Dan's Papers - October 13, 2006 - The Case Of The Locked Private Bathroom

Some people don't understand the big deal about chess. Two people sit at a table across from one another staring at a chessboard. Every twenty minutes, one of the people moves slightly. And that's it.

But others know the truth. On a championship level, it is about politics, intelligence, strategy and cunning. And you have to be a little crazy.

During the first half of October, an estimated half billion people around the world followed the World Championship chess match either over the Internet, on TV, or in the newspapers. As a sporting event, it drew more interest this year than any other on this planet, except for the World Cup Soccer Championship matches in Berlin.

The match has so far lasted 16 days. It is being held in one of the least known places in the world, in the city of Elista, which is the capital of Kalmykia, a republic in Southern Russia. The winner will get one million dollars. But so will the loser. So the real prize was the title of greatest chess player in the world, a title that has been in dispute for more than twenty years.

At this point, with the match three quarters over, it seems it will have been decided because somebody locked a bathroom. Chess fanatics around the world - certainly not here in America where October means baseball - continue to talk about it.

The groundwork for this match was laid, it is fair to say, in the mid-1980s when cracks were beginning to appear in the Soviet Union's battle against the United States in the cold war. The Champion of the World of Chess was a former Soviet soldier by the name of Anatoly Karpov. Nobody could beat him. He played a kind of cold, ruthless game. And he almost always won.

For a number of years, however, Karpov was repeatedly asked to defend his crown against a young Russian intellectual named Gary Kasparov. The reason he declined, everybody knew, was that Kasparov was not a member of the Communist Party. Furthermore he was half Jewish.

But finally Karpov relented and agreed to play Kasparov. And Karpov lost. As for Kasparov, he was so disgusted with the World Chess Federation for snubbing him for so long he withdrew his membership and, in 1985 formed a second group, with himself as champion. The other faction named their own champion.

For more than a dozen years, Kasparov remained champion. But in the mid 1990s, he seemed to be losing his powers. Finally, he was beaten by another Russian grandmaster named Vladimir Kramnik, who is one of the combatants today. Kramnik plays a kind of thoughtful, defensive chess that can lead to very complex situations. In such situations, he gets opponents to make mistakes, which is what happened to Kasparov, who, shortly after losing, retired.

In the meantime, a series of undistinguished Russian grandmasters held the title for the WCF. But three years ago, an exciting new champion captured that crown. Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria was an aggressive, accurate player whose specialty was dazzling and then overwhelming his opponent. He was favored to beat Kramnik.

Topalov went to the airport in Bulgaria headed for Elista accompanied by the President of Bulgaria. A letter of praise from the Prime Minister was read. For half a century, Bulgaria had been under the thumb of the old Soviet Union. Now, though still a largely backward nation, Bulgaria was about to join the European Union. A lot was riding on the shoulders of Topalov.

In a chess match, each player gets a point for winning a game. If they tie they each get half a point. In this match, the first to get to 6 1/2 points would win.

The first game lived up to all expectations and was much talked about around the world. Topalov, as expected, attacked. Kramnik parried and tried to fend him off, but when he couldn't hold Topalov off entirely, he opened up an attack of his own. But it wasn't working.

After each move, both players would retire to a lounge area behind a curtain. There were two lounge areas, separate ones, for each player. And behind each lounge area, considering that the games often went on for seven hours, there were private bathrooms. To prevent cheating, surveillance cameras were in the lounge areas but none in the bathrooms. Kramnik kept going to his bathroom.

In any case, at this point back at the board, this first game took a stunning turn. Four and a half hours into the match, Kramnik made a move that opened up the possibility for him to get a draw. It was not a sure thing. But he asked Topalov if Topalov would accept a draw. Topalov declined.

Four moves later, back on the attack and with the possibilities of the draw rapidly fading for Kramnik, Topalov made a move that was a huge mistake. Ten moves later, because of this blunder, Kramnik got an immediate stranglehold on his opponent and Topalov surrendered. Kramnik 1, Topalov 0.

In the second game, Kramnik came out swinging, which was a surprise, and essentially fought Topalov even on the board. Later, analysts said that Topalov was playing the cleaner, better chess. But it never got that far. Once again, Topalov blundered and once again he had to give up. People thought that Topalov was suffering from stage fright. Kramnik 2, Topalov 0.

In the third and fourth game, Kramnik played strictly for the draw. It must have been clear to him that Topalov was better when they mixed it up. Kramnik would dance and stay away. And he'd fight for the draw and get it. He could, if he played it right, draw his way right to victory. Boring, yes. But victory nevertheless. Topalov, desperate, found himself unable to engage Kramnik. Sometimes he would even offer Kramnik a sacrifice of a pawn or a horse to draw him out, but Kramnik would decline. Kramnik 3, Topalov 1.

The next day was a rest day. There would be no game. But late that morning, Veselin Topalov's manager held a press conference to read aloud a letter he had written to the Organizing Committee for the event. Essentially, the letter accused Kramnik of cheating. It said that the surveillance tapes in the lounges showed that during the course of the matches, Kramnik had visited the bathroom no less than 50 times. He showed the tapes. There were no surveillance cameras in the bathrooms. Topalov's manager demanded that the private bathrooms be locked. If either player wanted to use the bathroom, there were public bathrooms. The manager also demanded that surveillance cameras be installed in the public bathrooms. And if that could not be done, then a member of the committee should accompany Kramnik on his bathroom breaks.

This press conference caused a sensation. Fifty times? Kramnik was asked about it. He said he liked to pace when he played chess. And there was not enough room to pace in the lounge. He paced in the bathroom. Kramnik's manager said the organizing committee had no business giving Topalov private surveillance tapes of Kramnik.

The committee's response, after discussions with both parties, was to lock the two private bathrooms. But they also said they would neither install cameras nor accompany anybody into the public bathrooms. It seems they thought this was a compromise.

The next day, the fifth game, was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. At 9:30, Topalov appeared and sat at the table. At 9:45, Kramnik appeared and sat on a chair in front of his locked bathroom and said he was waiting for it to be opened. At 10, the match was officially started. And at 10:15, with Kramnik still protesting at the locked bathroom door, Topalov was declared the winner by forfeit. Kramnik 3, Topalov 2.

The committee declared a recess for the next day, postponing game six. They had received a letter from Kramnik himself. He said that he was not going to be part of a reality show. He said that the rules stated that once a match starts you can't modify the rules without the approval of both parties and he was not agreeing to give up his private bathroom. And he said that therefore the decision to lock the bathroom doors was illegal and there should be no forfeit. By the end of that next day, which was a Friday, the committee postponed the next game until Monday.

At this point, there was a belief that the entire match was about to collapse without a winner. Topalov said that if the match continued with the bathroom open, he would play but he would not shake Kramnik's hand. And so forth and so on.

Eventually, over the weekend, with two million dollars and the desires of millions of chess fans around the world to see the title re-unified, a compromise was reached to allow the games to continue. The private bathrooms would remain open during the match and there would be no surveillance cameras or secret service spy to go in with either of the chess players, but immediately after a game the bathrooms would be searched by experts and then sealed. They would unsealed and searched again just before the next game. As for the forfeit, it would be allowed to stand. The committee, though, would be fired, and a new committee named to take their place. Here is a sentence explaining why the forfeit stood.

"We should like to point out," they wrote to Kramnik, "that the appointment of the new Committee does not mean the new one has the power to overrule any decisions taken by the former Committee which are absolutely final."

Kramnik might have gone home at that point. But he didn't. He did say he was very angry, but he said he felt the chess world was entitled to a champion, and he would play on under protest. Incidentally, over the weekend, a group of fourteen chess grandmasters signed their names to a letter declaring that Kramnik was to them a hero. And they wished him the best in winning the rest of the match, which they said would certainly be difficult for him to do under these circumstances.

Then somebody remembered 1963. At that time, the manager of the champion Tigran Petrosian would get him, just before a game, a cup of yogurt. The challenger said that he always got blueberry. But one time the chamption's manager gave him chocolate. Saying he thought this was a signal of some kind, the challenger demanded that the committee order the manager to tell them the DAY BEFORE which flavor it was going to be. The committee ruled that the manager didn't have to tell them anything, UNLESS the cup of yogurt would be something other than blueberry. And then they needed to be told.

At this writing, the games continue. Topalov has in these recent games begun dominating Kramnik and has now taken the lead. He is three games from winning. Furthermore, Topalov has tightened the screws by playing speed chess to keep Kramnik from his bathroom walks. All hail Bulgaria. Tune in next week.