Garry Kasparov

I

Introduction

Garry Kasparov, born in 1963, professional chess player and longtime world champion. In 1985, at the age of 22, he became the youngest world chess champion in history.

II

Youth

Garry Kimovich Kasparov was born Garri Weinstein in Baku, Azerbaijan, which was then part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). As a young boy he learned chess from his father, who died when Garri was seven years old. He subsequently adopted his mother's maiden name, and his first name is now commonly spelled “Garry.”

At the age of 12 Kasparov won the Azerbaijan championship and the USSR junior championship, and at age 16 he won the world junior championship. In 1980, at 17, Kasparov achieved the rank of International Grandmaster.

III

World Champion

In 1984 Kasparov earned the right to challenge the world champion, Russian Anatoly Karpov, in a match held by Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE, also known as the World Chess Federation). After the contest had lasted six months without a deciding result, it was suspended by FIDE president Florencio Campomanes of the Philippines. In 1985 Kasparov won a rematch against Karpov and became world champion. He defended his title by beating Karpov in 1986, then tied a match with him in 1987 (FIDE rules permit a champion to keep the title if the match ends in a tie). Kasparov beat Karpov again in 1990 and retained his championship.

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When Karpov failed to qualify to challenge Kasparov in 1993, Kasparov and British challenger Nigel Short broke away from FIDE and held a championship match under the governance of the Professional Chess Association (PCA). Spurned by Kasparov, FIDE sanctioned its own championship between Karpov and Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman. Kasparov and Karpov won their respective matches and both claimed the title of world champion. In 1995 Kasparov retained his PCA title by defeating Indian challenger Viswanathan Anand, though the association fell apart soon afterward.

IV

Man Versus Machine

In 1996 Kasparov competed against an International Business Machines (IBM) computer named Deep Blue, the first time a world champion had competed against a computer under standard match conditions. Deep Blue, operated by a team of IBM programmers, was capable of processing millions of chess positions per second. Applying this massive computational power, a technique of artificial intelligence known as brute force, Deep Blue won the first game of the match to become the first computer to defeat a world champion under regulation time controls. Kasparov subsequently defeated Deep Blue by a score of four games to two to win the match.

A year later Kasparov accepted a rematch against an enhanced version of Deep Blue, a computer capable of processing 200 million chess positions per second. Although Kasparov won the first game, he was defeated in the six-game series 3.5 games to 2.5 games. It was the first time an international grandmaster had lost a series to a computer. In 1999 Kasparov participated in an online contest, “Kasparov Vs. The World,” in which millions of Internet users (including expert chess analysts) submitted possible moves and voted on which to use. Kasparov won the match after four months of play.

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