The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

No, this is not a joke. See the full Time article.

The 2008 World Champion Chessboxer, Russian math student Nikolaj Sazhin, 19, won the light heavyweight division in Berlin on July 5 in front of a thousand fans…

“For me the sport is very attractive and demanding and also in a kind of way spectacular,” Sazhin said, via a translator. “You have to be totally cooled down in chess coming out of the boxing round. The adrenaline is the problem.”

That’s funny, I would have guessed the problem was getting POUNDED IN THE HEAD for three minutes.

(Via Matt)