Chess: Get ready to rumble

Have you seen how many poker shows are on TV? It’s sure got a following. So, mind you, do darts and bowling, so you have to figure there is room for another ‘sport’ to add to the mix. Like chess. Chess? Yes, chess.

“Do you realize,” says Andrew Paulson (of whom more later) “there are more people in America who play chess than tennis and golf combined.” No, I guess I didn’t. But Mr. Paulson should know. His company, Agon corporation, had been sold the worldwide marketing and licensing rights in the World Chess Federation; and he wants to turn chess into the world’s next mass-marketed spectator sport. He figures that—never mind poker, darts and bowling— if Americans can go nuts for televised golf, and Indians for televised cricket, what could possibly stop the success of chess? After all, says Mr. Paulson, for potential sponors, it is a chance to be associated with strategy, intellect, creativity and winning.

It sure helps that the winner (prize money $2.5 million) of the most recent world championship, held in Chennai, India, was Magnus Carlsen; who, at age 22, apparently made the Cosmopolitan magazine ‘sexiest men of 2013’ list. You can bet that marketing Mr. Carlsen ranks high in Mr. Paulson’s strategy. That compares very favourably to the hoodies, dark glasses and general lack-of-fresh-air look of poker players: not only would I not like to enounter one of them around a poker table, I don’t think I’d like to run afoul of one of them on a daylit street.

Mr. Paulson also plans to do something he calls “chess casting.” Technology would stream multiple images, while commentators would break down the action and show possible moves. After all, I suppose we’re on (or more likely, over) the cusp of technology that allows us to read brain activity and translate it into an anticipated move, even before the player reaches for his castle, bishop or knight.

However, I said that Mr. Paulson’s company “had” been sold the rights, and I did that advisedly. Turns out there’s an absolute hornet’s nest of World Chess Federation politics.

First of all, the president of the Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, has gained a reputation as a bit of a flake. Not only has he chosen to befriend Saddam Hussein, Muammar el-Qaddafi and Bashar al-Assad (the bad guys of Iraq, Libya and Syria); he has also explained on Russian state television how he has been abducted by aliens. (No word on whether they are chess players from an intergalactic league looking for stiffer competition).

And now, reports are emerging of corrupt dealings between Mr. Ilyumzhinov and Mr. Paulson. According to The Sunday Times of London, the Federation awarded Agon a no-bid contract. Oh yes, and Mr. Ilyumzhinov held 51 percent of the company’s shares, while Mr. Paulson held the balance. The deputy president of the Federation stated that the deal with Agon was not approved by the Federation board and was just one of many proposals that had been rejected. Mr. Paulson defended the deal by stating that he wanted to ensure that the Federation would in fact work with Agon, and that “one man’s conflict of interest is another man’s alignment of interest.” I guess you could say that.

But it doesn’t stop there. Former champion and noted Russian political reformer Garry Kasparov is running against Mr. Ilyumzhinov for the presidency this coming August on the basis that corruption has long existed and now been proven. Only problem for Mr. Kasparov is that he himself has been tied to a vote-buying arrangement. Mr. Paulson, for his part, says he was never really in an alliance with Mr. Ilyumzhinov, who should be replaced as president; not by Mr. Kasparov, but somebody more suited to the position, like Mr. Paulson himself.

Let’s return to a few fundamentals here. Chess is played by people with overdeveloped brains, so the principals have got to be thinking this one out several moves ahead. It sounds to me that what’s really happening is the creation of a backstory. Indeed, maybe chess is taking its cue not so much from poker, darts, bowling, tennnis, golf or cricket, but from wrestling, which is ruled (so I hear) by the ruthless “Mr. McMahon,” always up to no good and plotting behind the backs of his stable of good guys and bad guys.

In fact, these warring chess promoters are probably all sitting back laughing at the storylines they have put out to a gullible public, including your humble servant. Even if, unlike in wrestling, the ‘sporting’ activity turns out to be a complete flop, the chess barons can watch their millions roll in by the same reality show route as Duck Dynasty, Storage Wars or (name your own favourite here).

Poker, anyone? It seems so much tamer. I’ll just go and get my hoodie and dark glasses.

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca