WORLD : Karpov Checkmates Timman

Former world champion Anatoly Karpov won the World Candidates chess final today by beating Dutchman Jan Timman, earning the right to a world championship rematch with fellow Soviet Gary Kasparov.

The $3-million championship match, the fifth between the archrival grandmasters in six years, will be held in New York in October.

Timman resigned after 56 moves in the ninth game, which grandmasters and chess experts said was the best game of the tournament.

The victory put Karpov in a jubilant mood and not only because the Soviet grandmaster earned the lion’s share of the $250,000 in prize money.

“I didn’t expect to win so easily,” Karpov said.

Karpov and Kasparov last locked horns in a two-month duel in Seville, Spain, that ended with Kasparov retaining the world title he had seized from Karpov in 1986.