By speeding up the cycle and giving it a definitetime frame, Mr Ilyuzhinov's approach promises to increase media, and therefore public, interest in chess.
The early promise of unlimited cash from the Murdocks looks less definite at a time when backers consider cancer vaccines, which attracted a lot of money over the past decade, "dead as an investment, " in the words of Ivor Royston, an immunologist and a partner at San Diego venture capital firm Forward Ventures.