Chess-Jitsu: a new novelty sport.

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Background: Chess-Jitsu is simply Chessboxing with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instead of boxing. A novelty sport that might be fun or temporarily interesting for practitioners of both Chess and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. One point of study on Chessboxing is the potential cognitive or developmental benefits of the sport. If those benefits are real, Chess-Jitsu delivers on all of them and is also an alternative with less brain damage than Chessboxing, albeit less fan-friendly or commercially viable because boxing is much bigger than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ).

A Chess-Jitsu match consists of 2 or 3 BJJ matches (best 2 out of 3), each following an IBJJF ruleset, and a 20 minute (or longer- see rule #2) chess game.

1. The first phase begins with chess and takes up 10 minutes from both players. Checkmate can be achieved in this very first phase to win the entire Chess-Jitsu match.
2. After the first 10 minutes are completed, the 1st BJJ match starts. If player wins match by submission instead of points, he/she gets extra 5 minutes on their chess clock.
3. The second phase of the chess game begins after the 1st BJJ match. It is also 10 minutes.
4. The second match of the BJJ portion begins if checkmate was still not achieved. If one player wins this portion for the second time in a row, that person wins the entire Chess-Jitsu match.
5. The final phase, if a checkmate or BJJ victory (best 2 out of 3) wasn’t achieved yet, is strictly the chess game with the remaining time left (whoever wins it wins the Chess-Jitsu match. Sometimes draws are possible).

Tactics:

Strategies can be used by each player to maximize their advantages.

• Bad at Chess, good at BJJ, playing against someone who’s good at Chess but bad at BJJ: If I have an advantage in BJJ but am significantly worse in chess, I can stall and be defensive in chess to make the most out of my BJJ advantage. Phase 1 is 10 minutes but both players have 20 minutes on their clocks. That means, in my first turn, I could do something as dramatic as run 10 minutes off my clock (stall) so I could try to beat my opponent in the first BJJ match. If I win the first BJJ match by submission, I get an extra 5 minutes on the clock. This means, that after entering the BJJ match with around 10 minutes on my clock (since I burned through the entire first phase by running my clock to avoid getting checkmated before Phase 2 even starts), I get an extra 5 minutes because of the BJJ submission win. Now, in phase 2 of the chess game, I can burn through the clock again and have 5 minutes left. If I win the second BJJ match, I win the Chess-Jitsu match with minimal chess skills, a significantly superior BJJ skillset, and a sensible tactic.
• Good at Chess, bad at BJJ, playing against someone who’s bad at chess but bad at BJJ: Simply try to win by checkmate. If your opponent tries the tactic listed above this one, try your best to survive in the first BJJ match without being submitted. That way they’re likely to lose by checkmate or time out.
• Decent at both/balanced: If I’m competent in both chess and BJJ, I’ll just try my best in both portions of the Chess-Jitsu match, but will make observations on where I have the advantage over my opponent and lean towards one of the above tactics.

Update (March 31, 2024): website published that’s dedicated to this concept. Go to ChessJitsu.net

©️ 2023 Tseren Zurganov and Andrew Burner