World Chess Championship Is Canceled : Both Contestants in Marathon Five-Month Match Protest Move

In a dramatic move, the five-month-old world chess championship match was canceled Friday despite the protests of both players--defending champion Anatoly Karpov and challenger Gary Kasparov.

Kasparov angrily charged that the ruling favored Karpov, who was reported to be under severe mental strain after losing two games in a row to his opponent. But Karpov, who held a 5-3 advantage in the marathon match, said that he, too, wanted to keep playing. Victory would have gone to the first player to win six games.

Although Karpov jumped off to a 5-0 lead soon after the match began Sept. 10, he had not won a game since late November, and chess grandmasters have said that he has been making mistakes and that these errors allowed Kasparov to win the two consecutive games.

Decision Explained

In explaining his decision to halt play in mid-match--an act apparently without precedent--Florencio Campomanes of the Philippines, president of the International Chess Federation, said:

“It has exhausted the physical, if not the psychological, resources of not only the participants but of all those associated with the match.” He added that a new championship match between Karpov and Kasparov will begin next September with the score 0-0.

Karpov, after his initial complaint, quietly accepted the decision. But the angry Kasparov said that he has been urged recently to “finish the match under various pretexts” that he rejected.

In a thinly veiled attack on Karpov’s integrity, Kasparov said: “I don’t know if he is sincere in declaring he wants to play on, but it does remind me of a well-rehearsed show, where everyone knows his part. . . .

“The chess world simply cannot accept this kind of ending,” Kasparov told reporters. “After all, why play chess if the (chess federation) president takes a decision at any moment?” Campomanes acknowledged that he is a good friend of Karpov’s but said that he made the decision against Karpov’s wishes.

Asked if he had flown to Moscow this week to save Karpov from defeat, Campomanes raised his left eyebrow, smiled and asked: “Save him from himself?” Then he added quickly that it was the right time to make a decision.

It was an extraordinary conclusion to an extraordinary championship match that set new records for the number of games (48) and the number of draws (40).

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, reported the cancellation even before Campomanes made the final announcement.

Confused Atmosphere

Campomanes called a news conference to announce his decision, which then was opposed by both players. Then Campomanes jolted the crowd by saying he might reconsider his ruling after a private chat with both men. At that point, officials walked off the stage in an atmosphere of confusion.

Although he had called only a 10-minute break, Campomanes did not reappear for more than 90 minutes to say that his decision would stand. He said that his ruling was supported by the Soviet Chess Federation, an organization whose top officials are widely believed to favor Karpov over Kasparov.

Karpov, who will continue to be recognized as champion, argued Friday for the right to a rematch if he should be defeated by Kasparov in the September tournament.

Although Kasparov is recognized as one of the top two players in the world, he has offended the Soviet chess establishment by his brash manner. The mild-mannered Karpov has held the title since he won it by default from American Bobby Fischer in 1975. Since then, he has twice defeated arch-rival Viktor Korchnoi, a Soviet defector living in Switzerland.

The 33-year-old Karpov, who showed up at the news conference as if on cue just as a reporter was asking if he had suffered a nervous breakdown, quipped: “As we Russians say, the reports of my death are a bit exaggerated.”

He insisted that he wanted the match to continue, but he looked pale and thin and had dark circles under his eyes.

The husky 21-year-old Kasparov was smiling and joking with his friends before the ruling was announced. Afterward, he appeared first stunned, then outraged.

He spoke to reporters with strong emotion, declaring: “For the first time in five months, I have a chance, a 25% or 30% chance of winning and now they are trying to deny me those chances. . . . With each delay, his (Karpov’s) chances are growing while mine are diminishing.”

The announcement came after a six-day recess in the contest, caused partly by “technical time-outs” and partly by a postponement ordered by Campomanes after Kasparov’s most recent victory.

Assertion Challenged

Kasparov challenged the federation president’s assertion that the match had gone on too long for the players’ mental health.

“The match was already over-extended when the score was 5 to 1 in the 46th game but the question of the psychological condition of the players never arose (then). It has arisen only now, when the score is 5-3.” But Campomanes said he had total discretion under the rules of the chess federation to stop the match for any reason.

“I therefore declare the match is ended without a decision,” he said.

Rules for September’s match, he said, would be decided by the next world congress of the chess federation in late August in Graz, Austria.

Soviet officials have been campaigning for a change in the present rules, which require victory in six games, with no credit for draws. This makes it possible for a succession of draws to allow a match to continue indefinitely. Under previous rules, a victory was worth one point, a draw counted for half a point and only 24 games were played.