Karpov Denied Jail Visit

When Bobby Fischer was in a Japanese prison, Boris Spassky wrote a letter to president George W. Bush in which he famously declared, "Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess set."

Yesterday, in a scene that was eerily reminiscent of Spassky's letter, Anatoly Karpov attempted to visit Garry Kasparov in a Moscow jail. But Karpov was not permitted to see his old rival. He told Radio Free Europe, "In Russia right now we have, what, four world chess champions? And of course the fate of any one of them is important to other chess players, both in Russia and abroad."