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http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?acti...story_id=19031

Chess Kings End Toilet Standoff

MOSCOW - It may sound like toilet humor, but for the chess world it was no
laughing matter.Play resumed Monday after a dispute involving "dirty tricks"
and allegations of cheating at the world chess championship currently taking
place.

The championship, pitting Russian grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik against
Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, was in danger, with Kramnik accused of taking a
suspicious number of bathroom breaks.

Leading the match 3 games to 1, Kramnik on Friday forfeited game five to
protest a complaint filed by Topalov's manager, Silvio Danailov, suggesting
Kramnik was excusing himself improperly. The match is taking place in
Elista, the capital of the republic of Kalmykia, located north of Dagestan.

The Russian was cited by Danailov for taking more than 50 breaks during one
game in his private bathroom, the one area where the chess master is not
under video surveillance during play.

Kramnik threatened to pull out of the match if his bathroom was not reopened
and the game he had forfeited was not overturned. Topalov countered that he,
too, would pull out if Kramnik's demands were met.

Kalmykia's president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who is also head of the world
chess federation, or FIDE, as its French acronym has it, rushed back from
Sochi, where he had been at a conference with President Vladimir Putin, to
save the match.

Negotiations ran late Friday. On Saturday, Ilyumzhinov announced a timeout
between the players. A second timeout was announced Sunday, the first one
having apparently expired.

Also on Sunday, Ilyumzhinov said in a statement that the match would resume
Monday, but it remained unclear whether the two players had agreed to this
and what the score would be. And the Kalmykian president said he had
accepted the resignation of the three-man appeals committee that had closed
Kramnik's bathroom, adding that, for now, he would rule on any disputes.

The media has dubbed the controversy "Toiletgate" and "Bladdergate."

In the complaint he filed with the appeals committee Thursday, Danailov did
not explicitly accuse Kramnik of cheating, presumably with the help of a
computer that would tell him the best moves to make.

But match officials were sufficiently alarmed to bar both players from their
respective bathrooms.

"Topalov is outraged by the suspicious behavior of his opponent ... who in
fact makes most of his significant decisions in the bathroom," Danailov said
in a statement Thursday.

Oddly, given the insinuation that he was getting computer help, Kramnik made
a blunder in game two that would have enabled Topalov to checkmate him in
just two moves - if the Bulgarian had spotted the error. But he did not, and
Kramnik ultimately won the game.

In response to the bathroom ban, Kramnik spent game time Friday lounging in
his private room adjacent to the off-limits bathroom. Topalov waited at the
chessboard for the Russian to show up.

Video surveillance broadcast on Russian television Friday showed the
grandmaster laying on a couch next to the bathroom, occasionally crossing or
uncrossing his legs.

After Kramnik had spent an hour of his game time nowhere near the
chessboard, Topalov was awarded the game.

Kramnik then held a news conference at which he lashed out at the appeals
committee for allowing Danailov access to videotapes of his private
quarters.

"I did not sign the contract so I could act in a reality show," Kramnik said
in comments broadcast on RTR-Sport television. "This goes against all
ethical norms and violates my privacy."

In a statement released Friday, Kramnik's manager, Carsten Hensel, said
Kramnik spent a lot of time in the bathroom because the adjacent private
room is small.

"Mr. Kramnik likes to walk and therefore uses the space of the bathroom as
well," Hensel said.

Danailov said in his statement that, if the match continues, Topalov would
not be shaking hands with Kramnik before games.

The bathroom scandal threatens to derail a match that was to determine a
universally recognized world chess champion after more than a decade of
turmoil.