17th February, 2003

FOLLOWING a lengthy meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov at
his Moscow office late last week, it now looks as if the young Ukrainian
World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov was made an offer he couldn't refuse in
the long drawn out saga over whether he would defend his title against
Garry Kasparov as part of the Prague unification process.

The heavy-handed FIDE tactics used against Ponomariov by "threatening"
to first of all strip him of his title whilst he was competing at Wijk
aan Zee was roundly criticized in all circles. A meeting between FIDE
and Ponomariov at a later date to finally sort out the match was
therefore arranged, which has now taken place. However the omens don't
look too promising.

According to reports, the meeting started at six in the evening, and
didn't finish till six the next morning(!), after the 19-year-old
champion, hardly able to speak any more, apparently conceding to all
demands and agreed to play the announced match against Kasparov. In a
brief press release, FIDE confirmed that, "World Chess Champion Ruslan
Ponomariov reaffirmed his willingness to defend his title against World
no 1 rated player Garry Kasparov under the Match Regulations as approved
by the FIDE President and the Presidential Board of FIDE."

Ponomariov is believed to have withdrawn his earlier demands (draw odds
and FIDE time control) and in exchange was somehow assured that the
Ponomariov-Kasparov and Kramnik-Leko matches would be played using the
same criteria. However there could well be a contradiction here for
Ponomariov by signing away his rights, as it's widely believed that the
regulation would not apply to the Kramnik-Leko match.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Moscow, Ponomariov's Moldavian second, Viktor
Bologan, joins the leaders after four rounds of the Aeroflot Open.
Bologan is one of the nine players in equal first in the tournament with
an unbeaten score of 3.5/4.

V Bologan - P Smirnov
Aeroflot Open 'A', (3)
Ruy Lopez
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Re1 b5 7 Bb3 0-0 8 h3
Bb7 9 d3 d6 10 a3 Nb8 11 Nbd2 Nbd7 12 Nf1 Nc5 13 Ba2 Ne6 14 Ng3 Re8 15
Ng5 Bc8 16 Nf5 Bf8 17 f4 g6 18 Qf3 Rb8 19 fxe5 dxe5 20 Nh6+ Bxh6 21 Nxe6
Bxe6 22 Bxh6 Bxa2 23 Rxa2 Nd7 24 Rf1 Qe7 25 b4 Rb6 26 Bg5 Qe6 27 Raa1 c5
28 c3 Rc6 29 Bd2 Rd6 30 Bh6 Rc8 31 a4 bxa4 32 Rxa4 cxb4 33 cxb4 Rc3 34
Qf2 Rb6 35 b5 Nc5 36 Ra3 Nxd3 37 Qh4 1-0

JOHN B HENDERSON