Karpov to help break world chess record

Havana:

Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov plans to participate in a Cuban attempt to break the Guinness World Record for most people playing chess simultaneously. Organisers expect some 13,000 people to show up in the city of Santa Clara in central Cuba tomorrow to play chess in homage to the revolutionary leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara. "This will be an event not only for Cuban chess but for global chess," Karpov told reporters yesterday, the day after his arrival on the island. The current Guinness record was also set by Cubans, when 11,320 people - including Cuban President Fidel Castro - played 5,660 simultaneous games of chess at Jose Marti Revolution Square in Havana on December 7, 2002. Cuba has a great tradition of chess, Karpov said, propelled largely by the Argentine-born Guevara while he was on the island helping Castro topple the former government in the late 1950s. Karpov expressed interest in creating a chess school in Cuba, like ones he has founded in the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. This year's event will close the second Cuban National Games, which began April 18. (AP)