Why boxing is compared to chess
Boxing has often been compared to chess. Chess boxing is even a growing sport.
It can seem confusing that a sport involving intense physical effort and violence can be compared to a board game, but I hope in this guide I will be able to explain the similarities that I understand them to have.
I’ve seen a few comparisons online as to why this is, comparing the focus and mental stamina, but I feel like none of them have sufficiently explained why they’re so similar.
Here is what I think are the links.
The structure of the game
Both chess and boxing involve occupying a central space. The player who is dominant in that space will generally be winning.
In chess, the initial objective is to control the four squares in the centre.
The same is obvious for boxing:
Official guidelines say that the aim of a boxer is to score points, but in reality, the objective often becomes knocking the opponent down.
This involves pressing forward and occupying a central space, or bringing your opponent into the centre to effectively counter.
Methods of occupying the centre
To occupy the centre, players of chess and boxing will need to move into it or evade the opponent attempting to enter it.
“Occupy or evade” is a piece of advice for fighters, i.e. don’t stand still and get hit.
In chess, most openings work off the theory of gaining control over the four central squares.
Most chess players, even beginners, will know that e4 and d4 are some of the standard choices for white’s opening.
Moving one of the front two pawns into the four squares in the middle is an obvious place to start.
These two pawn moves form the basis for many classic openings.
These chess moves can easily be attributed to left-side and right-side strikes to begin a combination, or at least any opening strikes to try and occupy the centre space in between the fighters.
Even though an e4 opening is on the right, it feels like a left jab is more akin to an e4 opening, due to it being easier to handle and more of a standard opening.
A right cross may be more similar to a d4 opening.
However, these specific comparisons are just an opinion. The point is to establish a connection between the punches and the moves, based on their purpose and direction.
Adapting your game
When boxing an opponent, the objective is to try and figure out what their combinations are. This is so you can predict and then counter, landing effective and point-scoring strikes.
Do they generally go for a left jab, cross and then left hook? Or do they go for a double jab, and then a cross?
The same applies to chess openings. The Italian Game is a classic opening which goes e4, e5, Nf3, Nc6, Bc4.
This is a combination, the same as a combination of punches.
e4 = jab
Knight f3 = cross
Bishop c4 = hook
Side note here: it does seem like a knight makes more sense as a hook moving in an L-shape, and a bishop being a cross moving straight, but the analogy fits the opening. And as stated earlier, these are merely my own comparisons of the moves. Each person will have their own thoughts about move comparison. Perhaps this is the root of unique fighter psychology.
But your opponent might know the Italian Game. In the same way, they might know the move set of jab, cross, hook.
You move out e4 (throwing a jab), ready for your cross (Nf3) and hook (bc4).
But then, wait.
Your opponent plays the Scandinavian Opening (switches to the left side).
Your strategy must now change, just as it would need to change if you attempted a jab, cross, hook, but were then your opponent pivoted to the left side.
Taking the pawn (Mieses-Kotrč Variation) could be comparable to pivoting to match their repositioning.
Every single unique position in both chess and boxing will then have a unique response, which will then in turn produce a new scenario.
You can go down a rabbit hole thinking of all the positions in chess compared to all the physical positions in boxing, each with a tiny variation depending on the fighter, and how both players arrived at the situation.
In chess, there are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first 10 moves.
Read aloud as a number, this is: one hundred sixty-nine octillion, five hundred eighteen septillion, eight hundred twenty-nine sextillion, one hundred quintillion, five hundred forty-four quadrillion.
In boxing, the combination of movements each with a slight variation is probably something similar.
As the fight progresses, the same with a chess match, all the previous actions of the match are layered on, building up a pathway of strategy throughout the game either leading to a winning or losing situation.
It might seem like the fighters or chess players are back to square one, but in reality the fight/match has a history behind each position, determining the outcome of the match.
Positioning
You often hear that “boxers fight with their feet” to demonstrate that positioning and balance are everything.
Anyone can punch hard, even people who aren’t that strong. But boxers aim to punch accurately and from a good position, as well as hard. Accurate strikes are all that matter, as a powerful punch that misses achieves nothing.
Chess is the same. Any piece, for example, the bishop, has the same power. But where the piece is positioned on the board will make all the difference. Positioning wins the game.
Each player has the same tools at their disposal, particularly with weight classes being so stringent.
The Sicilian as the ultimate disruptor
The Sicilian Defence is one of the most studied openings in chess.
By playing the move c5, the game is completely changed in one move.
No longer can you control the centre in the same way, the game has completely shifted to a different style
This could be compared to switching to southpaw from orthodox.
But the methods of disruption in a boxing match are endless – I’ll let you decide what could completely switch the game up in a similar way.
Gambits & risk
Offering a trade is a crucial part of chess and boxing.
In both sports, you are at most risk when you’re striking, this is when mistakes are made. While boxing isn’t turn-based, it can look that way sometimes.
Certain moves in chess, particularly in the opening, are known as gambits.
A gambit is derived from the Italian word ‘gambetto’ which means ‘the act of tripping someone with the leg to make them fall’.
In chess, a gambit is an opening in which a player offers to sacrifice material in order to gain a positional advantage. If a player takes the material, this is known as [gambit name] accepted, and if they don’t, [gambit name] declined.
Both have their benefits.
There are many gambits, the most famous being the Queen’s Gambit, one of the strongest openings.
For the comparison to boxing, I think the King’s Gambit is a much stronger comparison as it’s significantly riskier, much like gambits in boxing, as a boxing match can end in one punch.
The King’s Gambit involves the move f4.
Black can take this pawn for free. This is King’s Gambit accepted.
White is down a pawn right at the start, but note that Black has now been drawn away from the four squares in the centre.
Many risky moves in boxing are the equivalent. Some boxers fight this way, by simply pressing forward.
They take the risk of a hit to provide themselves with an advantageous position.
But you are losing material (taking damage in the process).
A fighter going for left-side body shots then opens up their opponent on that side, but potentially gains if they can make the move worth it.
Psychological warfare
Most boxers and chess players are good enough to beat each other on most days.
But the key question: will they be good enough on the night, when it matters?
It’s a contest of the knowledge of the game, but also focus and nerve. Can you keep the concentration and nerve in your strategy, or will you buckle under the pressure?
This is why chess and boxing go so well together in chess boxing. It’s all wrapped up into one.
You might succeed with brute strength in the ring, but on the board, you might doubt your mental strategy.
Trash talk & ego
Players of both sports can use simple methods to chip away at their opponent’s confidence.
As both sports are between two solo players, ego comes into it. Significantly more so in boxing.
Chess has press conferences before tournaments, and they’re starting to look a lot more similar to boxing, maybe with far less aggression, but still the same level of competition.
Normally the only difference is the boxers will sit further away as inevitably they end up trying to batter each other.
But chess conferences aren’t as dry as you might think.
Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana were asked to name their favourite players of all time:
Skill ceiling
I play chess in my spare time and also practice Muay Thai twice a week.
For both things, people often ask me: “Are you good?”
It’s hard to answer, because it all depends.
For either chess or boxing, to a someone who had never done it before, maybe I’d be good, but against any serious competitor, not even close. The gulf between myself and a professional is as wide (or much wider) as the one between myself and a beginner.
What is fascinating about boxing and particularly chess, is this skill ceiling continues infinitely to the very top. Nobody actually knows where the skill ceiling ends for either. How good can you actually get?
At any level, the gulf between those above you and below you stays the same for a long time. Only the GOATs might start to see the amount of people above them start to reduce.
The Elo rating system is used for chess skill to loosely determine the skill of a player.
Chess.com’s guidelines are as follows:
You can safely say a chess grandmaster is considered to be pretty good at chess. There are just under 2,000 grandmasters in the world.
But there now exists the term ‘super grandmaster’ because there exists a subdivision of grandmasters who are significantly better than all the other grandmasters, to the point of easily beating them. They generally are identified by having an Elo of over 2700.
Then against all the super grandmasters is Magnus Carlsen.
Carlsen basically stopped competing in the world championships because of a “lack of motivation” and that he “doesn’t have a lot to gain”.
He’s won it every year for 10 years and simply lost interest in winning all the time.
You might think that with Carlsen we have reached the limit of chess ability. But chess engines have long surpassed human talent, with Stockfish as of 2024 reaching an Elo of 3635. For reference, Magnus Carlsen, the greatest player of all time, has a peak Elo of 2882.
Even Carlsen is still weak compared to the strongest chess engines, meaning that despite the fact that Carlsen is considered the greatest chess player that has ever lived, he somehow (bafflingly) still has a lot of room for improvement.
He would need an Elo improvement of around 750, which is unbelievably huge at Super GM level.
Even the chess engines are improving all the time, and engines such as AlphaZero propose new areas of improvement.
So how good can someone get at chess? We might never know.
Boxing and fighting sports have a similar infinite skill ceiling.
There are plenty of fighters who seem untouchable until someone comes along and seems to make light work of them.
The skill ceiling being challenged is what makes both sports so exciting, and new talent constantly refreshes what we consider to be ‘good’.
Slugging match
Both sports can end in a test of endurance if they’re equally matched.
Tired but with small hits, just whittling down your opponent as they’re doing the same to you.
Both sports also fight against the clock too, and become a test of endurance and intuition. No longer can you rely on overpowering your opponent.
Getting ‘gassed out’ in boxing is a frequent problem for some fighters, and those that have strong endurance can often win the fight simply by staying upright for longer.
Conclusion
There are many more similarities that I could go into, but I wanted to cover the tactical similarities above all else.
I think one to mention is that both sports carry a high-class association, both being considered a ‘gentleman’s’ game, which I think could be open for exploration.
There are so many avenues to go down for both sports, and as they continue to develop, the similarities deepen.
Chess boxing is still relatively small, but it’s a growing sport.
You can see the latest top events in the link below:
Any comparisons that you think I’ve missed? Let me know.
