News / Africa
Game over, Gaddafi to be told
14 Jun 2011 at 09:53hrs | Views
Eccentric Russian chess supremo Kirsan Ilyumzhinov played chess with embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli at the weekend.
Ilyumzhinov, head of the World Chess Federation, said Gaddafi was "very calm" when he took him on.
"[The match] ended in a draw. I offered the drawn game. After all, it is impolite to win when you're a guest," Ilyumzhinov said on his return to Moscow yesterday.
Russia's Africa envoy said he had advised Ilyumzhinov to tell Gaddafi that the game was up when the chess maestro told him of the trip.
"I advised him to play white ... and to [make] Gaddafi understand that he was nearing an endgame," Mikhail Margelov said.
The match was shown on Libyan state TV, with Gaddafi looking relaxed and Ilyumzhinov beaming as they faced off over a crystal-studded chess board.
Chess-mad Ilyumzhinov claims aliens brought the game of chess to Earth. He has built a sprawling complex devoted to chess in Russia's southern Buddhist region of Kalmykia, where he ruled for 17 years.
He told Russian TV last year that aliens took him for a spin in their spaceship in 1997.
Ilyumzhinov said Gaddafi told him he had no intention of stepping down or leaving the country despite being weakened by defections from his entourage, sanctions on supplies, and Nato air strikes on his military and his compound.
The chess tsar quoted Gaddafi as saying: "I am neither premier nor president nor king. I do not hold any post in Libya and therefore I have no position which I should give up."
Ilyumzhinov, head of the World Chess Federation, said Gaddafi was "very calm" when he took him on.
"[The match] ended in a draw. I offered the drawn game. After all, it is impolite to win when you're a guest," Ilyumzhinov said on his return to Moscow yesterday.
Russia's Africa envoy said he had advised Ilyumzhinov to tell Gaddafi that the game was up when the chess maestro told him of the trip.
"I advised him to play white ... and to [make] Gaddafi understand that he was nearing an endgame," Mikhail Margelov said.
The match was shown on Libyan state TV, with Gaddafi looking relaxed and Ilyumzhinov beaming as they faced off over a crystal-studded chess board.
Chess-mad Ilyumzhinov claims aliens brought the game of chess to Earth. He has built a sprawling complex devoted to chess in Russia's southern Buddhist region of Kalmykia, where he ruled for 17 years.
He told Russian TV last year that aliens took him for a spin in their spaceship in 1997.
Ilyumzhinov said Gaddafi told him he had no intention of stepping down or leaving the country despite being weakened by defections from his entourage, sanctions on supplies, and Nato air strikes on his military and his compound.
The chess tsar quoted Gaddafi as saying: "I am neither premier nor president nor king. I do not hold any post in Libya and therefore I have no position which I should give up."
Source - Reuters
