Chess Match Delayed by Timeout

The World Chess Championship game scheduled for Friday was postponed until Monday when challenger Anatoly Karpov took the first of his three allotted timeouts from play with champion Garry Kasparov.

A spokesman for the championship tournament said that Karpov’s second, grandmaster Lajos Portisch, informed chief arbiter Geurt Gijssen by telephone, seven minutes before the noon notification deadline, that Karpov was taking a timeout.

In order to establish the identify of Portisch, the arbiter asked him to sing a song familiar to the arbiter, the spokesman said.

“This task was accomplished to (Gijssen’s) satisfaction,” it was reported.

The timeout was officially declared when a letter signed by Dr. Nikolai Krogius, chief of Karpov’s delegation, was handed to Gijssen at 12:07 p.m.

Karpov and Kasparov played to a draw in Monday night’s opening match, but the champion won the second game on Wednesday. The match will be resumed Monday, with Karpov playing the white pieces.

Chess experts said Karpov’s request for a timeout so early in the series indicated that he needed to re-examine his strategy.