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Here is a video interview with Bobby Fischer held on a park bench just before he beat Boris Spassky.

From Chessbase.com: ” Three weeks ago Florencio Campomanes suffered a serious car accident and has been hospitalised in Antalya, Turkey, ever since. Today the long-time (1982-1995) president of the world chess organisation celebrates his eightieth birthday. We congratulate him and bring you a comprehensive look back at the Campo years.” Florencio Campomanes turns eighty

From Sunstar.com: “Morelia/Linares 2007 has a notable absentee—World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. At first I was rather surprised that he was not invited to play but the reason, I think, is that he is on a honeymoon. He just got married to a journalist for Le Figaro, a beautiful girl named Marie Laure. By the way, Kramnik is probably the handsomest world champion and the tallest!” World Champions and their love lives

Veselin Topalov (IPA: [ve.se’lin to’pÉ‘.lof]; Bulgarian: Веселин Топалов) (born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. In the January 2007 FIDE rating list, he is ranked number one in the world with an Elo rating of 2783.[1] His current trainer and manager is International Master Silvio Danailov.

Topalov became the FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. Topalov was awarded the 2005 Chess Oscar.[2] Topalov had the second highest Elo rating of all time at 2813 (October 2006).

Topalov played Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik in a twelve-game title unification match. The match was drawn at 6-6, and Kramnik won the tie-break 2.5-1.5 to unify the titles and dethrone Topalov.

Topalov has been repeatedly accused of computer assisted cheating in recent years.[3][4] Former World Chess Champion contender Nigel Short has called on the FIDE to investigate.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbek: Rustam Qosimjonov; Russian: Рустам Касымджанов) (born December 5, 1979) is a chess grandmaster from Uzbekistan. In the Uzbek language, which since 1992 has officially used Latin script, his name is written “Qosimjonov”. He was the FIDE world champion during 2004-05.

His best results include first in the 1998 Asian Championship, second in the World Junior Chess Championship in 1999, first at Essen 2001, first at Pamplona 2002 (winning a blitz playoff against Victor Bologan after both had finished the main tournament on 3.5/6), first with 8/9 at the Vlissingen Open 2003, joint first with Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu with 6/9 at Pune 2005, a bronze-medal winning 9.5/12 performance on board one for his country at the 2000 Chess Olympiad and runner-up in the FIDE World Cup in 2002 (losing to Viswanathan Anand in the final). He has played in the prestigious Wijk aan Zee tournament twice, but did not perform well either time: in 1999 he finished 11th of 14 with 5/13, in 2002 he finished 13th of 14 with 4.5/13. He made his first appearance at Linares in 2005, finishing tied last with 4/12.

In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, Kasimdzhanov unexpectedly made his way through to the final, winning mini-matches against Alejandro Ramirez, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, Vasily Ivanchuk, Zoltan Almasi, Alexander Grischuk and Veselin Topalov to meet Michael Adams to play for the title and the right to face world number one Garry Kasparov in a match.

In the final six-game match of the Championship, both players won two games, making a tie-break of rapid games necessary. Kasimdzhanov won the first game with black, after having been in a difficult position. By drawing the second game he became the new FIDE champion.

In the April 2005 FIDE list, Kasimdzhanov had an Elo rating of 2670, making him number 33 in the world and Uzbekistan’s number one. He has been rated as high as 2706 (in the October 2001 list). On June 23, 2005, in the ABC Times Square studios, the AI Accoona Toolbar driven by a Fritz 9 prototype, drew against him.

In September-October 2005 Kasimdzhanov played in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 (San Luis 2005), where he tied with Michael Adams for 6-7 place.

In 2006, Kasimdzhanov won the knock-out Corsica Masters tournament.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukrainian: Руслан Пономарьов; Russian: Русла́н Пономарёв) (born October 11, 1983) is a Ukrainian chess player and former FIDE world champion. In the January 2007 FIDE Elo rating list, Ponomariov had a rating of 2723, making him number fourteen in the world and the Ukrainian number two, behind Vassily Ivanchuk. His highest ever rating was 2743 in the April 2002 FIDE list.

Ponomariov was born in Horlivka in Ukraine. In 1994 he placed third in the World Under-12 Championship at the age of ten, and the following year won it at the age of eleven. In 1996 he won the European Under-18 Championship at the age of just twelve, and the following year won the World Under-18 Championship. In 1998, at the age of fourteen, he was awarded the Grandmaster title, making him the youngest ever player at that time to hold the title.

Among Ponomariov’s notable later results are first at the Donetsk Zonal in 1998, 5/7 in the European Club Cup 2000 (including a victory over then-FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman), joint first with 7.5/9 at Torshavn 2000, 8.5/11 for Ukraine in the 2001 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, winning gold medal on board 2, and first place with 7/10 in the 2001 Governor’s Cup in Kramatorsk.

In 2002 he beat his fellow countryman Vassily Ivanchuk in the final of the FIDE Knock-Out World Championship by a score of 4.5-2.5 to become FIDE world champion at the age of eighteen, the first teenager to ever become world champion. In the same year he finished second in the very strong Linares tournament behind Garry Kasparov. His result in the strong 2003 Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee was less good – despite having the third highest Elo rating, he finished only join eleventh out of fourteen players with 6/13, and at Linares the same year he finished only fifth out of seven with 5.5/12.

There were plans for him to play a fourteen game match against Kasparov in Yalta in September 2003, the winner of which would go on to play the winner of a match between Vladimir Kramnik and Péter Lékó as part of the so-called “Prague Agreement” to reunify the World Chess Championship (since 1993 up to 2006 there have been two world chess championships). However, this was called off after Ponomariov refused to sign his contract without reservation. He remained FIDE champion until Rustam Kasimdzhanov won the next Knock-Out World Championship in 2004.

On Ponomariov’s 20th birthday, October 11, 2003, he became the first high-profile player to default a game because of his mobile phone ringing during play. This happened in round one of the European Team Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when Ponomariov was playing black against Swedish GM Evgenij Agrest.

In his games with white, Ponomariov has almost always played 1. e4 (see algebraic notation and chess opening), entering the main lines of the Ruy Lopez and Sicilian Defence. With black, he has played the Sicilian against 1. e4 and also replied 1… e5, going into the Ruy Lopez. Against 1. d4 he has adopted a variety of defences, including the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, the Queen’s Indian Defence and the King’s Indian Defence. Earlier in his career he experimented with the Benko Gambit and Pirc Defence, but as of 2003 these have fallen out of his repertoire.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Viswanathan Anand (born December 11, 1969 in Chennai (then called Madras), India) is an Indian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. In the January 2007 FIDE Elo rating list, Anand has a rating of 2779, making him the number two in the world (after Veselin Topalov). Anand is one of only four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list and he has been among the top three ranked players in classical time control chess in the world continuously since 1997.

Chess career

Anand’s rise in the Indian chess world was meteoric. National level success came early for him when he won the National Sub-Junior Chess Championship with a score of 9/9 in 1983 at the age of fourteen. He became the youngest Indian to win the International Master Title at the age of fifteen, in 1984. At the age of sixteen he became the National Champion and won that title two more times. He played games at blitz speed, earning him the nickname “Lightning Kid” (“Blitz chess” is known in India as “Lightning chess”). In 1987, he became the first Indian to win the World Junior Chess Championship. In 1988, at the age of eighteen, he became India’s first Grandmaster.

“Vishy”, as he is sometimes called by his friends, burst upon the upper echelons of the chess scene in the early 1990s, winning such tournaments as Reggio Emilia 1991 (ahead of Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov). Playing at such a high level did not slow him down either, and he continued to play games at blitz speed. In 1991, he made the quarter finals of the FIDE Candidates Tournament, before losing narrowly to Anatoly Karpov.[1]

Anand qualified for the Professional Chess Association World Chess Championship final by winning the candidates matches against Michael Adams and Gata Kamsky.[2] In 1995, he played a title match against Kasparov in New York City’s World Trade Center. After an opening run of eight draws (a record for the opening of a world championship match), Anand won game nine using a splendid sacrifice on the queen side, but then lost four of the next five. He lost the match 10.5 – 7.5.

Anand won three consecutive Advanced Chess tournaments in Leon, Spain after Garry Kasparov introduced this form of chess in 1998, and is widely recognized as the world’s best Advanced Chess player, where humans may consult a computer to aid in their calculation of variations.

Anand’s recent tournament successes include the prestigious Corus chess tournament in years 2003, 2004, 2006 (tied with Veselin Topalov), and Dortmund in 2004. He has won the annually held Monaco Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Championships in years 1994, 1997, 2003, 2005 and 2006. He is the only player to have won five titles of the Corus chess tournament. He is also the only player to win the blind and rapid sections of the Amber tournament in the same year (and he did this twice — in 1997 and 2005). He is the first player to have achieved victories in each of the three big chess supertournaments: Corus (1998, 2003, 2004, 2006), Linares (1998), Dortmund (1996, 2000, 2004).

Anand has won the Chess Oscar in 1997, 1998, 2003, and 2004. The Chess Oscar is awarded to the year’s best player according to a world-wide poll of leading chess critics, writers, and journalists conducted by the Russian chess magazine 64.

His game collection, My Best Games of Chess, was published in the year 1998 and was updated in 2001.

World Chess Champion

After several near misses, Anand finally won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2000 after defeating Alexei Shirov 3.5 – 0.5 in the final match held at Teheran, thereby becoming the first Indian to win that title. He lost the title when Ruslan Ponomariov won the FIDE knockout tournament in 2002.

He tied for second with Peter Svidler in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 with 8.5 points out of 14 games, lagging 1.5 points behind the winner, Veselin Topalov.

World Rapid Chess Champion

In October 2003, the governing body of chess, FIDE, organized a rapid time control tournament in Cap d’Agde and billed it as the World Rapid Chess Championship. Each player had 25 minutes at the start of the game, with an additional 10 seconds after each move. Anand won this event ahead of ten of the other top twelve players in the world, beating Kramnik in the final. Anand is widely regarded as the world’s finest Rapid Chess player. He has won countless major rapid chess events defeating all top players in the process. His main recent titles in this category are at: Corsica (6 yrs in a row from 1999-2005), Mainz (7 yrs in a row from 2000-2006), Leon 2005, Eurotel 2002, Fujitsu Giants 2002 and the Melody Amber (5 times — and he won the rapid portion of Melody Amber 7 times). In virtually all classical (regular time control) games that Anand plays, he has more time left than his opponent at the end of the game. In fact, he took advantage of the rule allowing players in time trouble to use dashes instead of the move notation during the last four minutes only once, in the game Anand – Svidler at the MTel Masters 2006 [3].

Chess titles

1983 National Sub-Junior Chess Champion – age 14
1984 International Master – age 15
1985 Indian National Champion – age 16
1987 World Junior Chess Champion, Grandmaster
2000 FIDE World Chess Champion
2003 FIDE World Rapid Chess Champion

Awards

Anand has received many awards.

– Arjuna award for Outstanding Indian Sportsman in Chess in 1985
– Padma Shri, National Citizens Award and Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1987
– The inaugural Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, India’s highest sporting honour in the year 1991-1992.
– British Chess Federation ‘Book of the Year’ Award in 1998 for his book My Best Games of Chess
– Padma Bhushan in 2000
– Jameo de Oro the highest honour given by the Government of Lanzarote in Spain on 25th April 2001. The award is given only to illustrious personalities with extra ordinary achievements.
– Chess Oscar (1997, 1998, 2003 and 2004)

Further reading

Viswanathan Anand, My Best Games of Chess (Gambit, 2001 (new edition))

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Alexander Valeryevich Khalifman (born January 18, 1966 in Leningrad) is a Russian chess player.

He gained the International Grandmaster title in 1990 with one particularly good early result being his first place in the 1990 New York Open ahead of a host of strong players. His most notable achievement was winning the FIDE World Chess Championship in 1999, a title he held until the following year.

On the April 2005 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2658, making him number forty-two in the world.

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (Russian: Владимир Борисович Крамник) (born June 25, 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster and the current undisputed World Chess Champion. Since January 2007 Kramnik has been rated 2766 in the FIDE Elo rating list, ranking third in the world.

In October 2000, he beat Garry Kasparov in a sixteen game match played in London, and became the Classical World Chess Champion. In late 2004, Kramnik successfully defended his title against challenger Péter Lékó in a drawn fourteen game match played in Brissago, Switzerland.

In October 2006, Kramnik, still considered the Classical World Champion, defeated reigning FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov in a unification match, the FIDE World Chess Championship 2006. The match was mired with controversy over Topalov’s protests about Kramnik’s frequent use of the bathroom. Kramnik forfeited Game 5 after refusing to play when the Appeals Committee altered the conditions of the match. The match was tied at 6-6 after 12 regular games and Kramnik won the rapid tie-break 2.5-1.5.

Biography

Vladimir Kramnik was born in the town of Tuapse, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is occasionally asserted that his real name was Sokolov but this is not the case (though it is a family name). His father’s birth name was Boris Sokolov, but he took his stepfather’s surname when his mother (Vladimir’s grandmother) remarried. As a child, Vladimir Kramnik studied in the chess school established by Mikhail Botvinnik. His first notable result in a major tournament was his gold medal win as first reserve for the Russian team in the 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila. His selection for the team caused some controversy in Russia at the time, as he was only sixteen years old and had not yet been awarded the grandmaster title, but his selection was supported by Garry Kasparov. He went on to win eight games and one draw with no losses.

The following year, Kramnik played in the very strong tournament in Linares. He finished fifth, beating the then world number three, Vassily Ivanchuk, along the way. He followed this up with a string of good results, but had to wait until 1995 for his first major tournament win at normal time controls, when he won the strong Dortmund tournament, finishing it unbeaten. Kramnik continued to produce good results, including winning at Dortmund (outright or tied) for three successive years between 1996 and 1998. He is the second of only four chess players to have reached a rating of 2800 (the first being Kasparov).

World champion
Classical World Chess Championship 2000

In 2000, he played a sixteen game match against Garry Kasparov in London, for the Classical Chess World Championship. Kramnik began the match as underdog, but his adoption of the Berlin Defence to Kasparov’s Ruy Lopez opening was very effective. With the white pieces, Kramnik pressed Kasparov hard, winning Game Two and overlooking winning continuations in Games Four and Six. Kasparov put up little fight thereafter, agreeing to short draws with the white pieces in Games 9 and 13. Kramnik won the match 8.5 – 6.5 without losing a game (this was only the second time in history that a World Champion had lost a match without winning a single game). This event marked the first time Kasparov had been beaten in a World Championship match.

After London

In October 2002, Kramnik competed in Brains in Bahrain, an eight game match against the chess computer Deep Fritz in Bahrain. Kramnik started well, taking a 3 – 1 lead after four games. However, in game five, Kramnik made what has been described as the worst blunder of his career (a blunder that pales in comparison to his loss against Deep Fritz 10 in 2006), losing a knight in a position which was probably drawn. He quickly resigned. He also resigned game six after making a speculative sacrifice, although subsequent analysis showed that with perfect play, he might have been able to draw from the final position. The last two games were drawn, and the match ended tied at 4 – 4.

In February 2004 Kramnik won the Tournament of Linares outright for the first time (he had tied for first with Kasparov in 2000), finishing undefeated with a +2 score, ahead of Garry Kasparov, the world’s highest-rated player at the time.

Title defence
Classical World Chess Championship 2004

From September 25, 2004, until October 18, 2004, he successfully defended his title as Classical World Chess Champion against challenger Péter Lékó at Brissago, Switzerland. The 14-game match was poised in favor of Lékó right up until Kramnik won the final game, thus forcing a 7 – 7 draw and ensuring that Kramnik remained world champion.[1] The prize fund was 1 million Swiss francs, which was about USD $770,000 at the time. Because of the drawn result, the prize was split between the two players.

Reunification match
FIDE World Chess Championship 2006

When Garry Kasparov broke with FIDE, the federation governing professional chess, to play the 1993 World Championship with Nigel Short, he created a rift in the chess world. In response, FIDE sanctioned a match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman for the FIDE World Championship, which Karpov won. Subsequently, the chess world has seen two “champions”: the classical lineage dating back to Steinitz and the FIDE endorsed champion.

When Kramnik defeated Kasparov and inherited the classical championship, he also inherited its surrounding controversy.

At the most recent FIDE world championship (FIDE World Chess Championship 2005), Kramnik refused to participate, but indicated his willingness to play a match against the winner to unify the world championship. After the tournament, negotiations began for a reunification match between Kramnik and the new FIDE World Champion — Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria.

In April 2006, FIDE announced a reunification match between Kramnik and Topalov — the FIDE World Chess Championship 2006. The match took place in Elista, Kalmykia. After the first four games, Kramnik led 3-1 (out of a maximum of 12). After the fourth game, however, Topalov protested that Kramnik was using the toilet suspiciously frequently, implying that he was somehow receiving outside assistance whilst doing so. Topalov said that he would refuse to shake hands with Kramnik in the remaining games. The Appeals committee decided that the players’ toilets be locked and that they be forced to use a shared toilet, accompanied by an assistant arbiter.

Kramnik refused to play the fifth game unless the original conditions agreed for the match were adhered to. As a result, the point was awarded to Topalov, reducing Kramnik’s lead to 3-2. Kramnik stated that the appeals committee was biased and demanded that it be replaced. As a condition to continue the match, Kramnik insisted on playing the remaining games under the original conditions of the match contract, which allows use of the bathroom at the players’ discretion.

The controversy resulted in a heavy volume of correspondence to Chessbase and other publications. The balance of views from fans was in support of Kramnik.[1] Prominent figures in the chess world, such as John Nunn, Yasser Seirawan, and Bessel Kok also sided with Kramnik.[2] [3] [4] The Russian and Bulgarian Chess Federations supported their respective players. [5] Kramnik’s behavior during the match earned him widespread support in the chess community. Ironically, allegations have arisen in the mainstream media and among top players that Topalov has been receiving computer guidance from a signalling system with his manager. Silvio Danailov[2]

After twelve regular games the match was tied 6-6, although Kramnik continued to dispute the result of the unplayed fifth game until the end of the tournament. On October 13, 2006, the result of the disputed fifth game became moot as Kramnik won the rapid tie-break by a score of 2.5-1.5.

Kramnik is scheduled to defend his title at the next FIDE World Championship, which will be an 8 player tournament taking place in Mexico City from October 24 to November 12, 2007.[3]

Deep Fritz match

Kramnik played a six game match against the computer program Deep Fritz in Bonn, Germany from November 25 to December 5, 2006, losing 2-4 to the machine, with 2 losses and 4 draws. He received 500,000 Euros for playing and would have gotten another 500,000 Euros had he won the match. Deep Fritz version 10 ran on a computer containing two Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. Kramnik received a copy of the program in mid-October for testing, but the final version included an updated opening book.[4] Except for limited updates to the opening book, the program was not allowed to be changed during the course of the match. The endgame tablebases used by the program were restricted to 5 pieces[5] even though a complete 6 piece tablebase is widely available.

On November 25, the first game ended in a draw at the 47th move.[6] A number of commentators believe Kramnik missed a win.[7] Two days later, the second game resulted in a victory for Deep Fritz, when Kramnik made what might be called the “blunder of the century” according to Susan Polgar, when he failed to defend against a threatened mate-in-one.[8] (see also Deep Fritz v. Vladimir Kramnik blunder). The third, fourth and fifth games in the match ended in draws. In the last game Fritz with the white pieces impressively defeated the World Champion[9], winning the match.

There is now speculation that interest in human vs. computer chess competition will plummet as a result of the Bonn match and other recent matches involving Kasparov, Kramnik, Adams, and various chess programs. According to Monty Newborn, for example, “the science is done”. [6]

Private life and health

Kramnik has been diagnosed with a rare form of arthritis, called ankylosing spondylitis. It causes him great physical discomfort while playing. In January 2006, Kramnik announced that he would skip the Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee to seek out treatment for his arthritis. [7]. He returned from treatment in June 2006, playing in the 37th Chess Olympiad. He scored a +4 result, earning the highest performance rating (2847) of the 1307 participating players.

On December 31, 2006 he married French journalist Marie-Laure Germon. [10]

Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (Russian: Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров; (born April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan) is a chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion.

Kasparov became the youngest ever World Chess Champion in 1985. He held the official FIDE world title until 1993. In 1993, a dispute with FIDE led Kasparov to set up a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. He continued to hold the “Classical” World Chess Championship until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000.

Kasparov’s ratings achievements include being rated world #1 according to Elo rating almost continuously from 1986 until his retirement in 2005; and holding the all time highest rating of 2851. He also holds records for consecutive tournament victories and Chess Oscars.

Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess on March 10, 2005, choosing instead to devote his time to politics and writing.

Early career

Garry Kasparov was born Garry Vajnshtejn (the given name analogous to English “Harry” and surname analogous to German “Weinstein” or “Feinstein”) in Baku, Azerbaijan (a former Soviet Socialist Republic) to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.[1] His father died when he was seven years old; at the age of twelve, he adopted his mother’s surname, Kasparian, modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov.

After leaving Tiffin School at the age of 8, Kasparov trained at Mikhail Botvinnik’s chess school under noted coach Vladimir Makogonov. Makogonov helped develop Kasparov’s positional skills and taught him to play the Caro-Kann Defence and the Tartakower System of the Queen’s Gambit Declined.[2] Kasparov won the Soviet Junior Championship in Tbilisi in 1976, scoring 7 points out of 9, at the age of 13. He repeated the feat the following year, winning with a score of 8.5 out of nine. He was being trained by Alexander Sakharov during this time.

In 1978 Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk. He had been invited as an exception but took first place and became a chess master. Kasparov has repeatedly said that this event was a turning point in his life, and that it convinced him to choose chess as his career. “I will remember the Sokolsky Memorial as long as I live”, he wrote. He has also said that after the victory, he thought he had a very good shot at the World Championship. [3]

He first qualified for the Soviet Championship at age 15 in 1978, the youngest ever player at that level. He won the 64-player Swiss system tournament at Daugavpils over tiebreak from Igor V. Ivanov, to capture the sole qualifying place.

Kasparov rose quickly through the FIDE rankings. Starting with an oversight by the Russian Chess Federation, Garry Kasparov participated in a Grandmaster tournament in Banja Luka, Yugoslavia, in 1979 while still unrated (the federation thought it was a junior tournament). He won this high-class tournament, emerging from it with a provisional rating of 2595, enough to catapult him into the top group of chess players. The next year, 1980, he won the World Junior Chess Championship in Dortmund, West Germany. Later that year, he made his debut as second reserve for the USSR at the Chess Olympiad at La Valletta, Malta, and became a Grandmaster.

Towards the top

While still a teenager, Kasparov twice tied for first place in the USSR Championship, in 1980-81, and 1981-82. He earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal tournament, which he won, to qualify as a Candidate for the World Championship. At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate since Bobby Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958.

Kasparov sought to challenge world champion Anatoly Karpov — a firm favourite of the Russian Chess Federation. But first Kasparov had to pass through a series of Candidates’ matches to qualify. His first match was against Alexander Beliavsky, from which Kasparov emerged victorious (Beliavsky was an exceptionally tough opponent). Politics threatened Kasparov’s next match against Viktor Korchnoi, which was scheduled to be played in Pasadena, California. Korchnoi defected from the Soviet Union in 1976, and was at that time the strongest active non-Soviet player. Various political manoeuvres prevented Kasparov from playing Korchnoi, and Kasparov forfeited the match. This was resolved by Korchnoi’s allowing the match to be replayed in London. Kasparov won.

Kasparov’s final Candidates’ match was against the resurgent former world champion Vasily Smyslov, who was randomly selected to advance after a 7-7 tie against Huebner by the spin of a roulette wheel at the quarterfinals, but soundly defeated Hungarian GM Zoltan Ribli at the semifinals. Kasparov won with 4 wins and 9 draws, in a match played at Vilnius, 1984.

1984 World Championship

The 1984 World Championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov had its fair share of ups and downs, as well as the most controversial finish to a competitive match ever. Karpov started off in very good form, and after nine games Kasparov found himself 4-0 down in a “first to six wins” match. Fellow players predicted a 6-0 whitewash of Kasparov within 18 games.

Kasparov dug in, with inspiration from a Russian poet before each game, and battled with Karpov into seventeen successive draws. Karpov duly won the next decisive game before Kasparov fought back with another series of draws until game 32, Kasparov’s first win against the World Champion.

At this point Karpov, twelve years older than Kasparov, was close to exhaustion, and not looking like the player who started the match. Kasparov won games 47 and 48 to bring the scores to 5-3 in Karpov’s favour. Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of FIDE, and a new match was announced to start a few months later.

The termination of the match was a matter of some controversy. At the press conference at which he announced his decision, Campomanes cited the health of the two players, which had been put under strain by the length of the match, despite the fact that both Karpov and Kasparov stated that they would prefer the match to continue. Karpov had lost 10 kg (22 lb) over the course of the match and had been hospitalized several times. Kasparov, however, was in excellent health and extremely resentful of Campomanes’ decision, asking him why he was abandoning the match if both players wanted to continue. It would appear that Kasparov, who had won the last two games before the suspension, felt the same way as some commentators — that he was now the favourite to win the match despite his 5-3 deficit. He appeared to be physically stronger than his opponent, and in the later games seemed to have been playing the better chess.

The match became the first, and so far only, world championship match to be abandoned without result. Kasparov’s relations with Campomanes and FIDE were greatly strained, and the feud between the two would eventually come to a head in 1993 with Kasparov’s complete break-away from FIDE.

World Champion

The second Karpov-Kasparov match in 1985 was organized as the best of 24 games, where first player to 12.5 points would claim the title. However, in the event of a 12-12 draw, the title would go to Karpov as the reigning champion. Kasparov secured the title at the age of 22 by a score of 13-11. This broke the existing record of youngest World Champion, held for over twenty years by Mikhail Tal, who was 23 when he defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960.

At the time, the FIDE rules granted a defeated champion an automatic right of rematch. Another match between Kasparov and Karpov duly took place in 1986, hosted jointly in the cities of London and Leningrad. At one point, Kasparov opened a three-point lead in the match, and looked to be well on his way to a decisive win. However, Karpov battled back by winning three consecutive games to level the score late in the match. At this point, Kasparov dismissed one of his seconds, Evgeny Vladimirov, accusing him of selling his opening preparation to the Karpov team. Kasparov scored one further win in the match and kept his title by a final score of 12.5-11.5.

A fourth match for the world title took place between Kasparov and Karpov 1987 in Seville, as Karpov qualified through the Candidates’ Matches to once again become the official challenger. This match was very close, with neither player holding more than a one-point lead at any point in the match. Kasparov was down one point in the final game, needing a win to hold his title. After a blunder by Karpov, he won, and retained his title as the match was drawn by a score of 12-12.

A fifth match between Kasparov and Karpov was held in Lyon and New York in 1990. Once again, the result was a close one with Kasparov winning by a margin of 12.5-11.5.

With the World Champion title in his grasp, Kasparov switched to battling against FIDE — as Bobby Fischer had done twenty years earlier — but this time from within FIDE. He created an organisation to represent chess players, the Grandmasters Association (GMA) to give players more of a say in FIDE’s activities.

Ejection from FIDE

This stand-off lasted until 1993, by which time a new challenger had qualified through the Candidates cycle for Kasparov’s next World Championship defense. The new challenger was Nigel Short, a British Grandmaster who had defeated Karpov in a qualifying match. The world champion and his challenger decided to play their match outside of FIDE’s jurisdiction, under another organization created by Garry Kasparov called the Professional Chess Association (PCA). This is where the great fracture in the lineage of World Champions began.

Kasparov and Short were ejected from FIDE, and they played their well-sponsored match in London, which Kasparov won convincingly by a score of 12.5-7.5. The match considerably raised the profile of chess in the UK, with an unprecedented level of coverage on Channel 4. FIDE organized a World Championship match between the loser of the Candidates final, Jan Timman, and previous World Champion Karpov, which Karpov won. So Kasparov held the PCA World Chess Championship, and Karpov held the FIDE World Chess Championship.

Kasparov defended his title in 1995 against the Indian superstar Viswanathan Anand, which was held at the World Trade Center in New York City, before the PCA collapsed when Intel, one of the major backers, withdrew its sponsorship. Kasparov won the match by 4 wins to 1 with 13 draws.

Kasparov tried to organise another World Championship match, under yet another organisation, the World Chess Association (WCA) with Linares organiser Rentero. Alexei Shirov and Vladimir Kramnik played a candidates match to decide the challenger, which Shirov won in a surprising upset. The WCA collapsed, however, when Rentero admitted that the funds required and promised had never materialised.

This left Kasparov stranded, and yet another organisation stepped in — BrainGames.com, headed by Raymond Keene. No match against Shirov was arranged, and talks with Anand collapsed, so a match was instead arranged against Kramnik.

Losing the title

This match, Kasparov-Kramnik, took place in London during the latter half of 2000. Kramnik had been on Kasparov’s team for the 1995 Anand match, and no doubt learned much there. A well-prepared Kramnik surprised Kasparov and won a crucial game 2 against Kasparov’s Grünfeld Defence after the champion missed several drawing chances in an opposite-colour bishop ending. Kasparov made a critical error in game 10 with the Nimzo-Indian Defence, which Kramnik exploited to win in 25 moves. As white, Kasparov could not crack the passive but solid Berlin Defence in the Ruy Lopez, and Kramnik successfully drew all his games as black. Kramnik won the match 8.5-6.5, and for the first time in fifteen years Kasparov had no world championship title. He became the first player to lose a world championship match without winning a game since Lasker lost to Capablanca in 1921.

After losing the title, Kasparov strung together a number of major tournament victories, and remained the top rated player in the world, ahead of both Kramnik and the FIDE World Champions. In 2001 he refused an invitation at the 2002 Dortmund Candidates Tournament for the Classical title, claiming his results had earned him a rematch with Kramnik.[4]

Due to these strong results, and status as world #1 in much of the public eye, Kasparov was included in the so-called “Prague Agreement”, masterminded by Yasser Seirawan and intended to reunite the two World Championships. Kasparov was to play a match against the FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov in September 2003. However, this match was called off after Ponomariov refused to sign his contract for it without reservation. In its place, there were plans for a match against Rustam Kasimdzhanov, winner of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004, to be held in January 2005 in the United Arab Emirates. These also fell through due to lack of funding. Plans to hold the match in Turkey instead came too late. Kasparov announced in January 2005 that he was tired of waiting for FIDE to organise a match and that therefore he had decided to stop all efforts to regain the World Championship title.

Retirement

After winning the prestigious Linares tournament for the ninth time, Kasparov announced on March 10, 2005, that he would be retiring from serious competitive chess. He cited as the reason a lack of personal goals in the chess world (he commented when winning the Russian championship in 2004 that it had been the last major title he had never won outright) and expressed frustration at the failure to reunify the world championship.

After his retirement, Kasparov turned to politics and created United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to prevent Russia from returning to totalitarianism[citation needed].

Kasparov said he may play in some rapid events for fun, but intends to spend more time on his books (both the My Great Predecessors series (see below) and a book on the links between decision-making in chess and other areas of life), and will continue to involve himself in Russian politics, which he says is “headed down the wrong path.” He is an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin. [2]

On April 10, 2005, Kasparov was in Moscow at a promotional event when he was struck over the head with a chessboard he had just signed. The assailant was reported to have said “I admired you as a chess player, but you gave that up for politics,” immediately before the attack. [5] Kasparov was the subject of a number of other episodes since. [6][7]

On August 22, 2006, in his first public chess games since his retirement, Kasparov played in the Lichthof Chess Champions Tournament, a blitz event played at the time control of 5 minutes per side and 3 second increments per move. Kasparov finished tied for first with Karpov, scoring 4.5/6. [8]

Ratings achievements

Kasparov holds the record both for the highest rating ever, and the longest time as the #1 rated player.

Kasparov had the highest Elo rating in the world continuously from 1986 to 2005. The only exception is that Kramnik equalled him in the January 1996 FIDE ratings list.[9] (He was also briefly ejected from the list following his split from FIDE in 1993, but during that time he headed the rating list of the rival PCA). At the time of his retirement, he was still ranked #1 in the world, with a rating of 2812. His rating has fallen inactive since the January 2006 rating list. [10]

According to the alternative Chessmetrics calculations, Kasparov was the highest rated player in the world continuously from February 1985 until October 2004.[11] He also holds the highest alltime average rating over a 2 (2877) to 20 (2856) year period and is second to only Bobby Fischer’s (2881 vs 2879) over a one year period.

In January 1990 Kasparov achieved the (then) highest FIDE rating ever, passing 2800 and breaking Bobby Fischer’s old record of 2785 rating. He has held the record for the highest rating ever achieved, ever since. On the July 1999 FIDE rating list Kasparov reached a 2851 Elo rating, the highest rating ever achieved. [12]

Olympiads

Kasparov played in a total of eight Olympiads. He represented the Soviet Union four times, and Russia four times, following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. His debut was at La Valletta 1980 as second reserve, scoring 9.5/12, when he became the youngest player ever to play for the USSR in this event, a record which still stands. In 1982, he advanced to second board at Lucerne, scoring 8.5/11. He did not play in 1984, since the World Championship match was still running at the same time. In 1986, he played first board at Dubai, again scoring 8.5/11. In 1988, he was again first board at Thessaloniki, where he made 8.5/10. All four times, the Soviet Union won the team gold medals.

Then, in 1992, he played first board for Russia at Manila, scoring 8.5/10. In 1994 at Moscow, he scored 6.5/10 on first board. In 1996 at Yerevan, he scored 7/9 on first board. His final Olympiad was Bled 2002, where he scored 7.5/9 on first board. Likewise, Russia won the team gold medals all four times.

Other records held

Kasparov holds the record for most consecutive professional tournament victories, placing first or equal first in fifteen tournaments from 1981 to 1990.[13]

Kasparov won the Chess Oscar a record eleven times.

Books and other writings

Kasparov has written a number of books on chess. He published a somewhat controversial autobiography when still in his early 20s, titled Unlimited Challenge; this book was subsequently updated several times, after he became World Champion. Its content is mainly literary, with a small chess component of key unannotated games. He published an annotated Best Games collection in the 1980s: Garry Kasparov: Life, Games, Career, and this book has also been updated several times in further editions. He has annotated his own games extensively for the Yugoslav Chess Informant series and for other chess publications. In 1982, he co-authored Batsford Chess Openings with British Grandmaster Raymond Keene, and this book was an enormous seller. It was updated into a second edition in 1989. He co-authored a book, with Alexander Sakharov, on the Scheveningen Sicilian, Sicilian: …e6 and …d6 Systems in the 1980s for British publisher Batsford. Kasparov has also contributed extensively to the five-volume openings series Encyclopedia of Chess Openings.

In 2003, the first volume of his five-volume work Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors was published. This volume, which deals with the world chess champions Wilhelm Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, and some of their strong contemporaries, has received lavish praise from some reviewers (including Nigel Short), while attracting criticism from others for historical inaccuracies and analysis of games directly copied from unattributed sources. Through suggestions on the book’s website, most of these shortcomings were corrected in following editions and translations. Despite this, the first volume won the British Chess Federation’s Book of the Year award in 2003. Volume two, covering Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal appeared later in 2003. Volume three, covering Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky appeared in early 2004. In December 2004, Kasparov released volume four, which covers Samuel Reshevsky, Miguel Najdorf, and Bent Larsen (none of these three World Chess Champions), but focuses primarily on Bobby Fischer. The fifth volume, devoted to the chess careers of Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov, was published in March 2006. In that book, Kasparov stated that he plans to publish two more volumes in the series: a sixth, on “the openings revolution of the 1970s-1980s,” and a seventh, focused on his own career.

Chess against computers

Deep Thought, 1989

The chess computer Deep Thought was easily defeated in both games of a 2-game match with Kasparov in 1989.

Deep Blue, 1996

In February 1996, IBM’s chess computer Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in one game using normal time controls, in Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1. However, Kasparov infamously retorted that upon the next games he “would tear Deep Blue to pieces with no question” [14] and proceeded to gain three wins and two draws, soundly winning the match.

Deep Blue, 1997
IBM Deep Blue

In May 1997, an updated version of Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1997, Game 6, in a highly publicised six-game match. This was the first time a computer had ever defeated a world champion in match play. A documentary film was made about this famous match-up entitled Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine. IBM keeps a web site of the event.[15]

Kasparov claimed that several factors weighed against him in this match. In particular, he was denied access to Deep Blue’s recent games, in contrast to the computer’s team that could study hundreds of Kasparov’s.

After the loss, Kasparov said that he sometimes saw deep intelligence and creativity in the machine’s moves, suggesting that during the second game, human chess players, in contravention of the rules, intervened. IBM denied that it cheated, saying the only human intervention occurred between games. The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer’s play revealed during the course of the match. Kasparov requested printouts of the machine’s log files but IBM refused, although the company later published the logs on the Internet at http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/watch/html/c.shtml. Kasparov demanded a rematch, but IBM declined and retired Deep Blue.

X3D Fritz, 2003

In November 2003, he engaged in a four game match against chess playing computer program X3D Fritz (which was said to have an estimated rating of 2807), using a virtual board, 3D glasses and a speech recognition system. After two draws and one win apiece, the X3D Man-Machine match ended in a draw. Kasparov received $175,000 for the result and took home the golden trophy. Kasparov continued to criticize the blunder in the second game that cost him a crucial point. He felt that he had outplayed the machine overall and played well. “I only made one mistake but unfortunately that one mistake lost the game.”

Other

Kasparov has been credited with the invention of Advanced Chess in 1998, a new form of chess in which a human and a computer play together.
Kasparov has two European patent applications: EP1112765A4: METHOD FOR PLAYING A LOTTERY GAME AND SYSTEM FOR REALISING THE SAME from 1998, and EP0871132A1: METHOD OF PLAYING A LOTTERY GAME AND SUITABLE SYSTEM from 1995.
Kasparov is a supporter of Anatoly Fomenko’s New Chronology. [16]
Kasparov gets co-credit for game design of Kasparov Chessmate, a computer chess program.

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