Nimzo-Indian rope-a-dope can't compensate for glass jaw and weak pawn-structure

Touting his strategy of "float like a butterfly, introduce a really nice theoretical novelty in the Pirc Defense," Russian Nikolai Sazhin triumphed in the world champion chess boxing match on Sunday:

Rarely do brains and brawn come together in this way. A Russian was crowned world champion Sunday in the novelty sport of chess boxing that requires equal skill at moving pawns and throwing punches.

Mathematics student Nikolai Sazhin, 19, competing under the name "The President" knocked out a 37-year-old German policeman, Frank Stoldt, who served as a peacekeeper in Kosovo until recently.

The loser said he was simply too punch drunk to fend off checkmate.

"I took a lot of body-blows in the fourth round and that affected my concentration. That's why I made a big mistake in the fifth round: I did not see him coming for my king," he said. [...]

Sazhin commented, "I been trainin' real hard. It came down to a tricky end-game where I would have had to mate with just a knight and bishop. So I just clobbered his sorry butt instead."

Tags: chess, boxing, chess boxing