The next World Championship could find the players all at sea

There is more. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the man with seemingly enormous financial resources, has announced a plan to have the World Championships every year and the next edition is likely aboard a luxury ship to anchored off the coast of an yet-to-be-announced but almostcertainly an exotic location on a ship!

Amidst all this is the dream the whole fraternity has of seeing chess make an entry into the Olympic fold.

So, there is a face-off with Kasparov, the world highest-rated player ever and Rentero, a chess fanatic who is known to dislike players who play quick draws on one side, and the rich businessman Ilyumzhinov — President of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia and FIDE, to boot — on the other. All influential people.

Caught in the middle is probably India’s Anand. For, there is reported to be a clause, in the contract he signed with FIDE before playing the World Championships in December-January, which forbids him as also others who figured in it, from playing any other organisations’ matches.

The formation of the WCC is not the first time Kasparov or any other player have taken on the establishment. First there was the Grandmasters’ Association (GMA) which organised a series of World Cups, then came the Professional Chess Association floated by Kasparov. ThePCA was formed in 1993 to organise the match between Kasparov and Nigel Short and it organised a full cycle which threw up Anand as the challenger in 1995. But after the title match between Kasparov and Anand in New York in 1995, PCA has been more or less inactive. Now comes the WCC.

All this at a time when FIDE and Ilyumzhinov have announced plans to have annual World Championships and and with big purses.

The players, Anand in particular, have not made many comments on the new plans floated by Rentero and Kasparov. But Rentero is seen as a man, who can get things done the way he wants because of the sheer credibility of having conducted regular big prize money tournaments in Linares for more than 15 years.

When Anatoly Karpov defied him and did not come after confirming for last year’s tournament in Linares, Rentero announced that he would never invite Karpov again. And he did not this year and chose to have a double-header round robin tournament with just seven top players.

For starters, the WCChas announced a 10-game match between Kramnik and Anand at Cazarola, Spain from May 20. In case of a tie in this match, the winner will be decided by a rapid game play-off. The winner will clash with Kasparov in a 18-game final to be played in two parts at Seville and Linares from October 16. The prize purse of a whopping 200 million pesetas is being guaranteed by the regional body in Linares. In case of a 9-9 tie, Kasparov will be adjudged as having `retained’ the title but the prize money will be split equally.

The crucial area in this whole plan seems to be the legal hitch, especially in the case of Anand, who has only recently figured in the highly lucrative FIDE World Championships. But Kasparov and Rentero have claimed that the contract will be taken apart by any good lawyer. Kasparov has also criticised Ilyumzhnov of running the FIDE by brute force.

So Anand may be put in a Catch-22 situation of whether to dump FIDE, which has begun offering incredible prize purses or go for a chance to beatKasparov in match play.

Presently, Karpov is the FIDE World Champion, and Kasparov does not recognise him. No one associated with the game will ever dispute that it is Kasparov who is the strongest player in the world. And in the same breath everybody realises that if there is any player who could unseat Kasparov, it is either Anand or Kramnik.

Talking of consequences and the people involved. Rentero and Ilyumzhinov have influence and money, and both are obsessed with chess. Kasparov has this perennial urge to rebel and he sees himself as the premier player, promoter and organiser rolled into one. But Anand and Kramnik have so so far been seen only as chess players. So it is Anand and Kramnik’s turn to make the next move, and that will indicate which side they want to be on.