Garry Kasparov is widely regarded as one of the greatest chess players of all time. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1963, Kasparov began playing chess at a young age and quickly rose as a prodigy.
In 1978, he participated in the Sokolsky Memorial and took home first place to become a master (at the age of 16). Later that year, he qualified for and won the 64 person Swiss system USSR Chess Championship - the youngest to do so.
At the age of 19, he was the 2nd highest rated player in the world and the youngest Candidate to the World Championship since Bobby Fischer.
When he was 21, he became the number rated player in the world and held that spot for 12 years. He won his way through the Candidates and qualified to play Karpov for the World Championship.
The World Championship of 1984 was structured in a ‘First to 6 Wins’ format. After 9 games, Karpov was winning 4-0. Kasparov then fought back winning 3 games. The president of FIDE then stepped in and stopped the 48 game match of the World Championship citing the effect on the player’s health (for reference, the 2023 World Championship was 14 games). This remains the only World Championship to be abandoned without a result.
Later in 1985, a new World Championship match was started between Karpov and Kasparov. This time, Kasparov won in 24 games - 13 to 11 becoming the youngest World Champion ever.
Kasparov remained at the top of the chess world for over a decade, holding the World Championship title from 1985 to 1993, and then again from 1995 to 2000. His achievements and tournament wins are far too numerous to mention here so we will examine a couple of other key events in his career.
Shortly after he reached the pinnacle of the chess world, he created the Grandmasters Association to give more representation to professional players to FIDE activities. FIDE did not like that. In 1993, both Nigel Short and Kasparov broke away from FIDE and played their own version of the World Championship under the banner of the ‘Professional Chess Association’ (PCA). This resulted in two different World Champions being crowned for a period of time - one under the PCA and one under FIDE. This split was eventually healed in 2006.
In an interview with DNA India - “... my decision in 1993 to break away from the World Chess Federation, FIDE, with Nigel Short was the worst mistake of my career.”
During this time, Kasparov also played a number of famous exhibition matches against computers, including his famous matches against the IBM computer Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997. While he lost the second match, these matches helped to popularize chess and demonstrate the ability of artificial intelligence.
In 2005, Kasparov founded the United Civil Front, a political movement that advocated for democracy and human rights in Russia. He was a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and was arrested and imprisoned several times for his activism.
This week, we are traveling back to 1988 during the second round of the 55th USSR Championships.
Garry Kasparov versus Vassily Ivanchuk.
Now, if we’re ready… let’s begin.
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.g3 Bb4 5.Bg2 O-O 6.O-O e4 7.Ng5 Bxc3 8.bxc3 Re8 9.f3 exf3 10.Nxf3 d5 11.d4 Ne4 12.Qc2 dxc4 13.Rb1 f5 14.g4 Qe7 15.gxf5 Nd6 16.Ng5 Qxe2 17.Bd5+ Kh8 18.Qxe2 Rxe2 19.Bf4 Nd8 20.Bxd6 cxd6 21.Rbe1 Rxe1 22.Rxe1 Bd7 23.Re7 Bc6 24.f6 1-0
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