KASPAROV & KARPOV, THE REMATCH: HOW THEY GOT BACK TOGETHER
Raymond Keene, Chess Correspondent
Times Online
September 21, 2009
Gary Kasparov and Anatoliy Karpov, playing the match which led to
Kasparov becoming the youngest World Champion, in 1985
It is the chess world’s equivalent of legendary old rockers from rival
bands picking up their Stratocasters and agreeing to tour together.
The two greatest exponents the game has ever seen are revisiting their
old battles to mark 25 years since their first mental combat began.
On September 10, 1984, Garry Kasparov sat down in Moscow to challenge
Anatoli Karpov for his chess crown. Karpov had seen off Bobby Fischer,
and had been champion for ten years, his tournament record was
unrivalled, he had twice beaten challenges from the Soviet defector
Viktor Korchnoi — and for this reason, if no other, he had become
the massively decorated golden boy of the Soviet chess authorities.
The contrast with the youthful Kasparov could hardly have been
more stark.
He was a Southerner, partly Armenian and partly Jewish, who had changed
his name to his maternal Kasparov from his father’s Weinstein at an
early age. The 21-year-old title aspirant was an open advocate of the
new theories of perestroika and glasnost which ultimately led to the
reform of Russia and the break-up of the Soviet Empire.
That first contest extended for a record-breaking 48 games over
five months.
It ended in huge controversy. After Kasparov made the 67th move with
his king on February 9, 1985, avoiding Karpov’s last-ditch stalemate
trap, Karpov not only resigned but also failed to appear for any
further games.
Scandalously the match was halted "without result" almost a week
later, on February 15, when Florencio Campomanes, the World Chess
Federation’s president, called it off. Karpov still led by two points
but Kasparov’s comeback, combined with Karpov’s evident physical
deterioration, had already made Kasparov the hot favourite.
It was widely suspected at the time that this was a KGB-inspired
manoeuvre, designed to keep the compliant Karpov firmly on his
throne. This was after all a game which was symbolic of, so some
believed, the brilliance and dominance of the Soviet mindset.
This notorious denouement rocked the game, but led to a further four
matches for the crown between the two, widely regarded as the most
hard-fought, profound and fascinating contests ever at this level —
the quality and closeness of the results even surpassing that of the
celebrated Spassky versus Fischer match of 1972.
Kasparov seized the title later in 1985, while a rematch in 1986 was
held partly in London and was opened by Margaret Thatcher. It was
the first time that a world championship between two Russians had
been held outside of their homeland.
This opening up of what was essentially the national game became a
metaphor for the rapid changes engulfing the Soviet Union.
By the time of their fifth match in New York in 1990, while Karpov
still competed under the hammer and sickle flag, Kasparov played
under the post-communist Russia banner. That was until both flags
were removed by the organisers as part of a diplomatic compromise.
The bitterness the long rivalry left, however, lasted well into the
21st century, and the notion that these two giants might return for
a nostalgic celebration of their first encounter had, until recently,
seemed wildly implausible. One factor, though, has changed all this —
Kasparov’s formal retirement from mainstream chess in 2005, and his
concerted and active opposition to the current regime of Vladimir
Putin in Russia.
Kasparov was jailed in 2007 for attending an "unauthorised" opposition
political rally, yet who should visit him in his Moscow prison,
but Karpov, showing a remarable solidarity with his ancient foe.
It must have been this thawing of relations between two of the greatest
and most evenly matched titans of chess which led to the celebration,
now under way in Valencia.
Without the human gesture shown by Karpov’s trip to the Moscow
penitentiary, I doubt that Kasparov would now be sitting down once
again to face his great rival in Spain.