The Cologne Fights

Exciting Evening of Chessboxing in Cologne

People from Cologne experienced their first chessboxing event on the 21st of April, 2006 at a venue called Gloria. Champagne bottles were emptied, the ring girls were yelled at and the Hip Hop act "Illicit" from the Netherlands rocked the audience.


This time the WCBO presented an exciting speed game of chess at grandmaster level and two chessboxing fights.

The main fight of the evening between "Anti Terror" Frank Stoldt and Zoran "The Priest" Mijatovic was won by the police officer from Berlin: Frank Stoldt.

The fight was pretty much balanced, both in the ring and on the board, up to the 5th round of chess. Mijatovic overlooked an intervening check, through which he lost his rook. He tried to knock out Stoldt in the next boxing round. But Stoldt was experienced and strong enough to hold against "The Priest’s" attacks. Mijatovic resigned in the 7th round just before he would have been checkmated. This fight marked a new era in chessboxing; never before had two such experienced chessplayers and boxers stood toe to toe in the ring! "Anti Terror" Frank has now qualified himself for the world title fight next year.

The Cologne middleweight championship was won by Jan Mielke. This local match was very exciting. Mielke had a small advantage in chess and Stefan Dittrich had a slight edge in boxing. In the end, Mielke survived the three boxing rounds and won the game because the time on Dittrich’s clock was running out in the 7th round (chess). Mielke declared after the fight that he was very lucky, as he wouldn’t have survived another boxing round.

The speedgame of chess between GM Florian Handke and IM Georg Seul was won by Grandmaster Florian Handke. The game was in balance for most of the time until Handke was able to free one of his pawns which gave him the advantage needed to win.