Nigel Short pessimistic about FIDE-PCA rift

Nigel Short pessimistic about FIDE-PCA rift

By Arif Suryobuwono

JAKARTA (JP): Together we stick, divided we're stuck. This saying, however, doesn't hold true for Nigel Short, who joined world champion Garry Kasparov in breaking with the world chess governing body FIDE and setting up the Professional Chess Association in 1993.

For the London-born Grand Master, the saying should perhaps read "together we're sick, divided I thrive."

Short, who is here for a US$15,000 six-round duel with Indonesia's number one Utut Adianto this afternoon at Hotel Indonesia, argues that FIDE and the PCA will never reunite.

The 30-year-old Briton was commenting on FIDE president Florencio Campomanes. Campomanes resigned after a FIDE meeting in Noisy-le-Grand near Paris following his failure last month to schedule a reunification match with the PCA next year, which could have brought the PCA back into FIDE's custody.

"FIDE and the PCA may have the same goal, that is, increasing chess popularity in the world. But they are totally different structurally and in the way they pursue their goals. They can't be put under the same roof," Short told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Short started the PCA with Kasparov "out of dissatisfaction with the way FIDE arranges the world championship and in particu lar the way it deals with financial matters."

"FIDE is essentially amateur. It is a collection of chess federations around the world. FIDE promotes chess by organizing various tournaments, including junior tournaments and the Chess Olympics," said Short, who is currently rated number 14 by FIDE.

"The PCA, on the other hand, is a small organization. It aims at putting on high-profile tournaments for the world's top professional chess players," explained Short, whose present FIDE elo rating is 2,665.

"PCA is much like the ATP Tour in tennis. Thanks to ATP, tennis has reached its present world-class level and fame from just a middle-class game. With PCA we want to do the same," the non-smoking blond said.

Is it money he's after? "Yes, this is correct. I'm interested in my own pockets," said Short, who stands six feet but is short and direct when expressing himself.

Short realizes that in chess, as in tennis, money and fame come through popularity and publicity: "I will only be paid well if there are a lot of people who come to see me play."

The key to achieving this, Short said, is staging world championships: "World championships are always interesting (to watch, which attract sponsors)."

Short, a typically aggressive player, could say this with a smile because it is to the PCA, not FIDE, that the present world champion Kasparov belongs. Short implied that no world championships would be interesting without the world champion and everybody knows that Kasparov is the world champion.

That is why, Short said, FIDE is still looking for sponsors to provide the prize money of one million Swiss francs for the 1996 FIDE world championships scheduled for next June in Montreal.

The match, held for the title that was stripped from the Armenian-born Kasparov after his revolt, will have Anatoly Karpov of Russia and Russian-born Gata Kamsky of Brooklyn as the finalists.

"FIDE won't find sponsors. Nobody will be interested in it. It is not a world championship match," said the wizard whose favorite defense since childhood has been E4.

In contrast, the PCA has been successful in staging two world championships. The first featured Short and Kasparov in June 1993. The second, held at New York's prestigious World Trade Center last September, pit Kasparov and Indian chess maharaja Viswanathan Anand against each other for US$ 1 million.

The money came from Intel Corp., the giant California-based microchip maker, which also sponsored the PCA's 1994 and 1995 Grand Prix chess tourneys in Moscow, London, New York and Paris.

It was a brilliant idea, using the New York World Trade Center a venue for the match.

Another brilliant idea was getting the match televised. The Anand-Kasparov match, called the 1995 Intel World Chess Championship, boasted national television coverage. What's more, PCA games are now regularly carried on the ESPN cable sports channel, alongside such popular fare as exploding race cars and colliding speed boats. "We are concentrating on putting PCA events on TV until maximum publicity is reached," Short said.

However, the PCA still has not been successful in developing its own elo rating system. "It's one of the several programs we have not achieved," Short said.

Following the PCA's establishment, FIDE removed Short and Kasparov from its rating list and ignored all PCA tours. "We were treated as non-persons. It was the pure totalitarian thinking of FIDE," Short said. But now FIDE has put them back on the list, with Kasparov placed number two and rated at 2,777, three points behind Karpov.

Short hasn't been on PCA's board since last June. Yet he remains a PCA member, the same way he remains a member of the British Chess Federation, which is under FIDE.

"As a member of the board I found myself spending much of my time and energy promoting the PCA and explaining our stance to journalists and people who were sometimes very critical and insulted me. It was a complete waste of energy," Short said.

Thus, the long and the short of it: "Life is too short to be wasted on such a thing like chess politics. I'd rather just play in a match, like this one (against Utut), without having to care who the organizer is," Short replied.