Скачать или смотреть The World Diving Chess Championships

Dive Chess is exactly what it sounds like: chess, but underwater. Picture a regular swimming pool, only now the water is home to a submerged chessboard with magnetic pieces, and the players themselves must temporarily become fish. Each move is dictated not by patience or cunning alone, but by the simple, primal urge to breathe. You can think as long as you can hold your breath, make your move, and then—up you come, gasping—while your opponent plunges into the watery depths to do the same. It’s chess meets a mild near-drowning, and somehow it works.

The peculiar invention of this piscine pastime belongs to Etan Ilfeld, an American who now lives in England. Ilfeld, a chess master since his youth—he started playing at four and competing at ten—decided that chess, for all its cerebral glory, could do with a dash of theatricality, or as he put it, “a bit more cool and quirky.” The idea, evidently, was to turn a game often associated with stuffy concentration into a spectacle where strategy and stamina are equally vital.

The magnetic board sits like a tiny Atlantis beneath the surface, while players dive down to make their moves. Those with a natural command of buoyancy appear almost amphibious, serene and unruffled, contemplating their next strike as if underwater chess were the most natural thing in the world. Others, less gifted in the art of hovering like a trout, flail somewhat, emerging for air with the flustered dignity of a cat in a bathtub. In the early days, some players tried using weights to steady themselves, but the sport has matured, and weights are no longer allowed.

Success in Dive Chess is surprisingly dependent on rhythm and lung capacity. Experienced players can control their breathing and time their moves like seasoned divers, turning mere survival into a subtle tactical advantage. The pieces themselves are standard tournament chess pieces, but with a twist: they contain weights and a ferocious magnet to hold firm under the water’s gentle rebellion.

And then there’s the practical nightmare: goggles that fog, water that sneaks in, and the ever-present terror of misjudging your breath. One misstep and your brilliant strategy is lost, sacrificed to the inexorable laws of physics. In the end, Dive Chess is a curious fusion of intellect and biology, a reminder that even the most stately of games can be made bizarrely thrilling if you just add a pool.