Chess Saga

As if an excuse was necessary for the cancellation of the world chess championship, Florencio Campomanes, the president of the World Chess Federation, called off the match only to reschedule it again for next September.

The match has “exhausted the physical and psychological resources of not only the participants but of all associated with the match,” says Campomanes. After all, no one figured out exhaustion was part of the match! The Chess Federation never thought a match could go beyond six games when it voted in favor of the rule that the player who wins six games first would be the champion. Maybe we should all thank Campomanes for saving us from torment--the referee for getting exhausted keeping the score 5-3; the players for not winning the championship, and the rest of us from over-zealousness. But then extremes of emotions may be dangerous, says Freud.

Maybe the commissioner of the National Basketball Assn. should learn a lesson. Next time Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is exhausted during a game with the Boston Celtics he should call off the game and reschedule it in two months, otherwise we may all be exhausted!

Gary Kasparov thinks the Soviet Chess Federation has rescued their favored Anatoly Karpov, the ideal Communist, from a downfall. He may be right. Karpov not only hasn’t managed to win--but has lost three games in the last 21. What about Karpov? His ego is probably shattered by now. He won the championship in 1975 by forfeit, since Bobby Fischer refused to play him. Since then he has been desperately trying to prove his greatness. And now, during the toughest match of his life, he is deprived of the chance to prove himself as “the best.”

I think we all lost by Campomanes’ decision to cancel the match. The saga is not over yet, God knows what kind of idiosyncratic decision he will make next September.

ARMEN GOENJIAN

Long Beach