From a small provincial Ukrainian town, 18-year-old Ruslan Ponomariov may look like any other teenager, but the youngest ever FIDE world chess champion is a ruthless operator on the chessboard.

Like former world champion Anatoly Karpov, this rather fraillooking young man has an unremarkable appearance, with his medium height, high cheekbones and parted blonde hair. And like Karpov, he wipes the board with his

opponents.

"He does look a little like Karpov," said his training partner and friend, under-12-year-old world champion Sergei Karyakin, also of the Ukraine.

"He has the same style, even when he plays chess: like Karpov, his strategy is to suffocate his opponent," added Karyakin.

Not even the 500,000 dollars Ponomariov won when he defeated fellow-Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk in the finals on January 23 are likely to add much glamour to his character.

"I have to pay FIDE 20 per cent of that money, and as for the rest, I do not have any particular plans for it, it might come in handy sometime later," he said soberly.

In any case, Pomomariov is not

going to blow it on some luxury car, since he "would have no use for it" in the small town of Kramatorsk where he lives, in his native Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Tributes and honours, which have been heaped on him from all sides since his victory, are also unlikely to turn his head.

A recent party thrown in his honour at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow seemed to prove the point: as the Ukrainian ambassador lavished praise on him, saying how he was proud of him, his parents and the Donetsk region, Ponomariov seemed not to hear, alternately biting his lip and gritting his teeth.

From time to time, he would slip in a word to Karyakin, whom he calls "Seryozha" (the diminutive of "Sergei"), a rare friend he can relax with in the often tough chess world where he mostly has to deal with sponsors, FIDE officials and politicians.

However, when his turn came to speak at the party, he displayed unexpected self-assurance, and later explained that he had long been used to such socializing.

In spite of his young age and unassuming appearance, Ponomariov is already an old hand at chess, a game he started playing with his father when he was seven.

He soon attracted the attention of chess officials and sponsors - all of them Ukrainian companies - and, by the age of eleven, he was already playing blind in exhibition games.

"Some days, I would play up to four simultaneous blind games," he recalled.

After becoming under-12s world champion in 1995 and under-18s champion in 1996, he has now succeeded India's Viswanathan Anand as FIDE world champion and has stolen the title of youngest ever champion from Gary Kasparov, who beat then champion Karpov in 1985, when he was 22.

With most of his chess future stil before him, Ponomariov - who is also a law student - now wants to "get some rest," before getting "back to work" to prove to his rivals that his triumph was no accident.