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Chess legends hope to boost game

Chess legends Garry Kasparov and Anatoli Karpov said on Monday they hope the re-match of their epic 1984 world championship this week in Spain will renew interest in the game.

“We are here to recover, if not a golden age at least a silver age, for chess,” Karpov, 58, told a joint news conference with his old foe Kasparov in Valencia in eastern Spain on the eve of the start of their clash.

Kasparov, 46, who has been active in the political opposition to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin since withdrawing from competitive chess in 2005 and setting up his own political party, said the World Chess Federation “had let the game die.”

“The chess that is played today is more technical, more aggressive, with younger players, but it has lost its glamour,” he said.

“The duel will put chess in the spotlight once again, as it did 25 years ago,” he said in an interview published in Spanish daily El Pais on Monday.

That epic encounter in Moscow lasted five months before the World Chess Federation, in a controversial move, stopped the duel without a clear winner on alleged health grounds though both players said they wanted to continue.

Karpov, who was 33 at the time, had won five of the matches, Kasparov, who was only 21, won three and 40 more were draws.

In their 1985 rematch, Kasparov beat Karpov narrowly, becoming the youngest world champion, and defended his title the following year.

The last time he played Karpov was in 1990 when he narrowly won.

Their new duel will have only 12 games — four semi-rapid and eight rapid — with the two men facing off under the watch of Dutch chess arbiter Geurt Gijssen in Valencia.

The tournament officially got under way on Monday with both players facing local personalities, but the real action began yesterday when Kasparov and Karpov played their first match of the series.

Kasparov acknowledged that the match will not carry the same suspense as the 1984 Moscow showdown, when he was challenging then world champion Karpov.

“Don’t expect a match with the same quality as 25 years ago,” he said.
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