KRAMNIK FORFEITS GAME 5 AFTER TWO WILD DAYS

What was once a congenial World Championship reunification match between Veselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik has now become reminscent of the wild events that took place in the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match and the 1978 Karpov-Korchnoi match.

In the present match, Silvio Danailov, Topalov's manager, filed a protest after Game 2, contending that Kramnik visits his rest room and his bathroom 25-50 times during each game. (Each player has their own rest room and a personal bathroom, the rest rooms have video and audio surveillance, but the bathrooms do not). While he did not explicitly accuse Kramnik of cheating, the implication seemed clear. However, the Appeals Committee apparently did not respond to this first protest (Topalov was down 0-2).

After Game 4, Danailov made another appeal, this time taking it to the press and mass media, essentially forcing the Committee to do something. He wanted the opposing team to inspect each player's rest room before the game, and for the players to use a public bathroom, escorted by an official and to close the personal bathrooms. There was a threat that Topalov would "reconsider his participation in the match."

The Committee then decided last night to close the personal bathrooms, and to open a new bathroom that could only be used by the two players. This was not satisfactory to Team Topalov, but then a new twist arose: Kramnik's Team asked that the members of the Appeals Committee be changed, as they were clearly biased in favor of Topalov to make such a ruling, even saying that two of the Committee members are friends of Danailov. He threatened to not play otherwise.

This morning, Game 5 was scheduled to start at 7:00am Eastern Time, Kramnik having the White pieces. The Chief Arbiter delayed the start of the game for 22 minutes to try to settle these issues. Topalov sat at the board and the time of Kramink (who was in his rest area waiting for his bathroom to open) began to run.

At 9:50am EST it was confirmed that Kramnik had forfeited Game 5.

A flurry of press conferences took place. It is not clear what will happen next.