Karpov apologizes to Wynn for rooked tourney

David Clayton

Friday, Oct. 16, 1998 | 2:43 a.m.

World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov has apologized to Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn for the way in which a championship tournament scheduled for Bellagio was blown up in the press and then blown to kingdom come.

Karpov himself lit the fuse, threatening to sue the World Chess Federation if the tournament proceeded Nov. 29 through Dec. 27 as announced last month.

In an effort to make amends for the international snafu and salvage the reputation of chess in Las Vegas, Karpov and his agent, Shiloh Quinn, are negotiating to stage a spectacular event here -- a "battle of the sexes" between Karpov and the world's best woman player, Susan Polgar.

Quinn said Mirage Resorts will have the first crack at hosting the match.

If it comes off as envisioned by Quinn, the match would involve former tennis champion Billie Jean King, whose own battle of the sexes with Bobby Riggs took place in 1973 at the Houston Astrodome. Quinn created and promoted the King-Riggs match and now he wants to outdo that battle, which gained global publicity.

He's also trying to entice former American Chess Champion Bobby Fischer into the match, as well as the services of Deep Blue, the IBM computer renowned for beating the man generally considered now to be the best player in the world, Professional Chess Association Champion Gary Kasparov.

In a letter to Wynn, Karpov expressed sorrow that Bellagio -- Wynn's $1.6 billion hotel-casino that opened Thursday -- was blindsided by the world organization. Karpov wrote that FIDE -- as the World Chess Federation is known by its French acronym -- knew that any such tournament before his current reign had ended was illegal and would be forcefully contested.

The champion's point is that he still has a year left on his current title and that FIDE had no right to organize a tournament that could unseat him a year early.

With Karpov lobbing international bombshells against the tournament, which was to feature 100 of the world's best chess players, FIDE agreed to postpone the tournament as well as a press conference that had been scheduled for Thursday to announce the event.

Since 1995, the president of FIDE has been Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. He was at first supported by Karpov, but now the champion opposes him on the grounds that he runs FIDE like a dictatorship. Ilyumzhinov has been making headlines in the world press recently, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, for the dictatorial way in which he runs the southern Russian republic of Kalmykia, of which he is also president. International stories indicate that while he has turned his republic into a chess paradise, allegations abound of thievery and political corruption.

In his Oct. 15 letter, Karpov wrote to Wynn: "I am writing you to convey my sad feelings particularly regarding the problems my World Chess Championship title which has distracted you on this your most triumphant occasion, of your $2 billion investment, for this I am sorry.

"I want Las Vegas to know the president of the World Chess Federation misled the participants in this saga. Especially, when they entered into contractual arrangements assuring the promoters of Bellagio that they would dismiss me from my title at any time; and that FIDE could organize a new world champion title match in the year 1998.

Karpov also wrote that before the "media blitz" had begun about the tournament, he had put the International Olympic Committee and Mirage Resorts officials on notice that the planned tournament was illegal. But Quinn said Thursday that Karpov entirely understands how Mirage Resorts could have been misled by FIDE and has nothing but respect for Wynn and his properties in Las Vegas.

Karpov concluded his letter to Wynn by saying:

"I offer my hand in friendship. I invite you to participate with me, so that this should never happen again, that one individual when becoming president (of FIDE) cannot act contrary to all the governing statutes of 156 federated country members of a democratized world body organization. ... I wait in anticipation to meet with whomever you designate to discuss a way that could get this right and to make amends in which I hope could become a beautiful long and lasting friendship."