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Mess in world chess can't go on - Anand  June 10

Regretting that "politics has taken over chess", Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand today said that due to the fighting between the two world chess associations -- FIDE and the rival body floated by Kasparov and Kramnik – "the game is really suffering with the lack of clarity at the top".

"The situation is a complete mess. The chess world can't go on like this. We all hope that by next year there will be some de facto unification if not a de jure one,' Anand said, at New Delhi, here today.

"Hopefully some time next year something will come up and we are all waiting for the unified World Championship," said Anand, who was here to promote NIIT's Mind Champions Academy.

"Because of the prevailing world economic condition it is tough to get sponsors and still people are trying to hold three World Championship matches. The last three years was a circus. And the end result is that you don't have a single marketable person," Anand said referring to the recent scrapping of the unification match between Russian Vladimir Kramnik and Hungary's Peter Leko by the London-based Einstein Group.

The group announced last month that it was unable to raise the estimated $1 million-plus prize fund from sponsors for the Kramnik-Leko match planned for this summer.

The winner of the Kramnik-Leko match was to play the winner of the match between former world champion Garry Kasparov and Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov, who holds the International Chess Federation (FIDE) crown, in an effort to end a division going back to 1993.

On Dope Testing

On the ticklish issue of dope testing in chess, Anand said there was no need for dope test in chess simply because there was no place for performance enhancing drugs in the sport.

"It is a pity that dope testing is being introduced in chess. There is no doping in chess. I do not see any need for it. In chess, you would not see any player complaining about other's performance," he said.

"There is no need to introduce dope testing just to make chess an Olympic sport," Anand said reacting to FIDE's move to adopt dope testing measures.

"I am happy that all the private tournaments have said no to it.... to test for steroids and to test for the presence of minute quantities of caffeine."

Looking at his schedule for the rest of the year, Anand, who is enjoying his holidays with wife Aruna braving the unbearable summer but relishing the Alphonso mangoes, said "By the end of July I will be playing in the Dortmund Chess tournament (classical chess) and then will defend my crown at the Mainz Rapid Chess."

"In October, I will play in France. And I will be training for the whole month of July," said the former World Champion whose next target is to cross the magical ELO mark of 2,800, a barrier broken only twice in history by Kasparov and Kramnik.

"I still have a lot to learn," said the 32-year-old who has 2,775 points according to the latest world ranking.

Anand said it would be nearly impossible to scale the peak this year. "This year, I am playing in only one more classical chess tournament (Dortmund) and to get 25 points from one championship is very very difficult."

"I hope to cross the mark some time next year," he said.

Agencies

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