In the 1980s, Garry Kasparov was taking the world by storm which reminds me of a time in the 1920s when Jose Raul Capablanca of Cuba was beating everyone in chess. The New York Times reported that Capablanca went eight years without losing a game. In 1982, Kasparov won the rigorous Moscow Interzonal and went on to defeat Viktor Korchnoi, Alexander Belyavsky and Vasily Smyslov in the Candidates matches. At just 23 years of age, Kasparov became Anatoly Karpov’s new World Championship challenger. Up to that point Kasparov had demonstrated he was a brilliant chess technician and he was ready for Karpov. But was he? When the World Championship match began, Kasparov had one win to Karpov’s four, with draws in-between. The first player to reach six wins, would be the winner of the match.
As an aside, this idea of scoring a certain number of wins to be called the World Chess Champion, was Bobby Fischer’s conception. When Karpov became Fischer’s challenger in 1975, Fischer refused to play under the then system of 24 games. He insisted that the winner should be the one to score ten wins and the champion would retain his title if the score reached nine wins each. Neither Karpov nor FIDE were agreeable to the full extent of these terms and the match was called off. Karpov became the FIDE World Champion by default. Yet Fischer’s ideas were partially adopted up to the 1984 match. The World Championship was decided by the first player to create six wins and not a fixed 24 games.
Karpov’s match with Kasparov was described as a bitter rivalry. Just as Karpov’s supremacy seemed to be evident, a new and more dangerous challenger was rising through the ranks. Kasparov had arrived! The two met in 1984 in Moscow. Karpov increased his lead from four victories to five, and Kasparov from one to three after a gruelling five months and 48 games. Amidst rumours that Karpov was physically and mentally exhausted, the 1984 match was halted. A rematch was scheduled to start within six months with Karpov having the right to a return match should he lose the title. Karpov vs Kasparov 2 was played in Moscow and was wisely scheduled for a maximum of 24 games. This time, Kasparov won and became the 13th World Chess Champion. However, he did not have much time to savour the victory as Karpov had the right to a return match the following year.
In 1986, Kasparov and Karpov played their third encounter in London. Kasparov retained his title by a very narrow margin: 12.5 to 11.5 points. This London match ended Karpov’s automatic right for a return. If he wanted to earn the right to play another match against Kasparov, he would be forced to return to the Candidates cycle and begin from scratch once more. This he did in convincing fashion and Kasparov vs Karpov 4 took place in Seville, Spain, in 1987. This match turned out to be a very close call for Kasparov. Karpov was leading 12-11 in the 24-game match and needed only a draw to win back his title. However, Kasparov rose superbly to the occasion, grinding his opponent down in a long endgame and retained his title with a 12-12 draw.
The two adversaries met for the fifth and final time in 1990 when Karpov won the Candidates once again. This time, the match had an unusual format in that it boasted two venues: New York and Lyons. Kasparov was more convincing this time around and was certain of retaining his title two games before the end by reaching 12 points after the 22nd game. Karpov won game 23, but a draw in the last game gave Kasparov an overall match victory of 12.5 to 11.5 points. Karpov looked like the favourite to win the next Candidates, but he was surprisingly eliminated by Nigel Short.
