Word: karpovs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Gorbachev's assessment was not much different. On Friday morning the Kremlin leader received a letter from the White House outlining the proposals. He talked them over with top advisers, including arms-control negotiator Victor Karpov and Defense Minister Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, and then took a phone call from Bush -- all before the President went on TV. Sounding a bit incredulous, Gorbachev asked whether some of the American moves really were unilateral rather than conditioned on a Soviet response; Bush assured him they were. That extensive consultation was itself a welcome illustration of the current ; civility in U.S.-Soviet relations...
...what might follow next. This greatly disturbed the dapper young Yugoslav grand master Ljubomir Ljubojevic. Shaking his head in disapproval, Ljubo strode up to the board, took down all the moves now being assayed and brought the position back not to Move 23 but to Move 22. If Karpov had pushed the pawn in Move 22 instead of first delivering that ridiculous check, the now animated Ljubo insisted, it would have been a triumph. He then gave a long demonstration of the truth of his analysis...
...course by then it was irrelevant. Karpov had played the check first. Enough of history, said the others, impatient to get on with analyzing the world as it now existed. Ljubo insisted on analyzing the world as it should exist. As the groans grew louder, Ljubo's retort was indignant: "Let's find some truth here...
Down on the Hudson stage, however, the protagonists were engaged not so much in truth seeking as in attempted murder. Kasparov, who calls Karpov "a creature of darkness," had declared his intent not just to defeat Karpov but to destroy him. Accordingly, Kasparov played the opening games with the confident, reckless belligerence of a young Ali. Karpov, though, was fully Frazier's equal. The result was mayhem rarely seen at that level of play. It was like a title fight with 10 knockdowns by Round 3 or, for the more delicate, like a ballet performed not on a stage...
Forget about baseball and boxing. The chess battle between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov -- and the upstairs kibitzing -- has been the supreme contest of the season...