Word: fide
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Kasparov had his own reasons for warming to the idea. His resentments against FIDE date back to the mid-1980s, when he was challenging his compatriot Karpov for the world title. After an epochal, 48-game struggle, with Kasparov surging from behind and Karpov near collapse, FIDE president Florencio Campomanes suddenly declared the contest finished "without result" and ordered it to be replayed from the start. Outraged, Kasparov decided that the monolithic Soviet chess federation, which grudgingly tolerated him while championing Karpov, had leaned on FIDE and Campomanes to salvage Karpov's title, at least for a while...
...Kasparov was not the only one who thought that the U.S.S.R., long the dominant force in world chess, dictated FIDE policies. Bobby Fischer had accused the Soviets of match rigging and clashed repeatedly with FIDE officials before and after he won the world title from Boris Spassky...
United, Kasparov and Short mounted a far more powerful counterforce to FIDE than the solitary Fischer had ever managed. They became the founding -- and only -- members of the Professional Chess Association ( P.C.A.) and began entertaining bids for their runaway world championship match. The Times of London, owned by Rupert Murdoch, rose to the bait. A 24-game competition stretching over eight full weeks and featuring Britain's first-ever contender promised reams of publicity, much of which the Times could provide. Weeks before the match started, the paper began running extensive and incessant chess coverage. London's double-decker buses...
...part, FIDE responded predictably: it expunged Kasparov and Short from its list of ranking grandmasters and decreed the Karpov-Timman match in Zwolle as the only true chess championship. No one, not even FIDE loyalists, took this claim seriously. Surreptitiously or not, chess attention centered on London...
...worth? To those who do not know the game, televised chess can seem slightly less enthralling than a test pattern. Despite all the hype, Kasparov and Short have not yet filled the Savoy to its 1,030-seat capacity. As both championship matches stretch on, and the war between FIDE and the top two players escalates, chess fans may come to wonder whether they are experiencing an embarrassment of riches or merely an embarrassment...