Word: karpovs
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When Max Kampelman of the U.S. and Victor Karpov of the Soviet Union take their seats at a table in Geneva next week, they will be marking the end of a superpower standoff that has lasted for 15 uneasy months. The possessors of the world's two mightiest arsenals of doomsday weapons will once again be formally seeking agreement on ways to control their destructive power. No miracles are expected: nuclear negotiations over the past 22 years have occasionally resulted in limits on future stockpiles, but never in deep reductions of current ones. Yet the U.S. is convinced that...
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...
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...
...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...