Isn't that the truth!!!
Happy Birthday Garry!!!
The Birthday of a Legend
Submitted by ChessMarkstheSpot on Mon, 04/11/2011 at 9:34am.
Garry Kasparov was born Garry Weinstein in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, Soviet Union; now Azerbaijan, to an Armenian mother and Jewish father on April 13, 1963. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution. His father died of leukemia when he was seven years old. At the age of twelve, he adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Gasparyan, modifying it to a more Russian version, Kasparov.
He first qualified for the Soviet Chess 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, he participated in a Grandmaster tournament in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then part of Yugoslavia), in 1979 while still unrated. (He was a replacement for Viktor Korchnoi whom was originally invited but withdrew due to threat of boycott from the Soviet.) He won this high-class tournament, emerging with a provisional rating of 2595, enough to catapult him to the top group of chess players (at the time, number 15 in the World). 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 Soviet Union at the Chess Olympiad at La Valletta, Malta, and became a Grandmaster.
As a teenager, Kasparov twice tied for first place in the USSR Chess Championship, in 1980–81 and 1981–82. At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate since Bobby Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958. At this stage, he was already the #2-rated player in the world, trailing only World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov on the January 1983 list. In January 1984, Kasparov became the number-one ranked player in the world, with a FIDE rating of 2710. He became the youngest ever world number-one, a record that lasted 12 years until being broken by Vladimir Kramnik in January 1996; the record is currently held by his former pupil, Magnus Carlsen.
Later in 1984, he won the Candidates' final 8½–4½ (four wins, no losses) against the resurgent former world champion Vasily Smyslov, thus qualifying to play Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship.
The World Chess Championship 1984 match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov had many ups and downs, and a very controversial finish. Karpov started in very good form, and after nine games Kasparov was down 4–0 in a "first to six wins" match. Fellow players predicted he would be whitewashed 6–0 within 18 games.
In a strange period, there followed a series of 17 successive draws, some relatively short, and others drawn in unsettled positions. He lost game 27, then fought back with another series of draws until game 32, his first-ever win against the World Champion. Another 15 successive draws followed, through game 46; the previous record length for a world title match had been 34 games, the match of Jose Raul Capablanca vs. Alexander Alekhine in 1927.
Kasparov won games 47 and 48 to bring the scores to 5–3 in Karpov's favor. Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), and a new match was announced to start a few months later. The termination was controversial, as both players stated that they preferred the match to continue. Announcing his decision at a press conference, Campomanes cited the health of the players, which had been strained by the length of the match.
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 them eventually came to a head in 1993 with Kasparov's complete break-away from FIDE to form the Professional Chess Association (PCA).
Kasparov and Short were ejected from FIDE, and played their well-sponsored match in London. Kasparov won convincingly by a score of 12½–7½. The match considerably raised the profile of chess in the UK, with an unprecedented level of coverage on Channel 4. Meanwhile, FIDE organized a World Championship match between Jan Timman (the defeated Candidates finalist) and former World Champion Karpov (a defeated Candidates semifinalist), which Karpov won.
There were now two World Champions: PCA champion Kasparov, and FIDE champion Karpov. The title would remain split for 13 years. In 2007, Kasparov would call the break from FIDE the worst move of his career.
Kasparov defended his title in a 1995 match against Viswanathan Anand at the World Trade Center in New York City. Kasparov won the match by four wins to one, with thirteen draws. It was the last World Championship to be held under the auspices of the PCA, which collapsed when Intel, one of its major backers, withdrew its sponsorship in retaliation for Kasparov's choice to play a 1996 match against Deep Blue, which augmented the profile of IBM, one of Intel's chief rivals.
The Kasparov-Kramnik match took place in London during the latter half of 2000. Kramnik had been a student of Kasparov's at the legendary Botvinnik/Kasparov chess school in Russia, and had served on Kasparov's team for the 1995 match against Viswanathan Anand. The better-prepared Kramnik won Game 2 against Kasparov's Grünfeld Defence and achieved winning positions in Games 4 and 6. 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 8½–6½, and for the first time in 15 years Kasparov had no world championship title. He became the first player to lose a world championship match without winning a game since Emanuel Lasker lost to Capablanca in 1921.
After losing the title, Kasparov won a series of major tournaments, and remained the top rated player in the world, ahead of both Kramnik and the FIDE World Champions. In 2001 he refused an invitation to the 2002 Dortmund Candidates Tournament for the Classical title, claiming his results had earned him a rematch with Kramnik.
Kasparov and Karpov played a four game match with rapid time controls over two days in December 2002 in New York City. Karpov surprised the experts and emerged victoriously, winning two games and drawing one.
After winning the prestigious Linares tournament for the ninth time, Kasparov announced on 10 March 2005, that he would retire 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.
* Kasparov holds the record for the longest time as the #1 rated player.
* Kasparov had the highest Elo rating in the world continuously from 1986 to 2005. However, Vladimir Kramnik did equal him in the January 1996 FIDE ratings list. 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.
* In January 1990 Kasparov achieved the (then) highest FIDE rating ever, passing 2800 and breaking Bobby Fischer’s old record of 2785. He has held the record for the highest rating ever achieved, ever since (as of 2010). On the July 1999 and January 2000 FIDE rating lists Kasparov reached a 2851 Elo rating, the highest rating ever achieved.
Kasparov has also written numerous books, including the widely acclaimed My Great Predecessors series. The five-volume set covers the history of World Chess Champions from Steinitz and Capablanca to Anatoly Karpov, Boris Spassky and Bent Larsen. His book Revolution in the 70s (published in March 2007) covers "the openings revolution of the 1970s–1980s" and is the first book in a new series called "Modern Chess Series", which intends to cover his matches with Karpov and selected games. The book "Revolution in the 70s" concerns the revolution in opening theory that was witnessed in that decade including some systems such as the controversial “Hedgehog”, a plan of passively developing the pieces no further than the first three ranks. Kasparov also analyzes some of the most notable games played in that period. In a section at the end of the book, top opening theoreticians provide their own "take" on the progress made in opening theory in the 1980s.
Kasparov has also had some widely published and covered computer matches such as Deep Blue, an IBM super-computer in 1996 and 1997, winning in ’96 with a score of +3/=2/-1 and losing in ’97 with the record of 3½-2½. Kaspy demanded a rematch but IBM declined and retired Deep Blue, which made Kasparov suspicious of computer tampering.
In January 2003, he engaged in a six game classical time control match with a $1 million prize fund which was billed as the FIDE "Man vs. Machine" World Championship, against Deep Junior.The engine evaluated three million positions per second. After one win each and three draws, it was all up to the final game. After reaching a decent position Kasparov offered a draw, which was soon accepted by the Deep Junior team. Asked why he offered the draw, Kasparov said he feared making a blunder.Originally planned as an annual event, the match was not repeated.
Kasparov has not talke...
Anand steps into fatherhood
11 Apr '11 07:55
Back to Top