des regards familiers.Comme de longs chos qui de loin se confondentDans une tnbreuse et profonde unit,Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clart,Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se rpondent.II est des parfums frais comme des chairs denfants,Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies, Et dautres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,Ayant lexpansion des choses infinies,Comme lambre, le musc, le benjoin et lencens,Qui chantent les transports de lesprit et des sens.

Our game of the week is from Round 2 of the Tata Steel Masters, at Wijk aan Zee in Holland , between world champion Magnus Carlsen and his habitual opponent, Anish Giri, which started on Saturday 15th.

Raymond Keenes latest book Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from Blackwells.

The rest is here:
The colour of silence: art, chess and synaesthesia - TheArticle

Chess is a lot like life, according to Eric Bullock, CEO and Founder of Culture is Key. It involves making moves, patience, critical thinking, and unforeseen consequences when actions are rushed.

With the game of chess, you learned so much patience. You learn how to think independently. You learn confidence within yourself, Bullock said. Every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m. Culture is Key hosts chess matches for Trentons young minds, ages 7 to 10, for just a ten dollar admission. Bullock and his team of mentors sit down one on one with Trenton children to teach them how to play and advise them what moves to make to win the game.

Trenton native Allen Killebrew is a mentor who knows how to play the game and also coached several kids on maneuvering tricky plays. This is just something I love to do and thats the reason why Im here, Killebrew noted.

Culture Is Key associate Dana Corbell is a student at TCNJ, who loves to volunteer with the organization. Everything that they are doing, I love it. Im not even from Trenton At the end of the day, just seeing kids prosper is kind of like a big thing to meand theyre all having a great time, Corbell said.

Culture is Key has been conducting COVID surveys, checking children for symptoms, adhering to mask guidelines, and socially-distancing as much as possible. Because of the small sizes, we eliminate the mass spread of COVID, and thats something that is just super important, Bullock said.

The organization is planning on restarting the program in February by adding more mentors and allowing both boys and girls to learn the intricate game of chess. Erics father Edward Bullock is one of those mentors leading the charge.

The leadership skills that the kids are learning go beyond chess to strategies and Im talking to them about when you make a move their are consequences, just like in life Some are positive, some are negative. So think carefully before you make that move. And thats an important lesson, Edward said.

Read the original:
Organization Educates Young Minds Using the Game of Chess - TrentonDaily News

Mike Vick was recently on the Pat McAfee show, and talked about how he knew hed have success with Andy Reid in Philadelphia, other teams that called him out of prison, and getting his butt kicked by a 12 year old in chess:

I am so impressed with people who can play chess. Not even the ability to play really, Im sure I could take a week to learn the game, but the patience. The different strategies that go into moving a pawn or rook confuse me so much that I lose interest two moves in. Give me checkers and diagonal moves all day. Double jumps. Triple jumps. King me bitch and Im an absolute menace all over the board. Backwards. Forwards. You cant escape me. American Checkers, Chinese Checkers, doesnt matter, Kyle in 4. Throw me into chess and Im drowning in the deep end of the pool. My kings head would be off faster than Ned Starks (spoiler alert).

Chess prodigies are up there with golfing prodigies as the cockiest motherfuckers around! Look at this article from Michael Vitez of the Inquirer when Vick played chess with an 18 year old at a charity event:

Jowel knew he owned the quarterback on the sixth move.

When he didnt want to trade his queen, I said, Hes intimidated by me now, Jowel said. Thats when I gave him my moves.

Vick has the Superman emblem tattooed on his right hand, but it didnt help. At one point, showing mercy, Jowel said, I dont think you want to make that move, Mr. Vick.

Jowel piled up pieces.

Apparently, youre in a mess right now, Jowel told him.

Vick talked tough, full of bravado.

You get a ticket for every win, Vick said.

This brought a giant smile to Jowels face.

One ticket for every win?

And he turned to the crowd. Who wants to go to an Eagles game? Jowel asked.

In seven minutes, just 17 moves for Jowel, it was over. Checkmate.

The whole interview was really good, if you have the time, but these two clips stood out to me. The one below is Mike talking about being thrown into his first game once Kevin Kolb went down:

The other was a funny story from the 2010 playoff game against the Packers. Which brought back some bad memories. I honestly thought we were going to the Super Bowl that year. If I was to rank all of the worst Eagles playoff losses this game is right below the 2009 NFC Championship game, which is below early 2000 losses. The moment theyre talking about happens at 2:00:53 on the goal line late in the game. Dont watch the whole game its 0 fun.

See more here:
Mike Vick Got His Butt Kicked in Chess By a 12 Year Old While In Philly - Crossing Broad

Few players in the NBA have done more to lift their stock this season than Ja Morant. The Memphis Grizzlies star is a legitimate MVP threat as he guides Memphis to an impressive 34-17 record.

Morant is known for being a high-scoring, highly-athletic guard capable of taking over a game. Though according to Draymond Green, his intelligence vaults him into a category with future Hall of Famers LeBron James and Chris Paul.

Little by little, the Grizzlies have become relevant since the third-year guard Morant entered the league. Memphis went 34-39 his rookie season before going 38-34 and securing the Western Conferences eighth seed last year. Now, Morants Grizzlies have nearly matched last seasons win total and comfortably sit in the three-seed.

To no surprise, Morants breakout is the primary reason for Memphis sharp rise. The 22-year-old is averaging a career-high 25.9 points after scoring 17.8 and 19.1 points the last two seasons. He is also shooting a career-best 48.8% from the field and 35.7% from three while averaging 7.0 assists, 6.1 rebounds, and a personal-best 1.3 steals.

Morant has been excellent all season, but hes been especially brilliant since returning from a knee sprain on Dec. 20. Since then, hes averaging 27.6 points on 49.9% shooting. That places him seventh in the NBA ahead of fellow stars Devin Booker, James Harden, and Nikola Jokic.

The former Murray State Racer is currently in the midst of his best five-game stretch of the season. Morant has scored 30 or more points in five straight contests, including a season-best 41 points on Jan. 26. Friday against the Utah Jazz, the 6-foot-3 guard registered his first triple-double of the season with 30 points, 10 boards, and 10 helpers.

One of the teams Morant and the Grizzlies will have to go through out west is the Golden State Warriors. Specifically, theyll have to go through Green.

The 2016-17 Defensive Player of the Year stopped by JJ Redicks podcast The Old Man and the Three to talk about a variety of subjects. When Redick asked Draymond about the smartest players hes gone up against or played with, the Warriors star gave a surprising answer.

The smartest players Ive played against are, by far, LeBron, Rajon Rondo, and Chris Paul, Green said. And whos creeping up into that category is Ja Morant.

Green, a six-time All-Defensive Team selection, elaborated on what impresses him the most about the young Morant.

Everybody is excited about how Ja Morant flies around, everybodys excited about the passes he may throw all of those things are very exciting. Dont get me wrong, they excite me too. But the thing that excites me the most about Ja Morant is when were playing against the Memphis Grizzlies and, not quite to the level of LeBron James, Chris Paul, or Rajon Rondo, but when were playing against those guys, I can feel the chess match. Every possession down, theyre looking at me, scoping me out to see where Im at. Im looking at their guys to see what theyre doing, and every time down the floor its like a chess match. Its like that with Ja.

Draymond stopped short of claiming Morant was at LeBrons overall playing level or whether he was headed to the Hall of Fame. But he sees a very bright future for the Grizzlies star.

Hes in his third year, Green explained. Not quite to the level of those guys yet, but I didnt have the privilege of playing against those guys at that time in their career. But Id only imagine it was along those same lines as Ja.

With Golden State in the two-seed and Memphis in the three-seed, Morant and Green could be going head-to-head in an epic playoff series. It would be a rematch of last years play-in game for the eight-seed, where Ja dropped 35 to help the Grizzlies shock the Dubs 117-112 in overtime.

After his clutch performance in the Bay last year, Morant has kept it rolling against Golden State in 2021-22. In just his fifth game of the year, the former Murray State Racer scored 30 points in a three-point Memphis victory. Three days after returning from injury in December, Morant offered up another 21 points in a nine-point loss on the road. Then on Jan. 11, Ja took advantage of the Green-less Warriors by registering 29 points and eight assists in the eight-point win.

Its a chess match when were playing the Grizzlies, Green told Redick. And I, as the anchor of our defense and facilitator on offense, feel that.

For what its worth, the 10-year veteran does see at least one way to expose Ja. While its better than it has previously been, Morants defense presents an opportunity for growth.

Ja hasnt gotten that part yet of where on the defensive end, I have to be worried about you too because youre so smart [and] youre sniffing out everything, Green said. He is that smart, but he just doesnt understand how to sniff out everything yet. Whereas with those guys (LeBron, CP3, Rondo), Ill throw a pass and LeBron will be right out there waiting as if I was throwing a pass to him.

Considering Morant is still just 22, he has plenty of room to become a highly-intelligent defender. And he might have a chance to do it this spring against Draymond and the Warriors.

All statistics courtesy of Basketball Reference.

RELATED: Shaquille ONeal Adds to the Ja Morant MVP Train With an Intriguing and Personal Comparison

Originally posted here:
Ja Morant Earned a Glowing Comparison to LeBron James and Chris Paul From Draymond Green: I Can Feel the Chess Match - Sportscasting