Kasparov, Karpov Face Off for Chess Championship

World chess champion Garry Kasparov went head-to-head with challenger Anatoly Karpov on Monday night at the Hudson Theatre in Manhattan, where about 700 seats for the opening match were sold out--at $25, $50 and $100 each.

Kasparov’s title defense is a $3-million war of personalities, politics and playing styles.

The 27-year-old champion ended Karpov’s 10-year world chess reign in 1985. Now, Karpov, 39, is trying to wrest the title back as the nemeses meet for the first time in three years.

It is the first world championship in the United States since 1907. After the first 12 games are played in New York, 12 more will be played in Lyon, France, beginning Nov. 24.

For the New York showdown, the theater is hung with the flags of the United States, France and the Soviet Union, home country of both players.

Above the stage is a 10-foot screen bearing the image of a chess board. When Kasparov or Karpov makes a move, the pieces on the screen move too, for the audience’s benefit. Two video screens show close-ups of the players.

Kasparov, founder of a Soviet democratic party, declared last week he was playing under the flag of the Russian Republic rather than the Soviet Union as a political statement. Karpov often has been quoted as saying, “I have two loves: communism and chess.”

Kasparov, who beat “Deep Thought,” a chess-playing computer, in New York last January, is confident, flamboyant and fluent in English--a media darling who tirelessly publicizes chess.

The media have often described Karpov as cool or even cold: an introvert who plays with surgical precision and tunes out the audience. But he was personable at a news conference last week, hamming it up and presenting a copy of his book to Kasparov.