Chess champ won’t reveal his next move

David Clayton

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1998 | 11:12 a.m.

From his apartment in central Moscow, Anatoly Karpov spoke like the chess World Champion that he is, never revealing his full intentions when it comes to putting his title on the line in Las Vegas.

He came tantalizingly close Monday during an hour-long telephone conversation with the Sun, but every sentence seemed like a chess move in a complicated middle game, pronounced for the moment but maddeningly unclear as to future intent.

The interview took many turns, with Karpov talking about Bobby Fischer, who he admires and dearly wants to play, and of Frank Sinatra, who he met 20 years ago while enjoying a night at Caesars Palace on his first trip to Las Vegas.

But each time the interview returned to questions about what Karpov will do if the World Chess Federation proceeds with a championship tournament at Bellagio before the year is out, Karpov added to his interviewer's growing headache, sending out from across the world a tiny sense of what it must be like to face him across the board.

It appears now from statements emanating from the World Chess Federation, known internationally as FIDE (fee-dee), that the tournament will be postponed until next year and that a press conference scheduled for Thursday at Bellagio also will be postponed.

Karpov won the title of World Champion in January of this year and argues that the title, by contract with FIDE, is for two years. He contends there should be no matches to decide the world championship until at least December 1999.

So the announced postponement of the Bellagio tournament ... a victory for Karpov? Maybe, maybe not. Such is the enigma of international chess, with diplomatic and political intrigue matching anything the players create on the board. Only rarely does this wacky world come into full public view, such as in the 1972 on-again, off-again Fischer-Spassky match. While the world at large watched in awe as even the White House got involved, for the chess world, it simply wasn't that far removed from the norm.

It would not be unusual in this world for the tournament to be back on again, despite the FIDE's seeming concession announced Monday.

"I have been told they (FIDE officials) say they can do what they want. But they cannot change history. They cannot change the contract," Karpov said, adding that he'd been checking the airlines to Las Vegas. "It's not so easy. All the planes are reserved."

While Karpov sparred and demurred, his agent in Montreal, Shiloh Quinn, was more forthright. He said that Karpov will definitely be in Las Vegas on Thursday for the Bellagio opening, and while there will be no press conference announcing the tournament, Karpov may give a simultaneous chess exhibition to add to the opening festivities.

Anatoly Evgenyevich Karpov was born May 23, 1951, in Zlatoust, Chelyabinsk, in the southern Urals of the USSR. He became World Champion in 1975 when American Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title after becoming embroiled in a dispute with the Federation Internationale Des Echecs, the ruling international body of chess known by its French acronym, FIDE. This is the same group that Karpov is now fighting, although unlike Fischer and another former FIDE champion, Garry Kasparov, Karpov is not likely to drop out or form rival organizations.

Karpov held his title until 1985, defending it in 1978 and 1981 championship matches. Karpov also played in dozens of international tournaments, becoming the most active and winningest World Champion in chess history.

In 1985, Karpov met Gary Kasparov for the title and in a bizarre decision still debated today, FIDE stopped the match after 48 games, with Karpov leading 5-3. Kasparov won the title later that year and in 1986, Karpov lost a return match. The two met in title matches again in 1987 and 1990, with Kasparov emerging each time with narrow victories. In 1993, Kasparov broke away from FIDE to form a rival organization. Karpov once again regained the official FIDE title of World Champion.

Karpov's current championship title was won after a tournament in Groningen, Netherlands, that began in December 1997. The tournament featured 100 of the world's best players, with the notable exceptions of Kasparov, who boycotted the event, and Karpov. As for Karpov, FIDE permitted him to play only the eventual winner, Viswanathan Anand, in a six-game match in Switzerland. Karpov won the match and retained his title -- for at least two more years.

The 100-player format was the brainchild of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of FIDE since 1995 and also president of the southern Russian republic of Kalmykia. Ilyumzhinov, despite Karpov's two-year title, earlier this year announced that the world championship tournament would an annual event, with the 1998 version to be held in Las Vegas. The format would be the same as in Groningen, only this time Karpov would be seeded into the second round instead of being guaranteed a berth in the final match.

Ilyumzhinov's leadership of FIDE is not all that is drawing attention to him. A front-page article in the Oct. 7 Wall Street Journal noted not only the chess mania that he has brought to his country, but also swirling political controversies tinged with tales of political corruption.

Karpov said he "does not mix chess and politics, one can hurt the other." But he used political analogies in banging Ilyumzhinov's chess presidency.

The champion said Ilyumzhinov seems willing to change rules without thinking why the rules were put in place. Rules, Karpov said, are like laws. A rule that says he has a contract for two years must be honored in the same sense that a law protects individuals from mob rule, he said.

"One billion people might want to confiscate the property of (Microsoft Chairman) Bill Gates. But they would be hurting one person. This is enough to stop all the others.

"So why should 100 chess players fulfill their dreams if it hurts the World Champion?"

On Karpov's first visit to Las Vegas 20 years ago, he was trying to arrange a match between himself and American grandmaster Walter Browne, still a regular at national chess tournaments that take place in Strip hotels. He said the match fell through because he kept getting calls from Moscow, insisting the match take place there. Karpov expressed relief that those days are over.

"Now I can travel as I please," he said.

While coy about his plans for coming to Las Vegas, Karpov talked openly of Bobby Fischer. He mentioned an Oct. 8 letter he had written to President Clinton, asking that charges against Fischer be dropped.

Fischer has been in exile since 1993, when he was indicted by a federal grand jury after his 1992 match against his old rival, former World Champion Boris Spassky. The match took place in Yugoslavia, a country off limits to Americans because of war atrocities.

Karpov wrote: "Mr. President, if it is within your power to allow American Bobby Fischer to return back to his native land unconditionally, without any repercussions ..."

Karpov told Clinton he's ready to play Fischer "anywhere, anytime in the world or even on the moon." Karpov said he'd like to play Fischer in Las Vegas at New York-New York, the Monte Carlo, Caesars Palace, Luxor or Bellagio.

"I believe that Fischer was one of the greatest players in history and one of the greatest representatives of the United States," Karpov said.

A Fischer-Karpov match would generate worldwide interest because it remains the one, great unplayed match of modern chess times. Even though it would not produce the level of play the two were capable of in 1975, it would generate an even greater audience now because of the Internet.

But while a Fischer-Karpov match is only a remote possibility, a world-championship tournament in Las Vegas remains probable, if not this year then sometime in 1999. A tournament next year, no matter the outcome, would guarantee that Karpov would have reigned as World Champion for 16 years, longer than any other champion this century in the FIDE era.

This is an important point for Karpov. Although his place in chess history is secure, he is sensitive that the general public considers Kasparov the champ, Fischer the greatest, and Karpov as ... who?

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