Back To Drawing Old Board

Anatoly Karpov, the Soviet Union's 27-year-old world champion, leaned over a mahogany chess table in Baguio City, the Philippines and said politely, in Russian, "I am offering you a draw." Challenger Viktor Korchnoi, 47, a Russian defector now living in Switzerland and the world's most prominent "chessident," did not reply, a minor affront. He merely nodded, signed his notation sheet and thrust it at Karpov, indicating he was accepting the offer. Having thus ended two hours of uninspired textbook chess in Baguio City's new, red-carpeted convention center, the two men rose and left the table.

That was the tense beginning last Tuesday evening to the 13th world chess championship. With victory going to the first man to win six games—draws do not count—the match is expected to be one of the longest and hardest fought in history, hinging on the patience and stamina—emotional as well as physical—of these two very different grand masters. Indeed, it surprised no one that the match had produced only three draws by week's end. To Karpov and Korchnoi the early games amounted to little more than exploratory surgery.

It is a high-stakes competition in almost every respect. First, there is the $350,000 winner's prize (the loser receives $200,000), the highest ever in chess and more than twice Bobby Fischer's over-the-table take from Reykjavik in 1972, when he trounced Boris Spassky to become world champion. Just as important is the political tension that boils like a caldron of borscht below the surface. The Soviets had held the world title for 24 years until Fischer beat Spassky and they had gotten it back in 1975 only when the disputatious Fischer was stripped of the title for refusing to defend it against Karpov, who had defeated Korchnoi in an elimination match the year before. Karpov was proclaimed champion, but the Soviets were unhappy that the man who then marched through the candidates' matches to earn the spot across the table from their loyal comrade was Korchnoi, a recent defector and a grand-masterly embarrassment.

For Korchnoi the showdown with Karpov was plainly more than a mere chess match. "I will beat the little boy," he spouted, "and prove once and for all the Soviet system produces only robots."

Karpov replied in kind. "He is strong in every way," he said, referring to Korchnoi's personality as well as chess prowess, "but I do not respect such strength."

The antagonists clash in politics, personality and style. The muscular Korchnoi, a Slavic Vic Tanny with thinning hair and broad, expansive gestures, plays chess as if it were street theater. He is the Stravinsky of chess, fond of emotional counterattacks and Looney Tune openings. Karpov is the game's Bach, passionless at the board, an enigma of classic perfection who builds his game pawn by pawn, imperturbably waiting for an opportunity. His game is pure counterpoint. "At the board Karpov is a boy scout," says one grand master. "He's prepared for anything."

For all their differences, Karpov and Korchnoi could scarcely be more evenly matched. What makes their showdown even more intriguing is that they are playing an "open-ended" match in which there are neither half-points for draws nor the customary fixed number of games. American Grand Master Robert Byrne, who has competed against both Korchnoi and Karpov, says, "No one has played an open-ended match for the championship since 1927 when Capablanca and Alekhine battled 34 games over three months. Ironically, this was the major point Fischer wanted from FIDE [the international chess federation, the game's ruling body], and was unable to get, forfeiting the championship. But these two are so evenly matched, so perfectly capable, that the winner here will not necessarily be the best player, but the one with the superior character."

Ludwig Prins, a longtime Dutch chess analyst, agrees. "One thing that makes this match so exciting is that both players are at the peak of their forms," he says. "In Iceland, Spassky fell apart from the beginning."

Karpov has been busy since assuming the championship, losing only six of 188 games and recently beating Czech Vlastimil Hort in an astonishing 25 moves. And Korchnoi, seemingly energized since he defected in an Amsterdam police station in 1976, waltzed through the candidates' eliminations, defeating former world champions Tigran Petrosian and Spassky and Grand Master Lev Polugaevsky, all Soviets. Against each other, Korchnoi and Karpov have had 22 draws, 19 of them in their candidates' final match in Moscow in 1974. Karpov leads in wins, 7-6, including the crucial game in which he beat Korchnoi in '74.

The tension between Korchnoi and Karpov was evident the moment they arrived in the Philippines the first week in July. Baguio City is the country's "summer capital," a mile-high city of 100,000 some 125 miles north of Manila. It resembles a resort town in the Catskills as much as the Asian one it is. There are cool breezes, daily rains and pine-scented air, and one can also find a Shakey's Pizza Parlor and an Orange Julius stand on Main Street. But along with a Sears outlet and a movie house showing the NBA playoffs, there are native rice and fish stores. With the arrival of the contestants, the town took on the atmosphere of a heavyweight championship fight site.