It's the ultimate test of brain AND brawn. So did our man FRED KELLY suffer knockout or checkmate when he tried the new craze of chessboxing?

Cai 'Bosh' Brigden stalks the canvas, gloves up, the faintest hint of a smile across his face. 

At 6ft 1in tall, the 88kg fighter has a longer reach than his diminutive opponent, Shayan 'The Kingstonian' Zarein Dolab. But looks count for nothing in the ring.

All of a sudden, backed into a corner, The Kingstonian unleashes a primal 'one two' across Cai's midriff, fists working like pistons on a speeding steam train. 

Cai wobbles, time stands still, the crowd holds its breath – and then the bell rings.

But unlike any other boxing match in which the break between rounds means spitting blood into a bucket and smothering Vaseline over open wounds, Cai and Shayan remove their gloves, don a pair of noise-cancelling ear defenders, and plonk themselves down either side of a chess board – their hearts pumping at about 180 beats per minute.

Cai moves a pawn to E5 to a chorus of 'oohs' from the crowd. Could he really be playing the Budapest Gambit – the highly aggressive play that requires the early sacrifice of a piece? 

Sweat cascades down onto the board from wrists, brows and elbows – neither player seems to notice, neither seems to care.

Welcome to the extraordinary sport of 'chessboxing', the hybrid phenomenon that combines brains with brawn and has taken the UK by storm.

By hook or by rook: Fred works on his boxing moves  

The old truism reared its head: it's very difficult to play chess after a round of boxing

The rules are simple: it's a round of chess followed by a round of boxing, and goes on until the winner is determined by checkmate or knockout – whichever is first.

Above the stage at the Soho Theatre Walthamstow – where this exhibition bout took place earlier this week in front of a 500-strong crowd of chess enthusiasts – a big screen depicts tongue-in-cheek images of the two fighters, their faces imposed onto rippling, topless physiques rendered by AI.

This is a serious sport – and people get seriously hurt. But the organisers know how to put on a show, and fights regularly feature theatrics including elaborate choreographed walk-on routines and a pair of commentators dressed in lederhosen stringing together rather lewd innuendos.

But back at the chess board in north London and Cai and Shayan are playing at an alarming speed, making 18 moves each in just 90 seconds as their 'shot clocks' run down. Each player is on a timer: If your clock goes to zero, you lose your chess match by default.

As the game continues, the punches Cai took to the body appear to be affecting his chess.

'The key is to throw your biggest punches just before the end of the round to throw your opponent off their chess game,' declared managing director of Chessboxing Nation Gavin Paterson, prior to the bout.

And how true that proves to be as Cai loses his Queen to Shayan's knight with a tactical misstep he might never have made if he hadn't just been clobbered in the gut.

But on this occasion – by rook or by hook – and after three rounds of boxing and three of chess, Cai triumphs as Shayan's clock runs to zero.

Pictured: Managing Director of Chessboxing Nation, Gavin Paterson 

Pictured: The first ever Battle Royale chessboxing event at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2012 

'My mind was still in the ring,' the defeated challenger later admits, ruing his failure to capitalise on those strong early punches.

The referee then calls both fighters back to the ring and raises Cai's fist aloft. The crowd responds with a mixture of appreciation and bafflement, no doubt not quite sure what exactly it is they've just witnessed.

Boxing can trace its roots back to the 7th century BC, chess to India in roughly the 6th century AD. But it would take almost 1,400 years for mankind to combine the two.

Indeed, they have more in common than you might think.

The great British heavyweight boxer Lennox Lewis used to play chess before big fights in order to focus.

Following his retirement, he established a boxing academy in Jamaica where he also hired a chess coach: 'because it creates discipline, patience and strategy,' Lewis revealed in 2015.

In 1979, competitive boxing brothers James and Stewart Robinson were said to have enjoyed a game of chess between training rounds at the Samuel Montagu Boys Club in South-East London. But it wasn't until 2003 that the first official chessboxing competition took place, in Amsterdam, masterminded by the late Dutch artist Iepe Rubingh who had come across the idea in a French comic book from 1992.

Rubingh took part and won the bout in the 11th round becoming in essence the first ever chessboxing World Champion. He would later go on to serve as the on-set consultant for the hugely popular Netflix chess drama The Queen's Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

Fred Kelly donned some gloves and had a go at the Islington Boxing Gym in north London 

Rubingh's story – and his desperate attempts to govern the sport – would later be immortalised in the 2021 documentary By Rook or Left Hook: The Story of Chessboxing.

Fast forward almost a quarter of a century from Rubingh's first fight and chessboxing is now thriving in the UK under the banner of administrative body Chessboxing Nation, led by managing director Gavin Paterson. 

Chessboxing Nation hosts a small calendar of annual events including Oktoberfist which this year saw 47-year-old veteran Matt 'Crazy Arms' Read celebrate the end of a 20-year career by defeating Anthony 'Toto the Robot' Bourached in front of 600 people at the Scala venue in London's King's Cross.

Other annual events hosted by Chessboxing Nation – which mimics the boozy, laddish atmosphere of a night out at the darts – include Season's Beatings each Christmas and the St Patrick's Day Bash every March.

All bouts are refereed by the spirited fan-favourite Reinaldo Dominguez, a former Cuban junior boxing champion boasting 30in dreadlocks, while the chess board is displayed on a big screen so fans can follow every move.

'We can sell 600 tickets regularly, without pushing the marketing too much,' Gavin tells me at the Islington Boxing Gym in north London, where I have come to don a pair of gloves and try to avoid being biffed in the face.

'But it's still seen as a cult thing, despite how many people want to fight, to train, to compete. We could probably fill the line-ups for our events three or four times over.'

Gavin first got into chessboxing in 2012 when he watched a bout at the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. It was 'seat of the pants' competition, he recalls, in a rundown building where the decor 'hadn't been changed since the 1970s' – but Gavin, a charity worker by day, was captivated by it.

Pictured: Cai 'Bosh' Brigden, a 6ft 1in tall, 88kg fighter 

'It's an open and accepting community,' the MD, trainer and fighter continued, 'you get a load of really interesting, unusual people from all different backgrounds and that's something I particularly enjoy.'

The key question, however, ahead of my first training session is what exactly makes a great chessboxer?

'You've got to have quality across both disciplines,' Gavin explains, looking me up and down, seemingly unconvinced. 'We've had two grandmasters compete in our shows. But you also need to be very fit.'

According to Gavin, the chessboxer who epitomises cross-discipline proficiency better than any other is the 39-year-old Egyptian fighter and chess grandmaster Samy Shoker. 'He's very coordinated and light on his feet,' Gavin recalls of Shoker's European Middleweight Chessboxing Championship victory in 2025.

'His boxing was immaculate and his chess was some of the best I've seen in a chessboxing room.'

But even grandmasters can slip up once they're thrown into the maelstrom of a chessboxing bout. Most famously, grandmaster Simon 'Wildman' Williams lost his Queen having had his nose broken moments earlier by Matthew 'Minotaur' Coldwell – a now infamous blunder from a 2024 fight that, despite Williams going on to win, serves as a warning to all chessboxers.

Before stepping into the ring myself, there was just time for some words of advice from the victor of this week's exhibition bout, Cai 'Bosh' Brigden. The 36-year-old first heard about the sport in 2010 from a friend, but it wasn't until 13 years later in 2023, while Cai was taking small amounts of the psychedelic psilocybin to combat his loss of smell, that: 'a little voice appeared out of nowhere in my head and said: 'chessboxing!'

Three years later and Cai has taken part in two competitive fights with his father in his corner; hired not one but two separate chess coaches and has fallen so in love with the sport he hopes to one day make a film about it.

Perhaps that's no huge surprise considering Cai is an actor by day who has appeared in everything from long-running soaps Casualty and EastEnders, to Bridgerton.

'When I'm fighting everything shuts down around me,' says Cai, a father to young twins. 'I came out of the first session with a huge smile on my face, I was so buzzed and just knew – definitely, this is what I enjoy.'

Cai now trains by running around Crystal Palace, pushing the twins in their buggy while working on his chess moves in the small hours of the night – not that his partner, Hannah, minds too much. 'She just doesn't want to see me get injured – though she will watch the fights back on YouTube once she knows I didn't get knocked out!'

The phrase 'knocked out' ringing in my head, it was finally time to slip on a pair of 16oz boxing mitts and take part in the weekly chessboxing class put on by Gavin Paterson at the Islington Boxing Gym.

Following 90 minutes of painstaking footwork practice and a rudimentary introduction to the 'Sicilian Defence', I found myself touching gloves with trainee barrister Alex, 31, also trying the sport for the first time.

'Everyone I've told thinks it's ridiculous and amazing,' Alex admitted with a grin. 'It's certainly outside of my comfort zone.'

Gavin tells the two of us to try to avoid the face.

To everyone's surprise – not least coach Gavin – your writer excelled in the ring, producing a string of devastating jabs to put the legal boffin on the back foot.

But switching to chess, high on adrenaline and with a heart rate of about 175, and the old truism reared its head: it's very difficult to play chess after a round of boxing. And Alex – who admitted to playing chess regularly online – ultimately put the bout to bed winning after my shot clock ran out to zero.

'I couldn't believe how much concentration was involved,' Alex laughed, still panting having been given the run around in the ring. 'You have to be really switched on while you're doing all these movements.'

Licking my wounds, it was time to hear what trainer Gavin Paterson thought of my performance.

'You listened to my coaching for a start,' he began with only the faintest hint of a smile, 'which sounds like a small thing, but you'd be surprised. You've got base level coordination, and that goes a long way... Ultimately, I enjoyed your enthusiasm.'

So, might Gavin sign me up for a competitive fight – perhaps even taking on Cai 'Bosh' Brigden in front of 600 people at the St Patrick's Day Bash next year?

Gavin pauses. 'You'll improve'.

I can't help but feel he's letting me down gently. Less of a knockout blow, more of a checkmate.