By DAVID ALEXANDER
LONDON (UPI) -- It's being hyped like a world championship prize fight, the titleholder a 'master of the quick, sure kill' vs. the challenger, a fair-haired hometown underdog who trained four months for a shot at the crown.
They've taken off the gloves and traded insults at pre-bout news conferences. The 1.7 million pound ($2.5 million) purse is one of the richest in British sporting history, the kind of money expected for a contest that delivers fast-paced, gut-wrenching action.
But when the contest opens Tuesday, spectators paying up to 55 pounds ($82.50) for a seat at the Savoy Theater in London won't get any dancing like a butterfly or stinging like a bee. All they'll see are two guys in suits hunkered over a chess board flexing their brains, Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short, the two bad boys of international chess.
Kasparov and Short, respectively the No. 1- and No. 4-ranked players in the world, broke with the international chess governing body, FIDE, in February in a dispute over a title match the group scheduled for Manchester, England.
The two top-ranked players formed their own chess organization, the Professional Chess Association, and opened their title bout to promoters. The Times newspaper in London and Teleworld of Rotterdam won with a bid of 1.7 million pounds ($2.5 million) and are sponsoring 'The Times World Chess Championship,' featuring 24 games from Sept. 7 through Oct. 30.
The incident fragmented the chess world into competing spheres.
FIDE -- Federation Internationale des Echecs, or International Chess Federation -- stripped Kasparov and Short of their rankings and scheduled a competing title match beginning Monday that pits former world champion Anatoly Karpov against Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman in 24 matches in the Netherlands and Oman Sept. 6 through Oct. 31.
The London duel, featuring the world's top players and being managed by promoters, has captured the most attention and ink, with The Times leading the way and dragging along its chief competitors, grumbling sourly over the newspaper's shameless promotion of the match.
The Times pictured Kasparov in front of the Big Ben clock tower the day after the champion arrived in London, while its competitors ran photographs of a major British news story.
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September 6, 1993
Gloves come off as promotors hype world chess title bout