FISCHER'S ALREADY TAKEN TOO MANY BLOWS TO THE HEAD:

By Hook or by Rook: In chessboxing, contestants match moves on the board one round, in the ring the next. Checkmate is as good as a knockout. (Jeffrey Fleishman, December 1, 2005, LA Times)

Martin "Amok" Thomas is jabbing a right, but Frank "so-cool-he-doesn't-need-a-nickname" Stoldt is as elusive as a ribbon in the wind. He can't be hit.

Time.

The gloves come off, and the men hurry across the canvas to the chessboard. (You heard it right.) Amok took a couple of body shots, and he's breathing hard, but he'd better focus. That Stoldt, though, everyone in the gym knows he's this warrior-thinker, slamming the speed clock, cunningly moving his queen amid unraveling bandages and dripping sweat, daring Amok to leave him a sliver of opportunity.

Time.

Velcro rips. Amok slides back into his Everlast gloves, bites down on his mouthpiece, dances along the ropes. His king's in trouble, and his punches couldn't knock lint off a jacket. Stoldt floats toward him like a cloud of big hurt.

Such is the bewildering beauty of chessboxing, alternating rounds of four minutes of chess followed by two minutes of boxing. Victory is claimed in a number of ways, some of them tedious, but the most thrilling are by checkmate and knockout.

Get supermodels to play it in a tub of Jell-o and you've got an ESPN franchise.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2005 8:28 AM