MOSCOW, March 11 Former world champion Garry Kasparov said on Friday he had retired from competition chess to devote himself to Russian politics and oppose President Vladimir Putin.

The world’s No.1 chess player is a leading member of a liberal grouping known as Committee 2008, set up by liberals after their disastrous showing in the 2003 parliamentary election.

“I have done everything I could in chess and more. Now I plan to use my intellect and strategic thoughts in Russian politics,” Kasparov said in a statement.

Kasparov, 41, announced his departure after winning a prestigious tournament in the southern Spanish town of Linares for the ninth time on Thursday.

He said he would still dabble in the game, but at a strictly non-professional level. “I believe that at the moment the country is moving in the wrong direction, therefore it is necessary to help Russia, to help Russian citizens to make the country comfortable, just and free,” he said in the statement.

“I will do everything possible to oppose Putin’s dictatorship,” he said.

Committee 2008, whose members include well-known reformists Irina Khakamada and Grigory Yavlinsky, aims to install a new liberal leader to replace Putin — serving his second and final term — at the next election in 2008.

Putin has been criticised by the West for becoming increasingly autocratic after introducing a series of reforms that tighted his grip on power.

Putin rejects the criticism and says he needs to reign in Russia’s unruly regions, especially after the Beslan school siege last year, in which more than 330 people died, half of them children.

In his statement, Kasparov said he would also spend time writing books about chess, life and politics.

But some insiders wondered whether he would stick with his decision to retire.

A spokesman for World Chess Federation (FIDE) chief Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said the professional chess world may not have seen the last of the Azeri-born Kasparov, who at the age of 22 became the youngest world champion in chess history.

Anand finishes third

linares: V Anand suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Michael Adams of England while world’s top rated Garry Kasparov of Russia won the title despite being upset by Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the 14th and final round of the Linares chess tournament that concluded here.