The Longest Drawn-Out Draw Ever

When the triennial match for the world chess championship opened last September, excitement ran high. Enthusiasts from all over the Soviet Union and around the world flocked to Moscow’s House of Trade Unions to watch Anatoli Karpov, 33, champion since 1975, defend his crown against fellow Soviet Citizen Gary Kasparov, 21, the youngest person ever to compete in a title match. Great, even unprecedented chess was predicted. But no one expected the record-breaking outcome: the longest drawn-out draw in championship history and, in a sport richly littered with strange events, probably the most controversial referee’s ruling ever.

Last week, after five months and 48 games, with Karpov haggardly hanging on to a 5-3 lead but unable for twelve wearying weeks to achieve the match- winning sixth victory, World Chess Federation President Florencio Campomanes stepped in to stop the battle. At a Moscow press conference, Campomanes, who under world chess rules wields practically unlimited power, said he had acted because the contest “has exhausted the physical if not the psychological resources not only of the players but of all those connected with the match.” To many–not least the hard-charging Kasparov, who had won the last two games –the imposed stalemate looked like an effort to prevent an impending Karpov collapse.

“We can and want to continue the game,” protested Karpov half convincingly after Campomanes’ announcement. “As we say in Russia, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” (Apparently, Russians read and claim Mark Twain.) Kasparov, who had been sitting in the back of the hall, was stunned. Striding onto the podium, he demanded to know why the match had been called off. “You knew I wanted to continue,” he shouted, shaking his fist. “They are trying to deprive me of my chance.” With that, he stormed out of the auditorium. To quell the ensuing pandemonium, an unaccustomed diversion at Soviet press conferences, Campomanes called the players to a private one-hour 45-minute session, after which he announced that Karpov had accepted the decision and Kasparov would “abide by” it. But the young challenger was still furious. Outside the hall, he met with reporters and supporters and virtually accused Karpov of ganging up with Campomanes, a Filipino and longtime friend of the champion. “So, we see Karpov gets what he wants,” Kasparov fumed. “He remains world champion. Why play chess if the president can take these decisions at any moment?”

The 159-day endurance contest, in a sense, was a legacy of brilliant, eccentric U.S. Champion Bobby Fischer, who beat Russian Boris Spassky for the world title in 1972. Fischer fiercely objected to the 24-game system then in use, which scored a half-point for a draw and permitted a champion to win merely by drawing every game. Fischer insisted that there should be no limit on games; a champion should have to beat his opponent decisively, not coast to victory.

There was little coasting for Karpov, or for Kasparov. The challenger, brash and overconfident, lost four of the first nine games. “Get the kid a doctor,” whispered one expert spectator. “He looks like he’s in shock.” But Kasparov steadied and held the champion through a record 17 straight draws, until Karpov won his fifth game. Though Kasparov now teetered just one lapse from defeat, he somehow slowly captured the psychological momentum. Four draws later he won his first game. But as the strategy of stasis wore on, records, and bored spectators, fell by the wayside.

Kasparov, robust and athletic, held up well over the months, but the toll on Karpov was high. He has reportedly lost 15 lbs. since September, and is said to have been treated for exhaustion and strain at a clinic for the party elite. Two weeks ago, Karpov, normally an icily precise defensive genius, began to blunder. Kasparov drove to victory in the 47th and then the 48th game. Meanwhile, he says, Soviet chess officials had begun quietly pressuring him to agree to end the match. Shortly thereafter, Campomanes appeared in Moscow, amid rumors that the Soviets, who are heavily represented in the world federation, had summoned him out of concern for Karpov’s psychological health.

Campomanes denied that his friendship for Karpov influenced him and claimed that he had not made his final decision until the start of the press conference. But the press agency TASS began reporting his action even before he spoke, and suspicion mounted that the Soviets had acted to protect their large investment in a status symbol they regard as a more suitable cultural ambassador at large than the youthful, half-Armenian, half-Jewish Kasparov. As David Spanier, British author of Total Chess, put it, Karpov is the ideal Soviet champion, “a very Russian Russian who follows the party line.”

Reactions to the ruling worldwide varied from dismay to disgust. Said Iceland’s former World Chess Federation President Fridrik Olafsson: “Endurance is a factor in all chess matches, and it is absurd to help the champion by giving him a respite.” Quipped ex-Champ Spassky: “Campomanes should be called Karpomanes.” Meanwhile, Karpov remains champion, and in September the confrontation will begin anew, with no score. In August the chess federation will meet in Graz, Austria, and is expected to go back to the old 24-game rule, ensuring that there will be no repeat of the Moscow marathon.