Kasparov, Garry
The basis of Kasparov's exceptional position in chess was extraordinary talent combined with hard work, enormous will-power and a boundless memory. He himself once characterised his style as "a combination of Alekhine, Tal and Fischer". Equipped with wide and extremely deeply thought-out opening repertoire, extraordinary intuition and just as extraordinary a gift for combinations the young Kasparov strode from victory to victory and qualified in 1984 as the challenger for the final of the WCh against Anatoly Karpov. The match was abandoned after 48 games, and Kasparov won the re-run of the match (now limited to 24 games) by 13:11. He defended his title in three further very close matches against Karpov, twice by 12.5:11.5 (1986 and 1990), once 12:12 (1987). In 1992 the charismatic champion quit the world chess federation FIDE, founded his own federation, the Professional Chess Association (PCA), and twice defended his title in majestic fashion (in 1993 against Nigel Short and in 1995 against Viswanathan Anand). After the dissolution of the PCA the next WCh match did not take place till 2000 under the aegis of an organistaion called Braingames. Surprisingly Kasparov, who totally dominated tournament chess during these years, lost to Vladimir Kramnik. In the years which followed Kasparov made efforts to obtain a return match or a new match against his compatriot, but without success. This circumstance, amongst others, led to the retiral of Kasparov from active competitive chess in 2005.
Kasparov won most of the competitions in which he took part. The number of tournaments in which he did not achieve at least second place is tiny. With his series of victories in 1999 he built up a lead of 80 points in the Elo list; the rating of 2851 which he achieved has so far never been equalled, despite Elo inflation. Kasparov also set the standard as an author of chess books, with the greatest attention being earned by his series on the world chess champions "My Great Predecessors".
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