Finalists Chosen for Chess Championship

A controversial $2.4-million chess tournament without the sport’s three biggest stars winnowed its numbers from 100 combatants to two Thursday.

The finalists will face off for the 1999 World Chess Federation world championship beginning Sunday in Las Vegas.

Alexander Khalifman, a 33-year-old grandmaster from Russia, defeated Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, a 23-year-old Romanian grandmaster, in a tiebreaker after they had deadlocked their four-game semifinal, 2-2.

Khalifman will play 27-year-old grandmaster Vladimir Akopian of Armenia in the six-game final. Akopian ousted 27-year-old British grandmaster Michael Adams on Tuesday.

The winner will take home $528,000 and the loser will get $316,000. The rest was split among the other contenders.

The world’s best player, Garry Kasparov of Russia, and his designated challenger, Viswanathan Anand of India, did not compete because they hope to stage a rival $3-million Ultimate World Championship later this year.

Anatoly Karpov of Russia, who won the World Chess Federation’s first world championship in 1998, refused to defend his title unless he was seeded into the final round. But nearly every other chess star participated in the tournament at Caesars Palace, making it the greatest assembly of chess talent ever in the United States.

Many players objected to the format of the tournament, which required five rounds of two-game matches. By contrast, from 1951 to 1996, all world championships were decided by matches of at least 16 four-hour games.

In two-game matches, one error can eliminate a superior contender. In addition, the numerous 1-1 ties were broken by sets of ever-quicker games, dropping from the standard four hours to battles as brief as five minutes, in which luck and nerves proved more valuable than mere chess skill.

The contest began July 31, with 28 favorites seeded into the second round. Neither Akopian nor Khalifman were among the 28.

The games of the final match begin at 3 p.m. daily through Aug. 28. Viewers can watch them live at https://www.worldfide.com