Draw continues deadlock in world title chess

Press, 28 November 1987, Page 19

Draw continues deadlock in world title chess

NZPA-Reuter Seville The titleholder, Garry Kasparov, and challenger, Anatoly Karpov, agreed to a draw on Thursday after 46 moves of their seventeenth game of the world chess championship. The score in the match stands at &y 2 t 0 8 y 2 with three wins and eleven draws each. The second session lasted nearly an hour as the two rivals checked their analysis in an endgame with rook and four pawns each. Karpov, aged 36, threatened to force a favourable king and pawn ending with his forty-sixth move but agreed a draw when Kasparov produced a strong equalising reply.

For the first time in the contest both players analysed the position for several minutes after the game — in marked contrast to their last draw when they traded charges of improper behaviour.

Kasparov, aged 24, arrived more than 10 minutes late for the resumption of play and seemed extremely tense. “The position was not the easy draw everbody thought last night,” the Norwegian grandmaster, Simen Agdestein, told reporters. Victory in the 24-game series will go to the first to win six games or total 12i/ 2 points. In the event of a 12-12 tie, Kasparov retains the crown.