Grandmasters push toilet row aside to play chess!

[Dashken]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - 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 on Monday after a row over toilet breaks forced a two-day suspension.

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

"It (the sixth game) started one hour ago," Ilyumzhinov told Reuters from Elista, the capital of Kalmykia.

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 organizations after a 13-year split.

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

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

The toilet 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 still for too long, visited it around 50 times in one game.

The teams refused to compromise over toilet inspections and use until 30 minutes before a midnight deadline on Sunday.

"Yesterday evening I signed a protocol of interest and protocol of cooperation with the team of Veselin Topalov and the team of Vladimir Kramnik," Ilyumzhinov said.

Each player will receive $500,000 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.

"Topalov should never have gone to Russia," one internet forum note read. "If we win, we will have beaten the whole of Russia."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061002/...ussia_chess_dc

[Adrian Wong]

Wah.. So serious meh?