Meet the Legends: Anatoly Karpov

Russia is of a different breed when it comes to Chess. There have been many players from the Soviet Union and Russia who have made remarkable contributions to the game of Chess, and Anatoly Karpov is no exception. Considered as one of the greatest players ever to grace the game, Karpov learned the game at the age of four.

Karpov rose quickly and became a Candidate Master at the age of 11, and by age 12, he was part of Mikhail Botvinnik’s school. He improved immensely under Botvinnik’s mentorship and became the Soviet Master at the age of just 12. 

Karpov’s rise continued as he won the Niemeyer tournament in 1967 and in 1969, became the first player after Boris Spassky to win the World Junior Championship. With this victory, he won the title of International Master. In 1970, Karpov became a Grandmaster after he tied for fourth and fifth place at an international tournament in Venezuela. Karpov qualified to play against GM Bobby Fischer in 1975 after he tied for first place at the 1973 Leningrad Inter-zonal and then defeated Lev Polugaevsky, Boris Spassky, and Viktor Korchnoi. Unfortunately, the match did not happen as the demands made by Fischer were not met. 

Many players, including Garry Kasparov, believed that Karpov would have won the game against Bobby Fischer as the American was out of practice for three years. Karpov was determined to prove himself as a legitimate champion and participated in nearly every major tournament for the next ten years. He went on to win the Milan tournament quite convincingly in 1975 and won his first of three Soviet titles in 1976. 

Karpov held the record of the most consecutive tournament victories until Garry Kasparov broke it. He dominated the game for the next decade and, in the end, won a total of 160 tournaments in his lifetime. Anatoly defended his World Championship crown in 1978 against Viktor Korchnoi. The Russian had represented the Soviet Union in six Chess Olympiads, and the USSR won the Gold Medal in all of them.

Anatoly had cemented his place as one of the greatest players, and that is when his rivalry with Garry Kasparov started. In a World Championship match in 1984, Karpov took a 4-0 lead in the first nine games, and then the next 17 games were drawn. Karpov won his 5th game in game 27. Karpov had held a winning position until game 41, and then Kasparov won games 47 and 48. Citing Players’ health, the FIDE president terminated the game. The events of this game forced FIDE to return to their previous format, which was a maximum of 24 games will be played. In the rematch, Karpov had to win the final game to draw the game and retain his title, but it was not to be, and Garry Kasparov won. In their five World Championship matches, Karpov won 19 games, lost 21 games, and drew 104 matches.

Karpov perhaps played the best of his tournaments in the 1994 Linares Chess Tournament, and he started the tournament with an ELO rating of 2685. He remained undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13. This put his ELO rating at 2985, which is the highest performance rating for any player till 2009. Karpov defended his FIDE title in 1996, but after the format was changed by FIDE, he refused to defend the title in the next cycle. 

Post this, Karpov’s focus shifted to Politics. He was a member of the Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs, and he was also the president of the Soviet Peace Fund before the Soviet Union dissolved. He continued to participate in Chess, albeit in exhibition matches, and had a fallout with FIDE as well. 

In 2003, Karpov opened his first American Chess school in Kansas, which was named Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess. It was renamed to the International Chess Institute of the Midwest due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Karpov has also been a member of the sixth, seventh, and eighth Russian State Dumas, and since 2005, Karpov has been a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. 

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