Vegas Gambit a Losing Bet for World Chess Tourney

Timothy Hanke knows that the international chess community took a huge gamble this summer by staging a championship tournament in this high-roller’s mecca, bringing perhaps the planet’s most intellectual pastime to one of its most mentally pedestrian cities.

By most accounts, that bet crapped out big time. And chess, its adherents say, got rooked in the process.

This week, as the monthlong World Chess Federation championship reaches a climax at Caesars Palace with two relative unknowns facing off for six grueling matches across an ivory-pieced chessboard, the event has brought all the hoopla of a hospital orderlies’ convention.

The Vegas tournament was seen as a prime opportunity for chess to widen its audience, says Hanke, a federation spokesman. Instead the event has gotten lost in the neon glow of a city famous for its outlandish promotions--everything from porno conventions to an annual gathering of pantyhose salesmen.

In the chess face-off’s decisive week, matches have been sparsely attended. On Tuesday, about a dozen people looked on in the 200-seat auditorium. The crowd paled compared to the one just down the hall, where several hundred toilet paper salesmen gathered for a backslapping meet-and-greet cocktail hour.

“Vegas is a gambling town,” said a resigned Hanke. “Folks don’t come here for intellectual endeavors. They come to play the slots.”

Members of the foreign media here to cover the chess event were even more negative.

“This is pathetic,” said Ronen Har-Zvi, reporting for a chess-oriented Web site that is popular in Russia and Israel. “In Europe they fill 2,000-seat arenas, not a seat empty! Here you cannot give tickets away for a world championship chess tournament. What is on America’s mind?”

Event Lacks Star Power

One explanation for poor viewer turnout is that the game’s three top players skipped the Vegas event. In a pursuit that has become splintered by competing sanctioning groups, the world’s best player, Garry Kasparov, and his designated challenger, Viswanathan Anand of India, boycotted the Vegas match because they plan to stage a rival world championship later this year.

Even last year’s winner of the World Chess Federation tournament, when asked to defend his crown, said nyet. Anatoly Karpov of Russia refused to return unless he was seeded into the final round.

Hanke said promoters told Karpov to take a hike in an effort to change the atmosphere of modern chess championships, at which a cadre of often-belligerent top masters call all the shots.

“This is the brave new world of chess, a democratic system where the top players no longer play the role of bullies who rule the sport,” Hanke said. “Imagine Tiger Woods saying, ‘I don’t want to play in the Masters this year, but I’m still the best player in the world. And if you hold the tournament without me, I’ll sue you.’ It’s just not a modern attitude.”

The guidelines of the Vegas tournament were no less controversial, bringing complaints from many of the 100 entrants, who said the new rules have reduced a game prized for its iron-willed concentration to a spectacle with the short attention span of a child flipping TV channels.

Earlier rounds consisted of two-game matches, a break from the succession of at least 16 four-hour games that had marked world championships for decades. Ties were broken by even quicker games, dropping from the four-hour standard to battles as brief as five minutes.

About the only modern flourish not considered was using computers as contestants.

“If you had a computer that could whack tennis balls over the net faster than anyone else, would you invite it to Wimbledon?” asked Hanke. “Our goal is to find the best human player in the world. Machines are irrelevant.”

Since they arrived here in late July, the chess contestants have endured culture shock, Las Vegas style.

There have been no huge marquees to advertise the event, which has gone on day after day in obscurity. Surrounded by hot and crowded desert streets, players say they have no place to take long, concentration-building walks between matches.

Peter Leko, a 19-year-old chess prodigy from Hungary, thought he had one consolation after being knocked out in the quarterfinals: At least he could gamble in the vast Caesars casino down below.

“But they wouldn’t let him play,” Hanke said. “He’s old enough to travel the world and play an intellectual game like chess, but they said he was too young to pull a one-armed bandit.”

The biggest snafu came when one of the tournament’s two finalists--Alexander Khalifman, a 33-year-old Russian grandmaster who is tied 1 1/2 to 1 1/2 with opponent Vladimir Akopian of Armenia--decided to move to a room at Caesars to be closer to the tournament. But when he called the hotel, he was told there were no rooms available.

Said one tournament insider: “To say he was insulted is an understatement.”

Setting Deserving of Championship Match

But on Tuesday, Khalifman was all concentration as he faced his opponent, 27-year-old grandmaster Akopian. The men sat in two high-backed chairs--one black, one white--in an ornate ballroom so quiet that the players could hear the hum of the hotel air-conditioning.

Behind the contestants were two huge screens, one displaying a close-up feed of the chessboard while the other showed a diagram of the ongoing moves.

Some in the tiny but enraptured audience followed the action with their own mini-chessboards. Most of those who paid $10 to view the action live used portable headsets to hear commentary delivered by two grandmasters broadcasting from the pressroom one floor below. Despite the meager crowd, thousands still are following the match--through World Wide Web sites.

Viewed live, the styles of the two players were a study in contrasts. The dark-haired Akopian sat stonily, his head held heavily in his hands, as he pondered his moves for seemingly endless minutes at a time.

Meanwhile, the blond Khalifman, his hands behind his back, paced the stage like an undertaker in his dark suit, often disappearing behind a huge curtain. Moments later he would reappear to approach the board, sometimes shooting his opponent a withering look, even walking behind to glance over his shoulder before sitting down with a flourish to make his move.

Sitting all alone in the third row, Barry Kreisberg of Brooklyn looked on with fascination. The elementary school teacher, advisor to his school’s chess club, was on a Vegas vacation when he stumbled upon a small placard for the tournament, which had a one-day break Wednesday and is due to conclude by Sunday at the latest.

Now he was hooked, forgoing for two straight days the quick-fix allure of the slot machines for the ferocious chess battle at hand.

“It’s incredible. You can see the lines of tension on both their faces,” said Kreisberg, 50. “Because you know that at any second, one blunder could end the game, just like that. Now that’s entertainment.”

‘A Thrill in Slow Motion’

Nearby sat Alan Hirsh of Chicago, a social worker and novice chess player.

“Americans can’t relate to chess, and that’s sad,” he said. “And do you know why? There’s no cheerleaders, no halftime, no bone-crushing hits, and you can’t go to the refrigerator during commercials.”

For Hirsh, viewing chess at such a high level was a heaven-sent opportunity.

“It’s like seeing Tiger Woods play in person if you’re a twice-a-week golfer,” he said. “You know you’ll never play like him, but it’s a thrill to watch, even if it is a thrill that moves in slow motion.”

And although this is Las Vegas, where you can get odds on virtually everything but how fast paint dries in July, there has been no betting line for this chess tournament. The reason, promoters say, is that Vegas oddsmakers don’t know enough about the game to devise odds that ensure a profit.

At the same time, odds can be found on the Internet, where the two players are rated even.

The prospect of wagering frankly concerns chess aficionados such as Hanke.

“Betting brings the possibility of corruption,” he said. “In chess you can agree to a gentleman’s draw, agree not to fight any longer.

“Bring in the bookies and things change. People demand results. But betting brings fans--and, Lord knows, chess can use all the new fans it can get.”