Chess match “like a game of football” say pundits

AN EDGY chess match at this weekend’s Saint Petersburg Open has been described as “just like a game of football” by commentators. Worried that fans would be too stupid to understand the match in any terms more complex than crude comparisons to other sports, the simile was used by numerous TV and newspaper chess journalists present.

Amid a hostile crowd of 60,000 die-hard chess ‘Ultras’ at the Boris Yeltsin Community Centre, Moscow, Alexei Popov and Dimitri Assanov took to the board in their respective black and white colours before exchanging pendants and standing for the Saint Petersburg Open theme song. But fans from both sides marred the anthem by mocking individual pieces, singling out both black and white team captains and calling them “queens”.

Straight from the off the game was played at a frantic pace, with an attack from an over-zealous rook on the left flank exposing the white knight, leaving the black bishop unmarked to give Popov an early lead. The advantage didn’t last long, as Popov’s bishop was forced to leave the board, amid catcalls from the crowd that the he had dived, after falling victim to an aggressive pawn sandwich from Assanov.

Assanov took control in the second half, nonchalantly moving play around the board to playful cries of “Olé!” from his delighted supporters, before a beautiful diagonal pass by a bishop left the queen free to take out the king successfully in a move that put the game out of Popov’s reach.

After the match Popov bemoaned the number of foreign players taking up the sport, suggesting that the game was suffering at international level as a result, and also called for a Spring break to be introduced. “There are too many games these days. My pieces don’t have time to rest properly. Look at the number of high-profile splinter cases we’ve seen in the last few years,” he said, but in Russian. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Assanov confirmed that the player stood by controversial comments made last month in which he claimed that draughts was “shit”.

Published June 7, 2008

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