(FORTUNE Magazine) – Like baseball, football, and snooker players before them, chess pros are learning the value of entrepreneurship. Led by Russian world champion Gary Kasparov, they have formed a breakaway association to seek corporate sponsorship for big-money events. Says Bob Rice, a partner at Milbank Tweed, a New York law firm, and first commissioner of the fledgling Professional Chess Association: ''This sport has been run the way medieval courts were run, with players competing for the pleasure of someone with money. We're trying to build a program that brings in sponsorship and long-term value.'' Among those likely to enjoy the fruits of free agency is the game's crown princess, Hungarian Judit Polgar, 16. Says Rice of Polgar: ''She is an unbelievable draw around the world, a true breakthrough.'' The first moves belong to Kasparov and Briton Nigel Short. They rejected a $1.8 million match proposed by the sport's dowdy governing body, the World Chess Federation. Instead, they will compete in September for a $2.5 million purse in a championship sponsored by the London Times. Rice says the game's demographics -- it attracts high-income males and many college students -- should lure other sponsors. One prospect: IBM, creator of the world's most powerful chess computer, Deep Blue.