World Chess Championship in Las Vegas -August 1999- Chess is taciturn, smart, thin, logical; Las Vegas is garrulous, dumb, fat, lucky. Staging the World Chess Championship in Las Vegas appears as unnatural as the eclipse until you know the reasons behind it. Russians. Only Russians would put on World chess Championship in Vegas with the gambit of making chess, a gambling Internet-accessible sport.  The strongest player in the world, Gary Kasparov, who acclaims himself World Champion on the strength of his ratings, calls these particular Russians a bunch of gangsters. They in turn point out that by the same reasoning Kasparov is a criminal. As always the truth is far more interesting than anything that lies in-between the way the protagonists describe each other. I went out to Vegas around the end of July to watch the Opening Ceremony in Caesars Palace and monitor the launch of chess as the new Vegas game. In July and early August the town is like a blast furnace with temperatures regularly topping a 100 degrees. The first settlers here, the Paiute Indians called this period the dog days of summer because Sirius, the brightest star in the doglike Canis Major, rises during this time with the sun. Blame it on the dog. In fact, Vegas looks like a dog's dinner and has the soul of what the dinner ends up as after it has been digested  At least the heat culls the holidaying gut-bucket, trailer trash, which keep the town in neon and air conditioning. They keel over like ninepins as they waddle between casinos. The July stench from the crematoria is worse than being downwind of Auschwitz, but like the Nazi camp followers Las Vegans smell only the perfumes of money and jobs. One homicide detective noted how heat does funny things to people: "People who normally wouldn't get nasty get nasty in the heat. It doesn't take much to set people off when it's hot like this." It certainly set off Mark Barton, who was America's nutter of the month while I was there. At the end of July over in Atlanta, Barton killed his wife and two children, then using two handguns killed 9 people at random in a brokerage firm. Eventually when he was cornered Barton turned his gun on himself. Thankfully his aim was good and he didn't add to America's $2.3 billion for treating people with gunshot wounds.  The 6' 4", 17 stone Barton, who loved putting on his scout masters uniform, would have been the perfect Jerry Springer guest. His neatly typed confession recorded how he did "not understand how he came to do it" but he wanted to tell people why! He wrote of his wife's murder: "I really wish I hadn't killed her now. She really couldn't help it and I love her so much anyway." Barton bemoaned how he had come "to hate this life in this system of things" and wrote that he had "come to have no hope". When I read this schizoid babble, my immediate reaction was if Barton had come to Vegas he would not have gone on a killing spree. Vegas is the cornucopia of hope. Anyone who "thinks" like Barton can find hope in Vegas. As Michael Ventura puts it in his book on the gambling town: "As long as you don't bother the other customers, you can do anything. That's the promise of Vegas: Anything." Of course, the promise is a lie as the house always has the edge. But this is what the Russians are trying to do: not only make chess sexy, funky and electronic but also a betting game in which they have the edge. My first impression was this just another example of magical thinking. That judgement was reinforced when I watched the bizarre opening ceremony in Circus Maximus, which usually works as a showbiz auditorium in Caesars. Most of the 100 top players in the world who were competing for the £3 million prize money were at the front of the 300 or so audience. As was the man who put up the cash and was bankrolling the whole extravaganza, dollar billionaire Kursan Ilyumzhinov. Kursan has already poured over $20 million into international chess and is beginning to ask for more of a return than the gratitude of the main beneficiaries of his largesse - the players and officials. Some deadhead Caesar MC hosted the ceremony which among such acts as standing for FIDE's ruritanian anthem, a film of the first Fide tournament 75 years ago, messages of good will from Bill Clinton and the IOC, and 5-year plan speeches from FIDE apparachiks, also featured a flock of Russian "models" who had been recruited from the local lap-dancing fraternity. They sashayed up and down, much to the delight of the ogling grand masters, in black and white fur coats. Forget the animal rights, it was over a 100f in the shade outside Caesars!  The show finished with the "fourth best opera singer in the world", Armenian Zurab Salkilavo who with his beer gut and expansive hand movements comes over a Greek ferry captain with gesture. His trouble was he interpreted polite applause to his Puccini repertoire as a request for another song. Eventually someone led him off to the hospitality room.  Kursan beamed on at this fiasco. Black-haired with Mongolian features, 37, the charming, always smiling Kursan made a pile in Moscow in the early 1990. Cars, banks. he tends to be slightly vague about how he amassed it. Kursan comes from Kalmychia [pop. 37,000], which is a tiny Russian Federation republic on the Caspian Sea - on the other side from where The Russian army is now trying to assert its authority in Dagestan. Kursan stood for the presidency of the Kalmychia in 1993 with the engaging slogan that the electorate should vote for him as he was "too rich to bribe". However, a few months before his election, a company that he headed lost $70 million of state funds that was earmarked to market Kalmyk wool.  In June last year, a journalist, Larisa Yudina, who has been conducting a one-woman publicity campaign again Kursan was murdered in Elista, the capital of Kalmychia. His critics claim that his involvement in her murder is proven by the fact that two of the three men arrested for the crime were associated with his political movement. When he was questioned by a TV journalist about Yudina' murders, Kursan announced that he would be standing for presidency of Russian when Yeltsin goes next year. Human Rights Watch actually stated that it is "widely believed that President Ilyumzhinov is behind the murder". Yet, given how Kursan dominates the political life of the republic, the affiliation of the suspects which actually prove nothing goes more towards his innocence than guilt.  Kursan is a fanatical chess player and grand master - he has made the game part of the compulsory curriculum in Kalmychia' schools. In 1995, he was elected head of FIDE, the world chess organization, into which he proceeded to inject hitherto unheard of sums. But his generosity did not go unquestioned. One remark he made to Moscow journalist in 1997 is often quoted to support the idea that he has a hidden agenda. "To win a game," he said, "it's necessary to play by your own rules." But the vituperative charges coming from many American chess journalists - "Ilyumzhinov is a real life thug who eliminates people when they inconvenience him" is typical - does not stand up. Whatever corners he cut in amassing his fortune, Kursan's altruism and quaint Buddhist faith impress those who refuse to let the press clippings colour their opinion. The man whom Kursan brought in to stop the financial hemorrhage is Russian's first millionaire, Artiom Tarasov. He is head of the commercial section of FIDE. In typical flamboyant style, he told the players at the opening ceremony: "I promise you that you all will very rich once FIDE Commerce begins to market chess." The colourful, charismatic Tarasov was actually a member of the Duma when he made his fortune and incurred the wrath of Gorbachev for being a millionaire. Nowadays, however, he rarely visits Moscow as various factions - some of them Chechen - are threatening to kill him over collapsed deals.  Tarasov, 49, came up with the idea of computerising this World Championship, so that the moves of all the matches can followed on a website in real time. He also brought in Victor Chandler's offshore betting organization to make the odds on the players and to take bets on the games over the telephone. He convinced everyone that Vegas should be the venue for the new championship. Another of Tarasov's idea is encourage world membership of FIDE by issuing a FIDE club/debit card that will automatically register any change in the player's rating on the smart chip and offer the usual concessions too.  He is also very outspoken about Kasparov's disparagement of himself and Kursan as gangsters. He said: "Kasparov make these allegations but he forget that myself and Kursan made our money before Russia became criminal country. We have both been investigated and all they found was noise and rumours, not evidence.  Russia is criminal everywhere now; everyone who is in business is criminal. So Kasparov is criminal. He cannot be a non-criminal when he is rich and owns property. He took over Hotel Cosmo in Moscow for peanuts. How did he do that? 25 storey hotel! All privatisation was criminal, dishonest. From the point of view of Russia it is OK but from American or Britain's laws it is criminal. Kasparov forget this when he makes these allegations.  "But we want him back in FIDE. Of course, we do. But it cannot be that all the money go to one or two players. We now make chess like other sports, so that lots of players earn prize money. Not winner take all." Tarasov warmed to his promotion of chess: "Remember Russia always dominated chess and ran FIDE. Chess was seen as intellectual sport that Soviet Man had to be best at. But that is why chess was not developed. It was funded from central funds that was why it is the least developed and promoted of all the sports. FIDE Commerce is going to change all that and make chess commercial. We are a sport recognised by the IOC and we are the only sport that can be played over the Internet. The commercial potential for chess is enormous, I am sure." My conversation with Tarasov took place a few days after the opening ceremony and when the hardware and software taking the games to the websites had been delivering the goods. Whenever I went into the computer rooms and watched the young Russian programmers glued to their screen they showed exactly the same absorption and concentration as the players in the tournament room. One of them, Peter, also explained to me how they will soon be able to deliver chess applications to visitors to the Websites that will make chess more accessible to non-players. "You see these programmes will take be able to take people through the games and by arrows and highlights show the non-player what is behind the moves. This very exciting development and will be place for the next tournament."  Then, I talked to some of the players about the potential of chess to generate gambling interest. Outsiders think of chess players as cerebral automatons but chess has always been infested with gambling. One of them noted: "Where spread betting the sky's the limit where chess is concerned. First player to castle, first one to check, time predictions." To the extent then that the trend towards gambling using the telephone and credit card while watching an event on TV continues, then chess is also likely if it is publicised to attract betting punters. This is already being seen in golf. One oddsmaker I spoke to said: "I am not gong to open my legs on this one but I think this lot might be onto something." My views then began to change as I watched the tournament unfold. Certainly this venture will not put chess into the sporting firmament but I began to doubt that this current World Championship was another Vegas-style exercise in magical thinking. Previous Next