aouriri@ittvax.UUCP (Chedley Aouriri) (02/20/85)
According to some news reports, the decision to abort the world chess championship was made by the Soviet regime. It was announced officially by the soviet news agency Tass two hours BEFORE it was accepted by the president of the International Chess Federation, who has been called and flown to Moscow from his country -the Philippines- a couple days before the announcement of the decision.!! Also, it seems that both contenders - Karpov and Kasparov - were not very warm to stop the game; they actually wanted to keep on playing. The reason why the soviets are trying to "fix" the championship is that a Kasparov victory will upset and uproot a bunch of soviet "chess lords" in the USSR, who have grown under Karpov's shade. Remember that chess in Russia is much more than a popular game: it is a whole institution with its bureaucracy, its vested interests and its ties to the political establishment. The fact that Kasparov's father is jewish is probably not the main reason why they are trying to tame his challenge to Karpov.
liang@cvl.UUCP (Eli Liang) (02/22/85)
> According to some news reports, the decision to abort the world > chess championship was made by the Soviet regime. It was announced > officially by the soviet news agency Tass two hours BEFORE it was > accepted by the president of the International Chess Federation, > who has been called and flown to Moscow from his country -the > Philippines- a couple days before the announcement of > the decision.!! I think it was more like 12 minutes before the announcement as according to the Washington Post. I might be wrong though. -eli -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eli Liang --- University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526 ARPA: liang@cvl, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep CSNET: liang@cvl UUCP: {seismo,rlgvax,allegra,brl-bmd,nrl-css}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang