SIMPSON'S IN•THE•STRAND
SIMPSON'S
IN-TIIE•STRAND
CHESS
Karpov recrowned
Raymond Keene
AN'1'ER A BITTER struggle Anatoly Karpov has retained his Fide (World Chess Federation) championship title. Curiously, Karpov won by exactly the same score as did Kasparov in the rival PCA (Profes- sional Chess Association) world champi- onship match against Anand in New York last year. However, the routes by which the two victors reached their 101/2-71/2 out- come were quite different. In spite of some flashes of brilliance, the Kasparov-Anand clash was marred by a whole sequence of short and contentless draws. Indeed, sever- al games were agreed drawn in highly unclear positions even before the battle had really started.
In consequence, pundits around the world were moved to consider ways of eliminating draws in top-level chess. One extreme suggestion has been Bobby Fischer's invention of a new type of chess, 'Fischerandom', in which the positions of the pieces were to be shuffled by chance before the start of each game. This debate might, indeed, have been regarded as the chess equivalent of the soul-searching that' went on after the various penalty shoot- outs that decided matches in Euro 96.
In contrast, the Karpov-Kamsky match proved that if two players are determined to exhaust all the resources available on the chessboard no artificial measures are needed to eliminate draws. There was a paltry total of five wins in Kasparov- Anand, while Karpov-Kamsky produced nine. Even more telling are the statistics for the number of moves played over the respective series of 18 games. Kamsky and Karpov played 1,004 moves for a game average of 56, while Kasparov and Anand could only manage 539 moves for an aver- age of 30 moves per game. So one can see that the games in the Fide match were almost twice as long, and they were certain- ly fought more than twice as hard. The backers for the Fide championship, reput- edly the Russian oil firm Rosneft, must have been just as delighted as the backers for the PCA championship were repelled by their protagonists' lack of fighting spirit. Indeed, Intel, who provided the funding for Kasparov's match in New York, have since withdrawn from supporting the PCA.
Karpov has now proved that he deserves to be given a shot at Kasparov's title in a fresh match. Having set up the PCA, Kasparov should have avoided Fide com- pletely and rigorously implemented the promised series of qualifying competitions for his title. Then he would have had a per- fect right to ignore Karpov if the latter had not entered the PCA cycle. Now he has no choice.
Kasparov made two fatal errors. First of all, he interfered deeply in the Fide elec- tion of December 1994, throwing his weight behind his erstwhile arch-enemy Campomanes in the presidential race. By doing this, Kasparov restored to Fide the degree of credibility it had previously lacked. Secondly, the PCA has simply failed to announce plans for any qualifying tournaments in its own championship cycle. In their absence, Fide's claim to be legitimate in terms of granting champi- onship status inevitably grows. Indeed, a championship match for $2 million between Kasparov and Karpov has appar- ently now been agreed, and is likely to be staged in Russia next year, although offers from other venues have not been excluded.
Here is the key moment from Karpov's final win in the Fide championship.
Kamsky-Karpov: Fide World Champion- ship, Elista; Game 14, July 1996.
Here, White's kingside is being crowded by the black pawns and Karpov possesses the advantage of the bishop pair. Nevertheless, White could still have saved himself with the active 30 Nc5 Bxc5 31 dxc5 d4 32 exd4 Nxd4 33 b4 with equal chances. Instead, as if playing for a win, which is, in fact, unjustified, at this point, Kamsky begins to dither. 30 Net b4 31 a4 ReS 32 1(12 Kg6 33 Ngl Na7 34 Nc5 Rc6 35 Nf3 RecS 36 b3 a5 37 Ke2 Be4 38 Kd2 BxcS One advantage of the bishop pair is that the possessor can choose when to give them up. Now Black wins a pawn. 39 dxc5 RxcS 40 RxcS RxcS 41 Rd Rxcl 42 Kxcl Nc6 43 Bc7 15 44 Kd2 d4 A subtle breakthrough. If now 45 Nxd4 Nxd4 46 exd4 Bxg2 47 Bxa5 Bxh3 48 Bxb4 Bg2 49 Bd6 Bd5 50 b4 f4 and Black's pawns promote first. 45 exd4 f4 46 Ke2 Bd5 47 Kfl Bxb3 48 Ne5+ Nxe5 49 dxe5 Bxa4 50 Bxa5 b3 51 Bc3 Kf5 52 Bbl Bch 53 Kfl Bd5 54 1(12 Ke4 55 Ke2 Bc4+ 56 Kd2 13 57 gxf3 + Kira 58 e6 Bxe6 59 Bf6 g4 60 hxg4 h3 61 Beg Bxg4 White resigns.
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