trb@floyd.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum) (08/09/83)
Kasparov has not shown up for his candidates match in Pasadena, thereby forfeiting to Viktor Korchnoi. I don't have a newspaper here, but the basic story is that the Russians kept Kasparov home because they are afraid that Kasparov will defect, though they say that FIDE (International Chess Federation) wasn't providing enough security at the playing site. FIDE ignored the protest. Also possible is that the Russians are afraid that Kasparov would whup Karpov, which would look bad because Karpov will allegedly be entering the Russian political arena (Politburo) next year. My longshot guess is that the Russians also didn't want Bobby Fischer to come out of hiding, as he would have, to some extent, since he lives in (near?) Pasadena. For the first game, Korchnoi was assigned the white pieces, and he played P-Q4 when his clock was started. This is certainly a vast addition to the thin book on grandmaster forfeiture opening play. Karpov was disqualified after his clock had run for an hour, and the entire match has been adjudicated by FIDE as forfeited by Kasparov. Russia is sure to raise a stink, but FIDE will probably hold fast. Russia has threatened to pull its 4 million plus member national chess federation out of FIDE, which would change the complection of world chess quite a bit. While the threat looms ominous, as is often the case in chess, the execution would proabably prove disaterous, so don't count on such bold tactics from the Russians. The other candidates match (Smyslov-Ribli?) match was scheduled to be played in Abu Dabi, but after protests from the Russians because the playing site was in too hot a climate, the United Arab Emirates (?) government withdrew their bid so that match will be rescheduled. Anyway, it's too bad that Kasparov-Korchnoi isn't coming off. It would have been quite exciting, and also nice to see Kasparov defect. There were (at least) two stories in yesterday's (Sun 14-Aug) NY Times. Andy Tannenbaum Bell Labs Whippany, NJ (201) 386-6491