Who has the world’s most formidable combination of brains and brawn? We’ll find out on November 3, 2007, when David “Double D” Depto meets “Anti Terror” Frank Stoldt in Berlin for the World Championship Light Heavyweight Chessboxing match.

You read it right. Chessboxing, invented circa 2003 and gaining popularity in Europe, is billed as “the Number One Fighting Sport Meets the Number One Thinking Sport” by the World Chess Boxing Organization (logo: boxing glove clutching a chess knight). Competitors alternate six rounds of speed chess (about four minutes each) with five rounds of boxing (three minutes). A winner can be declared by KO or by checkmate. Images of past matches display the peculiar sight of sweating, shirtless, towel-draped men frowning anxiously at a chessboard placed in the center of a boxing ring.

30-year-old David Depto, the first American to compete in the World Championship, comes by his chessboxing talents naturally. A native of Wheeling, West Virginia, Depto started playing chess in his school’s gifted program at age 6, and started boxing (as well as playing football and wrestling) in high school. At 19 he broke his back and nearly severed his foot in a 60mph motorcycle collision with a tree; doctors doubted he’d ever play contact sports again.

But Depto went on to box and play rugby at the University of Michigan, while earning a degree in mechanical engineering. His favorite memory of that time? KO’ing classmate Tom Brady with “a body shot that effectively ended his boxing career.” (Readers more inclined towards chess than boxing may not recognize Brady as the quarterback of the three-time Super Bowl-winning New England Patriots.)

Depto, now a pharmaceutical company manager in San Francisco, got involved in chessboxing after seeing an ESPN segment about the new sport, which included a call for American participants. “It was a natural fit for me,” he says, “since I’ve been boxing on and off for 12 years and have also known how to play chess since the age of six. I pride myself on my combination of physical and intellectual talents, and this was the perfect avenue to challenge myself in both.”

It’s not easy to make it to the World Championships. Depto’s weekly practice routine involves running, boxing, swimming, strength training and several hours of chess, plus regular sessions with a chess coach. Depto’s chess Elo rating, a measure of skill used worldwide, is 1850, one rank below “expert.” Success in chessboxing, Depto says, “takes a sharp mind, ridiculous physical conditioning, years of boxing training, and the ability to control your emotions when you get hit or hurt.” It’s very difficult, he notes, to switch gears so quickly between the adrenaline rush of physical combat and the advanced thinking required for a chess match.

“Fighting is done in the ring,” goes the sport’s official slogan, “but wars are waged on the board.” In November, David Depto might just be the first American to prove that he possesses the ultimate combination of fighting and thinking skills.

Wondering what on earth this is doing in our Online-Ed blog? I wrote this article about a friend of a friend, to show him some pre-match support. If you want to see U.S. ascendancy in chessboxing (it’s a matter of national security!), send this around!