(April 2003) Garry Kimovich Kasparov was born 13 April 1963 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Kim Moiseyevich Weinstein, his father, was a teacher and Klara Shagenovna Kasparova, his mother of Armenian ancestry, was an engineer. He learned chess at age 5 from his father, who died a few years later; the boy then changed his name from Weinstein to Kasparov.
Kasparov's enormous talent was recognized early. At age 10 he gained the norm for Candidate Master and was accepted into Mikhail Botvinnik's famous chess school. He was the Soviet Under-18 Champion in 1976, the Soviet Junior Champion in 1977, and World Junior Champion in 1980.
His first FIDE rating was 2545 in July 1979. He qualified for the International Grandmaster (GM) title by earning the second norm in 1980 at a category 10 tournament held in his home town of Baku. He became joint Soviet Champion with Lev Psakhis in 1981.
Kasparov's Road to the World Championship
Garry Kasparov's assault on the World Championship title started with his win of the 1982 Moscow Interzonal Tournament, 1.5 points ahead of Alexander Beliavsky. The following year he beat Beliavsky (+4-1=4) in the Candidates quarterfinal match, Moscow. By winning the semifinal match against two-time title challenger Viktor Korchnoi (+4-1=6) in London, and the final against ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov (+4-0=9) in Vilnius, he qualified for a title match against World Champion Anatoly Karpov.
The match, to be won by the first player to score 6 wins, began in September 1984. It started badly for Kasparov, who lost 4 of the first 10 games. He began to make short draws, hoping that Karpov would weaken in a long match.
His unconventional match strategy worked. After 48 games, with the score 5-3 in Karpov's favor FIDE President Campomanes abruptly terminated the match with the statement, 'I declare that the match is ended without decision. There will be a new match which will start from scratch - the score at 0-0 - on 1 September 1985.'
The decision made a deep impression on Kasparov, who had won the 47th and 48th games and who felt that his chances of winning had become as good as Karpov's. Why had the match been stopped at that time rather than earlier when he had almost no hope of winning?
Garry Kasparov - 13th World Champion
The second match, a fixed length 24 games to be won by the first player to reach 12.5 points, was more successful for Kasparov. Needing only a draw in the last game, he won convincingly with the Black pieces and became the 13th World Chess Champion, at that time the youngest in history, on 9 November 1985.
Since Karpov had received the right to a return match, a third 24-game match was played in 1986. Kasparov won 12.5-11.5, rebounding from three consecutive losses at one point.
Karpov emerged as challenger from a modified Candidates series, and the two antagonists played a fourth title match at Seville in 1987. Trailing 12.0-11.0 before the last game, Kasparov won a close endgame to retain the title for a full three years.
The fifth and last Kasparov - Karpov match was played in 1990, after Karpov beat the Dutchman Jan Timman in the final Candidates match. The 12 games in New York saw one win each, but Kasparov dominated the 12-game second half in Lyon, France, and won 12.5-11.5.
