Florencio Campomanes touched different people in different ways.
Among the Western nations, Campomanes was despised as a dictator who overstayed his tenure as the president of the World Chess Federation (Fide) and who played a very instrumental role in dividing the chess world.
Among the Third World countries however, Campomanes was seen mostly as a champion who succeeded to the world body’s highest position and who opened up chess to the world and brought the game to its greatest prominence.
Who was right and who was wrong? Without a doubt, both sides would have their grounds and justifications to cast Campomanes as their hero or villain. Personally, I don’t believe that he cared very much for the labels. Ultimately, he wanted only results, not how the job got done. But all that is now behind him.
Last Monday, Florencio Campomanes, more popularly known as Campo to his friends and enemies, died in his native Philippines. He was 83 years old.
I first got to know of Campo way back in 1974 when he was still only a deputy president of the World Chess Federation. Asia was his main playground then, and chess was just taking off in the continent.
He came to Penang for the inaugural Asian team championship and at its conclusion, he received the challenge trophy from our second Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak. Campo was truly the public face of the Philippines’ chess team.
In 1978, he organized the acrimonious world chess championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio City and in 1982, achieved his ambition to become the Fide president. His election to the world body’s top position, on the promise of elevating chess to greater heights, created a buzz everywhere. I was there in Luzerne when it happened and the euphoria was simply incredible.
As the Fide president, he sowed the seeds that would eventually see Fide being accepted into the fold of the international Olympic movement. This wasn’t a short-term process; it actually took years before the walls could be broken down.
But his Fide presidency was also marred with controversy. By 1984, Garry Kasparov’s star was already in its ascendancy and he was knocking on Karpov’s door. But the 1984/85 world championship match was organized with rules different from today’s. It was a match where a player needed to score six decisive victories, draws not counting.
Karpov was unable to deliver the final win and he enabled Kasparov to extend the match to 48 games. After five long months of play, Campo decided to abandon the match, citing players’ fatigue as the decision. There would be a rematch later in the year, limited to 24 games.
While this might have been seen as a logical decision – a tough decision actually – that any Fide president would have to make, it did not go down well at all with many chess federations in the West. They claimed that Campo’s decision was scandalous and unilaterally made to favour the tiring Karpov at a time when an invigorated Kasparov was starting to get stronger at the chessboard. They said there was no precedent to stop the match but precisely, it was Campo’s job to set a precedent if one was really required.
Anyhow, Campomanes weathered all the criticisms and went on to achieve his second high point as the Fide president by bringing the biennial Chess Olympiad to Manila in 1992. It was again a first for Asian chess as never before had any Third World country organized such a large-scale team chess event in this part of the world.
But chess was never the same after that. During Campo’s tenure as Fide president, Kasparov declared that his world championship title never belonged to the World Chess Federation and he could choose to defend his title any time he liked or wanted. Not surprisingly, Kasparov had the support of the western chess federations and most of the top western chess grandmasters.
So chess went in two separate directions. Kasparov had his own version of a world chess championship running for several years while Fide continued with its own regular world chess title series. It was not until 2006 that there was unification again.
The pressure on Campo began to tell and in 1995, he stepped down as the Fide president and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov took over. Nevertheless, Campo remained active in the chess world and he was made the Fide honorary president which allowed him to roam the globe as the ultimate chess ambassador.
He never slowed down, not even a horrendous car crash in Turkey in 2007 was able to stop him. Though seriously warded in a hospital with his neck in braces, he received all guests and insisted on playing chess with them on his hospital bed. That was his dedication to the game.
Campo turned up often in Malaysia because he was a fast friend of Datuk Tan Chin Nam whom he first met in 1974. It was mainly Campomanes that persuaded Tan to stand for Fide election in 1982. Every time that Campo came into town, he would come as a guest of Tan.
I can’t remember the last time I met him in Kuala Lumpur. It must have been at the early part of this decade. He was already frail of body but still sharp in mind. Impressively, he still carried with him a very distinguished and statesman-like air. Without any prompting, he could always remember my name but never once could he say it properly. But like him, I did not care. I did not care very much for the mispronunciations because I knew that he only wanted to be polite and address me, not how to call my name.
Tan told me, “I have lost an old friend and a dear friend. My heart goes out to his family. There will never be another Campomanes.”
Casto Abundo, one-time Fide general secretary, recalled that Campo continued to be active in FIDE, Asian and Philippine chess until his bout with cancer reached the terminal stage last year. “He was still strong and hearty on his 83rd birthday last Feb 22 but his health quickly deteriorated. I was at his bedside at the Notre Dame Hospital in Baguio City on May 1. As I thanked him for all our chess years together, he smiled and said "We had fun."”
Naturally, Campomane’s death on Monday overshadows the current world chess championship match between defending champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Veselin Topalov. The match still has four days to go, provided it goes the whole distance, and if it ends equal at 6-all after 12 games, tie-break games on May 13 will decide the winner.
However, as at the end of the seventh game earlier this week, Anand is leading Topalov by 4-3. After the turbulence of the first two games, both the players have settled down well into the match.
The third game was drawn and Anand won the fourth game. After that, the next three games were all great fighting draws.
Up next
KL rapid grand prix
The Kuala Lumpur Chess Association (KLCA) and Polgar Chess Asia will jointly organize the fourth leg of the KL rapid grand prix tomorrow and on Sunday. Entry fees for the open section are RM15 for members of the KLCA and the Royal Selangor Club (RSC) and RM20 for non-members. For the under-12 section, the entry fees are RM5 for children of KLCA and RSC members and RM10 for others. Venue is the RSC’s Card Room at Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur. More details at the KLCA website, (http://www.klchess.com/)
Perak grand prix
The Manjung leg of the Tan Sri Lee Loy Seng Perak grand prix chess tournament, sponsored by Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, will be played at the Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Methodist (ACS) in Sitiawan on May 16.
Entry fees are RM25 for the open section, RM15 for under-16 players and RM10 for under-12 players. Members of the Perak International Chess Association (PICA) and players born in Perak pay RM5 less. Entries will close on May 13. To register, contact Yunus (013.3908129) or Hamisah (012.5008723). More details are available from http://perakchess.blogspot.com
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