Breaking
The Red Bull BC One All Stars are going for their third Checkmate battle win in a row at the Circle Industry Festival in Salzburg, Austria on March 14. Get the lowdown on the rules right here.
Checkmate is a fun battle system that follows different rules to your regular dance competition. Check out how it all works below, so it's easy to understand what's happening on the stream on Saturday.
The basics: last man standing
While the name and the idea of the battle stem from chess, the underlying concept is 'last man standing'. Every crew starts with five dancers. Rounds are judged one by one. The crew that starts is chosen by chance.
Whenever two dancers are finished, the judges decide who won immediately and the losing dancer has to leave the battle. They sit down to signal they're in the 'graveyard'. The battle continues with four vs five dancers and the team that won the round must start the next one. The team that runs out of dancers loses the battle. This way of winning is called 'checkmate'.
If there is no 'checkmate' before the time limit of 15 minutes (standard time, might differ per event), the crew with more dancers on the field wins.
The roles: dancers as chess pieces
There are three different roles for the dancers to fill. Every team has a king, a queen and three pawns.
The king has the ability to call out an opposing dancer and this dancer has to answer his round. To do this they have to clearly show who they wants to battle during his round.
The queen can revive dancers that are already out of the game. Whenever they win a round, a dancer from the graveyard can come back. However, there's a catch to this ability. As the queen is a 'healer' role, they're bound to the hippocratic oath and can't harm other dancers. This means there's no way a queen can take out another dancer.
The pawns have no special ability but an obligation: one of the pawns has to make the first move in every checkmate battle. You can't start the battle with the king or queen. As the winner of the first round has to start the second round, the pawns decide who can use the special traits of king and queen first.
Watch it in action
Now that we know the rules, let's take a look at an example from Circle Industry 2019.
Don't forget to tune in to the live-stream of Circle Industry 2020, on March 14 at 21:00 CET, to see the Red Bull BC One All Stars throw down in the Checkmate battle.
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