Karpov's checkmate in Barcelona

Miguel Ángel Rupérez lasted four hours against master Anatoli Karpov in the simultaneous chess game that the former Russian world champion played against 18 other players last Tuesday at the Museu Marítim. Karpov was received with a round of applause from the participants and public gathered in the museum's large hypostyle hall, in recognition and respect for his mastery of the game. It was the beginning of a long multi-game in which the master offered a draw to Rupérez, a monitor at the school of Spanish champion Miguel Illescas, and three other players. The rest fell one by one after three hours of play.

Despite his seriousness and Soviet-discipline concentration, watching Karpov play a simultaneous game is a spectacle. Standing, circling inside the U-shaped table where his rivals were distributed, he analyzes each of the boards while toying with one of the captured pieces. When he is clear, he moves. And so, one after another. He doesn't speak, he just thinks.

The chess legend, now 70 years old, was in Barcelona invited by the organization of the Llobregat Open Chess Tournament, held this year in Castelldefels and in which 165 players from 40 countries participated. It is not the first time the Russian champion visits Catalonia. He was there in the summer, inaugurating in Platja d'Aro one of the 402 academies that bear his name worldwide.

His presence in Barcelona has also aroused media expectation. In the interviews he has granted, he appears somewhat displeased with the irruption of computers in chess, which in his opinion has standardized the way of playing, globalized it. Even so, he encourages the practice of the game, especially among young people, as he maintains that it provides more logic, strategy, and concentration at a time when mobile phones and computers dominate their lives.

Karpov indisputably marked an era in chess and his duels with Victor Korchnoi and Garri Kasparov are a mandatory study for anyone who wants to get started in its practice. His 16 years in various periods reigning until the appearance of Kasparov were marked by his identification with the Soviet Union. That is why its decomposition also impacted the game of the 64 squares. But being so deeply rooted in the country's culture, chess proved very important in the reconstruction of Russia, according to Karpov himself. For 14 years, Karpov has been a deputy in the Duma, the Russian parliament. He is a member of Vladimir Putin's party.

On Tuesday, he was a few minutes late in arriving at the Museu Marítim, generating some nerves in the room. He was expected at 11. Initially, the organization had scheduled the start of the game at 10, but they delayed it an hour because the champion does not like to get up early. When he finally arrived by taxi, his personality took over the Drassanes. His presence commands respect. Among his opponents was the mayor of Esplugues, Pilar Díaz, who received him and with whom he began the simultaneous exhibition.

The master dedicates the first moves to studying his rivals. Up to the twentieth move, all the clashes were apparently even, although in almost all cases with a slight pawn advantage. But from then on, his strategy was somewhat more aggressive and rivals began to fall until the last ones, who held out for four hours. Many waited until the end for the great Karpov to sign a magazine with him on the cover and thus take home a souvenir of the encounter. There were even some who brought some of the master's books with them.

Among the 19 rivals, some very young who on Tuesday were seeing the champion play for the first time, but aware that they were privileged to face a legend. And although Karpov is not Messi, for many he is their great idol, not of the masses, but a huge idol who gifted them with a historic day on Tuesday.