Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born April 13, 1963 ) is a chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion. His 2851 Elo rating in the July 1999 FIDE rating list is the highest rating ever achieved.

On the January 2006 FIDE listing, Kasparov’s 2812 Elo rating ranked him first in the world (although he was removed in April of that year due to inactivity). Ranked first in the world a record 23 times between 1985 and 2006, Kasparov was the last undisputed World Chess Champion from 1985 until 1993; and continued to be “classical” World Chess Champion (of the PCA and WCA) until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. He won the Chess Oscar eleven times. Kasparov also has the unique distinction of beating eleven of his fellow world champions: Vassily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Khalifman, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Rustam Kasimdzhanov, and Veselin Topalov.

Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess on March 10, 2005, instead devoting time to politics.

Early career

Garry Kasparov was born as Garry Vajnshtejn (the given name analogous to English “Harry” and surname analogous to German “Weinstein” ) 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 7 years old, and as soon as was legally possible, at the age of 12, he adopted his mother’s surname, Kasparian. He, however, modified the name to a Russified version – Kasparov.

After leaving Tiffin School at the age of 8, Kasparov trained at Mikhail Botvinnik’s chess school. He 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 8.5/9.

In 1978 Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk. He had been invited as an exception but took the first place and became a 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.

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 while still unrated (the federation thought it was a junior tournament). He emerged from this top-class encounter 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.

Kasparov sought to challenge world champion Anatoly Karpov — a firm favourite of the Russian Chess Federation. But first Kasparov had to pass the test of the Candidates Tournament to qualify.

His first Candidates match was against Alexander Beliavsky, from which Kasparov emerged surprisingly 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 Russia in the late 1970s, and was at that time the strongest 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 Vassily 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). Smyslov was the seventh world champion in 1957, but later years saw his willingness to fight for wins greatly diminished. Kasparov won with 4 wins and 9 draws.

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 showed he had learned some valuable lessons in the previous match, and although the score was quite even down to the final wire, a few spectacular games involving the Sicilian defence secured the World Championship for Kasparov at the age of 22 by a score of 13-11. This broke the existing record of youngest winner held for over twenty years by Mikhail Tal, who was 23 when he beat 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. In any event, 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. The finish was dramatic, as Kasparov was down one point in the final game, needing a win to hold his title. He proved to be up to the task and won the final game, retaining 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 narrowly 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 GrandMaster’s 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 organisation created by Garry Kasparov called the Professional Chess Association (PCA). This is where the great fracture in the lineage of World Champions began.

Kasparov, “Chess Classics”, 1999 in Frankfurt am Main

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. FIDE organized a World Championship match between the loser of the Candidates final, Jan Timman, and previous World Champion Karpov, which Karpov won. (Nigel Short beat both of these players in the Candidates matches before facing Kasparov.) 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. The match had 3 clear phases: a cautious beginning with 8 draws, mostly short; a violent middle phase with a win by Anand being responded to by a crushing sequence of 4 wins in 5 games by Kasparov; and a quiet finish with 4 quick draws after the match was beyond doubt.

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 (who was also involved in bringing Kasparov to London for his replayed Candidates match against Korchnoi, half of the first Kasparov-Karpov match, and the Kasparov-Short PCA match). No match against Shirov was arranged, and talks with Anand collapsed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Notable chess games

• Garry Kasparov vs Veselin Topalov, Wijk aan Zee 1999, Pirc Defense: General (B06) 1-0 When announcing his retirement, Kasparov commented that the game against Topalov, played at the Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee, was possibly the best of all his games. It is of some interest that his final professional game was a loss to the same Topalov he had defeated in this game.
• Anatoli Karpov vs Garry Kasparov, 16th game of the World Championship match, 1985, Sicilian (B44), 0-1 Before Kasparov played the above game, he considered this 1983 game his “supreme creative achievement.” The readers of Chess Informant voted it the best game in the first 64 issues of that periodical.
• Anatoli Karpov vs Garry Kasparov, 10th round, Linares 1993, King’s Indian, Samisch, Orthodox, 7.Nge2 c6 (E86), 0-1 Another crushing win by Kasparov, as Black, against his “eternal rival” Karpov.