INTRODUCING GARRY KASPAROV

Garry Kasparov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1963. In contrast to his future eternal rival Anatoly Karpov, former World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik said upon seeing Garry's analytical abilities as a child, "this boy is a genius...I will work with him individually." Personally trained by the patriarch of the Soviet School, the man who is credited for professionalizing chess study, being touted as a future World Champion before his teen years...all of this had meant enormous expectations of greatness for Kasparov. Enormous expectations...which he was ultimately able to meet!

Kasparov is one of those players whose rise to the top of the chess world featured a successful scaling of every peak placed in front of him, without any real setbacks until he became one of the very best players in the world. In this way, his career is reminiscent of that of all-time greats such as Paul Morphy, Akiba Rubinstein, Jose Capablanca, and Bobby Fischer. Kasparov became a master after winning the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk (now the capital of Belarus) in 1978. This convinced Kasparov that he should become a chess professional and, indeed, that he could become the World Champion! After a strong performance in the Banja Luka tournament of 1979, Garry Kasparov's provisional rating was an incomprehensible 2595! For a player to debut on the FIDE rating list as a supergrandmaster-level player is unprecedented. It simply showed how frighteningly strong Kasparov was as a teen.

It came as no surprise, then, that Kasparov won the 1980 World Junior Championship, becoming an International Grandmaster in the process, at the age of 17. With the slew of 13- and 14-year old Grandmasters being grown nowadays, it should be said that Kasparov was probably already a Top-10 player when he acheived the title—the youngsters of today usually take years to reach such a level after becoming a very young GM, if they ever do. Maybe the only other comparable examples are Fischer, who became a GM at 15 in 1958 (at that time he was certainly a Top-10 player as well, but it took him some years still to challenge for the World Championship), and Ruslan Ponomariov, who became a GM at 14 in 1998 and upset Vassily Ivanchuk to become FIDE World Champion in 2002.

The Chess World already knew who would be Anatoly Karpov's next challenger for the Crown—and Karpov knew it too. Viktor Korchnoi, who had fought Tolya in 1974, 1978, and 1981 appeared to be weakening very slightly. Kasparov fought his way through the next cycle—he defeated Alexander Beliavsky, Viktor Korchnoi, and the 63-year-old ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov in the Candidates' Final to face Karpov in the 1984 World Championship Match.

The match was stipulated to be won by the first player to win 6 games. Karpov jumped out to a commanding lead—4-0 after only 9 games! It looked as if the young gun from Baku had finally met his match and was about to be unceremoniously blown away. However, Kasparov decided to play to draw—he drew the next 17 games before losing again to find himself in an 0-5 hole. One more loss would mean the end of the match, and a shutout at that. More draws followed until Kasparov won for the first time in Game 32—Vladmir Kramnik has said that one cannot fully comprehend Karpov until he begins to play with him, and it may be that at this point Kasparov had adjusted to the Champion's exasperating style.

Up 5-1, Karpov just could not shut the door. More draws followed after Game 32 until Kasparov broke through and won games 47 and 48. It was at this point that the FIDE President Florencio Campomanes stopped the match because of Karpov's exhaustion. The final score was 5-3. Karpov retained his title, but a rematch was scheduled for the next year, in 1985. This match would be best-of-24, draws counting this time. Karpov would retain the title with a score of 12-12 or better, while Kasparov required at least 12.5 points to become the Champion.

With Karpov down 11-12 heading into the final Game 24, the Champ could not find enough to keep the title. Kasparov actually won the last game, to win the title by a final score of 13-11. At 22 years old, he became the youngest World Champion ever; Tal was laureled at the age of 23 in 1960.

13 points to become the 13th World Champion, for the man born on April 13th. Indeed, Kasparov has said that 13 is his lucky number!

Kasparov defended his title three times against Karpov—in 1986 (12.5-11.5), 1987 (12-12; Karpov blundered in Game 24 when a draw would have given him the title again!), and 1990 (12.5-11.5).

Kasparov's next challenger in the 1993 World Championship cycle was the Englishman Nigel Short, who knocked out Karpov in the Candidates Semi-Final en-route to the showdown. This is when the chess world split, a schism only repaired in October 2006 with the reunification of the titles, as Kasparov and Short wanted more money for their match, and broke away from FIDE to form the Professional Chess Association (PCA). Karpov became the FIDE Champion again, while Kasparov embarrassed Short 6-1 with 13 draws.

Kasparov then defended his PCA title against Indian superstar Viswanathan Anand in 1995. This match was held in a spectacular venue—107th floor of the World Trade Center in New York City. The match began on September 11. Kasparov won it 4-1 with 13 draws.

The PCA fell apart, and Kasparov tried to get funding for a new organization: the World Chess Council (WCC). He was to challenge the winner of the WCC Candidates Match held in Cazorla, Spain in 1998 between Vladimir Kramnik and Alexei Shirov. Shirov won 2-0 with 7 draws, but the match with Kasparov fell through. Shirov claims he was never paid for the match.

Kasparov's next World Championship Match would be his last: against Vladimir Kramnik in London in 2000, this time under the auspices of BrainGames Network (BGN). Although Shirov defeated Kramnik in 1998, Kramnik somehow got the chance to face Kasparov. Kramnik won 2-0 with 13 draws to end Kasparov's long title reign.

Kasparov dominated chess since his rise to the top until his retirement in 2005. He won more supertournaments than any other player and was continuously ranked #1 on the rating list. His highest-ever rating was a record 2851 in July 1999. The former Champion now focuses on Russian politics and sometimes provides commentary for newspapers and for chess tournaments. He is the author the highly-acclaimed, five-part series of books My Great Predecessors about past World Champions and other great players of the Champions' eras.

To see a biography of Garry Kasparov, click here.

To see Garry Kasparov's games on ChessGames.com, click here.