For the first time in five years, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the chess world, Garry Kasparov, will be putting his title on the line. Stepping into the ring as The Challenger: World number three Vladimir Kramnik. The match is scheduled for October this year, with London looking like the most plausible venue. The stipulated prize fund is 2 million dollars - 1.3 million going to the winner.

The entity behind this breakthrough is the newly established Braingames Network, founded by MSO board members and co-founders Raymond Keene and Donald Morris. Those of you who regularly tune in to the newsgroups have probably noted the controversy originating from the forming of this new company.

Getting back to the match at hand, a lot of you are probably wondering why Anand turned down this golden opportunity for a rematch against Kasparov. Well, according to Anand, it basically had to do with the contract, which in his opinion clearly favoured the champion. Whether or not it really did, remains to be seen (the details have yet to be made public), but it's clear that the Braingames boys were unable to convince Anand that he was getting a fair deal. Anand's demand for a $300,000 cash advance was flatly turned down, so the Indian told the organisers to take their offer elsewhere. Which they did. To Vladimir Kramnik, currently ranked third on the FIDE rating list.

The young Russian turned out to be a more reasonable customer, and I think the main reason is that he has consistently failed to qualify for a title match through conventional methods. The FIDE Championship, The PCA Championship, The WCC Championship ... you name it - Kramnik's competed in all of them without success. I imagine his only question concerning the contract offered by the Braingames Network was "Where do I sign?"

There's been a lot of hype surrounding this upcoming bout, and most of it originates from Kasparov's own web site, www.kasparovchess.com . A word of advice to whoever's in charge here: Stop treating us like 4-year-olds! After consistently failing to find a sponsor for a match with Anand, Kasparov & CO are now telling us that this is the match they really wanted, Kramnik's the only worthy challenger, anyone else would get creamed, yada, yada, yada...

Stop insulting our intelligence! You wanted Anand and got stuck with Kramnik, OK? This is probably nobody's fault, but please stop distorting the facts.

Yes, Kramnik is the only player in the world with a close to level score against Kasparov, -1 over 72 games. But let's not forget that Kramnik is -5 over 46 games against Alexei Shirov, the man who earned the right to challenge Kasparov back in 1998 after beating Kramnik 5½-3½ in the WCC candidate finals in Carzola. Just statistics, I know, but certainly food for thought (or fuel for a good argument).

Now, even though sponsorship for the new Braingames Network cycle seems to be secure, the recent press conference in London raises some disturbing questions:

What if Kasparov loses his title and fails to regain it? Will the sponsor pull out?

And given that the cycle will include challenges from computers - will we be referring to a configuration of software and hardware as the "World Champion" in the not too distant future?

Should gorillas be allowed to enter the World Armwrestling Championships??

Only time will tell.