LONDON. Oct 9 Nigel Short an< Garri Kasparoi put aside the! personal animb-sity to become pa

riners in a campaign to revolutionize the top rang of competitive chess.reports AP.

Their title match at London's Savoy Theatre is very much an experiment: the first breakaway World Championship and the first championship financed entirely by commercial sponsors. Their alm is" to make professional chess as lucrative as professional golf or tennis.

At the heart of the gamble is their split with FIDE, the world chess federation.

Last February, they refused to play their title match for FIDE, which has run the championships since >948. They had complained for years about Ita handling of Grandmaster events, and FIDE's failure to consult them about arrangements for the championship g#is (lie last straw.

For their match. Kasparov and Short formed the Professional Chess Association and pledged 10 per cent of the 1.7 million pounds ( dlrs 2.55 luillion) In prize-money to finance it.

This angered many fellow Grandmasters because that 10 per cent was supposed to go to the Grandmasters Association, which represents most of the world's leading chess players. Sljori was president of the

Association until he resigned ir February.

FIDE refuses to recognize the Professional Chess Associatior and is holding its own championship between former champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia and Jan Timman of the Netherlands, both of whom losi to Short in qualifying matches.

Their prize-money has beer cut in half to one million Swiss francs (dlrs 705.000) and Omar backed out of holding the second half of the match, which will now be played in Jakarta Indonesia.

But the federation's demise is far from certain. It plans to gc ahead with qualifying matches

to find a challenger for the winner of the Karpov-Timman match.

Kasparov and Short have Invited the 50 top players to compete In a qualifying tournament In December for the next Professional Chess Association championship.

Polgar of Hungary, the world's leading woman player, has been invited . said British Grandmaster'Raymond Keene. • ~ The basic fact is that a lot of players find the breakaway distasteful, but will play... for the money." said Australian Grandmaster Ian Rogers. "But they don't regard it as a serious World Championship qualifier.