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The noble board game is moving on, with sponsorship deals - and scandals - to rival Premiership football. But will it really hit the big time? STEVE BARRATT reports
The popular image of chess in the UK is that it's best left to the nerds and the geeks: the kids at school who can't play football, who wear NHS specs but can't look anyone in the eye. However, this is not necessarily the case elsewhere in the world, where chess is classed as a sport and attracts a gallery of top professional players whose antics put the automatons on the golf, tennis and motor-racing circuits to shame.
In fact, the appeal of chess is broadening sufficiently to attract serious commercial sponsorship. There's definitely money to be made from it, and the ancient game in which two minds battle it out on an eight-byeight grid shows every sign of hitting the big time.
'Chess is cool,' says the women's world champion chess player, 25year-old Alexandra Kosteniuk, whose image belies all stereotypes. 'And we grandmasters must show we are not nerds, by dressing nicely: no jeans, T-shirts and sneakers. And more women should be invited to tournaments, so kids can see it's not only for boys.'
The Florida-based Russian became a grandmaster at 14 and is also a successful model, having appeared in magazines including Vogue, EUe Girl and Marie Claire. She endorses companies such as electronics giant LG, Balmain Watches and Russian clothing firm Zimaletto.
She believes the tipping-point for chess is in the hands of the media and officialdom. 'Champions should be made into true stars, and the media should push them to be real heroes,' she adds. 'The Olympic committee should declare chess an official Olympic sport.'
Others would go even further to promote chess. The Russian-born, Cannes-based grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev is a master of blitz chess, the high-octane variation in which games must be completed in only a few minutes. He believes chess must revolutionise itself to win the mass market, although he got people talking for the wrong reasons when he turned up for a game in India last year so hung-over he fell asleep at the board and was defaulted.
Tkachiev employs methods that - if none too subtle or...