Word: chess
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...Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty below has the scale and look of a queen on one of those miniature, travel-size chessboards. Ordinarily the deck offers only spectacular vistas. But for the next month or so, visitors will be able to see something else entirely: the Intel World Chess Championship...
...only $15, tourists and chessophiles can watch the two best players in the world, Professional Chess Association champion Gary Kasparov and challenger Viswanathan Anand, in a best-of-20 competition for $1 million. (The loser gets half a mil.) The championship is a co-production of the Intel Corp., the computer chip-maker, and the P.C.A., the breakaway chess organization started by Kasparov two years ago. With its heavyweight title-fight purse, a lightweight ticket price, an inspired setting and rules intended to shorten the matches, the event has been designed to reach those of us who still call knights...
...Most chess matches of this caliber have been held in grand halls, with hushed audiences watching the players onstage. This time Kasparov and Anand pore over the board in a 3-m by 6-m soundproof booth. There are a few choice, $75 seats in the makeshift King's Room overlooking the booth, but the action is livelier in the cheap folding chairs next door, where chess mavens can follow the match via TV or computer. Helped along by animated commentators Maurice Ashley ("E-5? Funky!") and Danny King, amateurs and grand masters alike try to anticipate each move. When...
...World Trade Center is an apt site for another reason. In the chess universe, Kasparov is such a dominating figure that his nickname is King Kong. A cartoon in a chess publication depicted Kasparov climbing up the World Trade Center (the edifice that trumped the Empire State Building) with Anand flying past in a biplane, trying to shoot him down. Born 32 years ago in Azerbaijan, Kasparov is considered by many to be the best player in history. Since becoming world champion at the age of 22, he has defended his title four times, written four books and played phone...
Anand is a worthy opponent in both ability and charisma. Though the game was devised in India some 2,000 years ago, his nation has produced surprisingly few chess geniuses. Anand, raised in Madras, became India's first grand master when he was only 17. Still boyish-looking at 25, Vishy--as he is familiarly known--is one of India's most famous sporting heroes. Yet he carries himself with an almost Gandhi-like humility. According to S. Lourduraj, one of his high school math teachers, "He was gentle with his classmates and respectful to his teachers. That...