UK BJJ legend Dan Strauss recently revealed the rules for a brand new format that he created, Chess Grappling. The idea is to blend the two activities together, switching between them in alternating rounds. It’s an interesting concept and Strauss openly admits that he took inspiration for the idea from an existing hybrid sport, Chess Boxing. Although it has been referenced for several decades in different areas like Film and Music, but the first official Chess Boxing event took place in 2003. Although it’s never got anywhere near being a popular sport, it’s gained some notoriety and even has it’s own champions who are incredibly talented at both aspects of it.
Chessboxing is a fairly straightforward concept because Boxing is already conducted in short rounds and Chess can easily be paused. Each Boxing round already restarts in a neutral position too, so the hybrid sport flows quite easily. Chessgrappling is a little different though, because grappling isn’t generally fought in rounds. Some promotions like the Craig Jones Invitational and UFC BJJ do conduct their matches in rounds, but even then there are far less of them and they are far longer. It’s not uncommon for Boxing matches to go for twelve three-minute rounds, whereas the grappling matches that do use rounds tend to have three for five minutes each.
Strauss saw another issue with the idea of Chess Boxing, that the two sports are actually disconnected and they don’t have any effect on each other. He changed that by adding the rule that each grappling round would start in progressively more dominant positions, and the player who has less pieces in the ongoing Chess game takes the inferior side of those positions. This creates a situation where the stronger Chess player can actually earn an advantage for themselves in the grappling rounds. This would help to make up for any skill disadvantage they might be at, and potentially level the playing field.
Dan Strauss shared the rules for Chess Grappling in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
