What Money Can’t Buy
By BORIS GULKO and GABRIEL SCHOENFELD
July 27, 2007
The Dutch magazine, New In Chess, recently reported that Petromir, a Russian energy company, owns a tract of Siberia with 43 trillion cubic meters of natural gas underneath it. What does that fact have to with chess?
The answer is that Petromir is solely owned by one Anatoly Karpov, former chess champion of the world. Karpov is now a wealthy man, worth approximately $2 billion. Is it the pursuit of lucre that has kept Karpov from playing much chess in recent years?
The answer is unclear, but after the Petromir revelation came out, he participated in a grandmaster-level tournament in Serbia. The result demonstrates once again that having a big wallet is not everything. Karpov finished third, behind Suat Atalik of Turkey and Michael Roiz of Israel, who became the first player in history to defeat a billionaire grandmaster. What is more, Roiz triumphed in the immaculate positional style of the young Karpov himself.
Source: NY Sun
Karpov is the first Billionaire World Champion! This is amazing and a great investment he made. Wish I could have been a junior partner and invested just 1 dollar in this deal.
Karpov??? Good news for chess.Very interesting!!!
I think Karpov has just got one up on Kasparov. The only way Kasparov can top that is to become president of Russia. I think Karpov may have the last laugh however, two billion is quite an achievement.
Wow great, I hope he will contribute a large part of it to chess now! we really need that !
by the way, seems to me that Gulko and the other are just very very gealous in Karpov:
not only he is a chess legend and they are far from (even though Gulko did devote his life to chess..), but now is also a billioner and he didn’t even leave for the US for it, he did it in Russia with its problematic economy!!!
Gulko: don’t be so gealous: some people are born-winners, it doesn’t take a way anything from your achievements…
This is rediculous. Obviously something funny has occured here. Probably the citizens of Russia should be the owners of this natural gas. Some how a deal was struck for Karpov to be the owner. There has to be a kickback to the politicians who handed him this wealth on a silver platter.
I have never trusted Karpov. He stole the title from Fischer and now he owns the wealth from the citizens.
Yeah right, thats EXACTLY how he did it:
“he did it in Russia with its problematic economy!!!”
In that system billionaires come out of nowhere.
It’s the “Haves” vs. the “Have-Nots” in Russia. I might be wrong, but I smell another Kasparov/Karpov battle on the horizon… Rich
What exactly is it that the story is claiming “money can’t buy”? First place in a tournament? I bet that’s happened lots of times in chess history.
“I have never trusted Karpov. He stole the title from Fischer and now he owns the wealth from the citizens.”
Now, don’t lie. Everybody knows Fischer resigned the title before Karpov even became challenger. Do you trust yourself?
I would not trust Karpov neither, but not for the reason of “stealing” Fischer’s title. It is was Karpov’s fault, it was a madman making a mad decision.
Here is more on Karpov/Petromir.
Mitvol Investigates Petromir
Special to The St. Petersburg Times
MOSCOW — Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry’s environmental agency, is looking into whether the company exploring the Angaro-Lensk natural gas deposit in eastern Siberia improperly boosted its reserves estimate.
The owner of the deposit, Moscow-based company Petromir, founded in 1999 by former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, estimated its gas reserves at 1.2 trillion cubic meters when it registered the field at the end of January.
Mitvol believes these figures might be inflated and has started an investigation to find out what the real figures for the reserves might be, his spokesman said.
Karpov isn’t listed on the “Forbes” list of billionaires. Regardless, he’s a very wealthy man. He never “stole” anything from Mr. Fischer. Everyone knows, history proves, that Fischer forfeited his title.
The world chess champion does not “own” the title…hence, it cannot be stolen. It can be forfeited. Karpov tried to arrange a match against Fischer in the late 1970’s and, in classic Fischer paranoia style, he waited until contracts had been made, extensive negotiations concluded, and out of nowhere just backed out and walked away into obscurity.
I don’t know much about Karpov other than his chess games. I can say he isn’t insane as Fischer has serious mental problems.
Anyway, Kaprov has done many things to help chess. Fischer has done nothing but give chess professional’s a bad image.
I wonder if Bill Gates is a chess player? Does anyone know?
Anything is possible in Russia if you are buddies with Putin(Mr. Polonium) and Gorbachev!