I am one of 26 players in this exhibition who rise like a receiving line behind a long strand of chessboards to shake hands with the man who inherited the championship from Bobby Fischer. The two unite only in a grand loathing for the other.ĪPPLAUSE BREAKS OUT as Anatoly Karpov steps into the dry August sunlight on a terrace overlooking San Lorenzo del Escorial, the ancient village outside Madrid that is the traditional burial place of Spanish kings. Karpov is a wary chess strategist, Kasparov, a risky tactician. Karpov, at 39, is a cautious reformist who believes in gradual change for the Soviet Union Kasparov, 12 years younger, is a freewheeling radical who demands complete transformation of the Soviet system. Karpov is so reticent that he only recently began granting interviews Kasparov is blustery and hyperbolic, a walking sound bite who endorses Schweppes soft drinks and appears on David Letterman. They are a study in opposites: Karpov is pale and slight, Kasparov dark and sturdy. They are perhaps the most equally matched-and the most acrimonious-rivals the game has ever seen. After 120 games, Kasparov has won only one more than Karpov. No two championship contestants have ever played so often. By virtue of a tie score in their fourth match in Seville in 1987, Kasparov retained his title. In their third match, divided between London and Leningrad, Kasparov eked out another narrow victory.
Their first match, ending without a decision, and their second, which Kasparov won, were played in Moscow in 19. After Karpov became champion in 1975, nobody mounted a successful challenge until Kasparov took the title a decade later since then, only Karpov has challenged Kasparov. The two have enjoyed a monopoly on the title for the past 15 years. Against a backdrop of American corporate logos, they will begin 24 games to decide who can call himself world champion for the next three years.
After a gala dinner on the eve of the match, the two Soviet millionaires will draw colors to determine who will make the opening move of the first championship held on American soil since 1907, a match with a $3-million prize. And tomorrow, at the Macklowe Center in Times Square, in front of television cameras, they will begin another.
Garri Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov have had 120 such arguments in their four championship matches.
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