Pastimes: Chess

Anatoly Karpov has retained his Fide world championship by beating Gata Kamsky 101/2-71/2 in their match in Kalmykia. For Karpov, the result is a great triumph and sets a curious new record.

Karpov first succeeded to the Fide championship in 1975, when Bobby Fischer would not come out to play. His first victory in a world championship match came when he beat Korchnoi in 1978. That was 18 years ago.

Even Emanuel Lasker, who reigned for 27 years, could not boast such a long gap between two victories.

Here are the final moves of the 18th game of the Karpov-Kamsky match. (The moves up to the adjournment were given in Friday's paper.) Kamsky, White in the diagram position needed to win to keep the match alive. His hopes were clearly slim, but, as always, he never gave up until all possibilities were exhausted: 57...f6 58.Ne3 Re5+ 59.Kf4 Ra5 60.Kg4 Re5 61.Kf3 Ra5 62.Rh2 Ke8 63.Ke4 Re5+ 64.Kd4 Ra5 65.Ke4 Re5+ 66.Kf4 Ra5 67.Kg4 Ke7 68.Rd2 Re5 69.Rd3 Kf7 70.Kf4 Ra5 71.Rd6 Ke7 72.Re6+ Kf7 73.Re4 Rxa2 74.Rxb4 Ra5 75.Kf3 Re5 76.Rd4 Rb5 77.Rd3 Nc8 78.Nd5 Ne7 79.Nxe7 Kxe7 80.Kg4 a5 agreed draw.