Grudge chess match nearly goes down the toilet

IT went down to the wire but in the end the Russian turned up to play.

A 12-round chess match between Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik and Bulgarian Veselin Topalov to decide the world’s top player resumed yesterday after a row over toilet breaks forced a two-day suspension.

World Chess Federation president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and head of the south Russian republic Kalmykia which is hosting the match, interrupted a conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin to broker a successful truce between the two teams at the weekend.

Kramnik, the reigning Classical World Chess champion, leads Topalov, the World Chess Federation champion, 3-2. The match has been billed as a reunification between the two rival chess organisations after a 13-year split.

Kramnik and his coach had threatened not to play the sixth game of the series unless organisers scrapped a game he forfeited on Friday.

That game was forfeited after Topalov suggested his opponent might have cheated by visiting the bathroom too many times during play.

The bathroom is the only place the players are not under video surveillance during their match and Kramnik, who suffers from an arthritic condition which makes it painful to sit went, around 50 times in one game.

“Yesterday evening I signed a protocol of interest and protocol of co-operation with the team of Veselin Topalov and the team of Vladimir Kramnik,” Mr Ilyumzhinov said.

Each player will receive €390,000 regardless of who wins the match.

In Sofia, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov has insisted on almost hourly updates on how Topalov — Bulgarian sportsman of the year in 2005 — is playing and the row over Kramnik’s visits to the toilet has incensed the Bulgarian public.