Hasan wasn’t afraid to express his opinion about the judgment following yesterday’s Ludwig’s Mogul Chessboxing Championship match between Andrea Botez and chess woman grandmaster Dina Belenkaya.
The Botez-Belenkaya encounter was a perfect illustration of what happens when each participant substantially outperforms the other in opposite parts of the sport of chessboxing, which requires players to alternate between concentrating on the game and attempting to physically dominate their opponent. Being a female grandmaster, Belenkaya had a distinct advantage over the younger Botez sibling in their chess match. But when the two strapped on their gloves, Andrea more than made up for what she missed on the chessboard.
Botez may have broken the rules by delaying as long as she could during her chess moves as the match neared its conclusion since she knew Belenkaya would soon have her in checkmate. Belenkaya returned the favor by eluding Botez as much as he could during the final round of boxing in order to force a decisive chess round.
Belenkaya wasn’t ready for the barrage of punches Botez threw in, though; they caused enough knockdowns to warrant a TKO, but it wasn’t declared—and Hasan wasn’t happy about it. Hasan acknowledged today that Andrea stalled long enough to be deemed a loser before to the decisive boxing round, but he was quite clear that he wasn’t there for the chess at that time. Hasan said; “Yeah, I get that, but I want to see blood,”
After the game, Botez congratulated Belenkaya and declared that the “better chess player won.” She then got the opportunity to make one final dig at the victor by asserting that she believed they should have been boxing rather than playing “hide and seek.”
The genuine winners of the evening, regardless of the outcome of the match, were the viewers who had the opportunity to watch an exhilarating game of chessboxing with as much drama as one could manage.
