Where does Garry Kasparov live? Kasparov hid a family secret for many years

Garry Kasparov is the “Great and Terrible” chess player, who is called the greatest player in the chess world. Eight-time winner of the Chess Olympiads, 13th world chess champion, 11-time chess Oscar winner. In 2005, he left professional sports for politics and led the opposition coalition “The Other Russia,” whose goal was to restore democracy in the country. Today, the great chess player is an outspoken oppositionist, accusing the Russian authorities of illegality and participation in the armed conflict in Donbass.

Childhood and youth

Garry Kimovich Kasparov was born on April 13, 1963 in the capital of Azerbaijan into a family of intellectuals. The nationality of the chess player has repeatedly caused controversy in Soviet society and sports circles. It is known that Kasparov is of Jewish origin on his father’s side and Armenian on his mother’s side. Kim Moiseevich and Klara Shagenovna, the grandmaster's parents, were considered the elite of Baku society.

The parents of the future chess king worked as engineers and were also seriously interested in playing chess. Therefore, the chess genius’s passion for this sport began from birth - already at the age of five, young Harry began to learn the game from a professional coach.

Everything in childhood free time the future world champion dedicated himself to chess, which became the meaning of life for him, because from a young age Kasparov was not interested in toys or the street, he was only interested in chess, books and newspapers. At the age of 12, the young prodigy became the USSR champion in chess among youths, and at 17 he received the title of master of sports. At the same time, the young world champion graduated from school with a gold medal and entered the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, where the “medalist” was enrolled after a single exam, which the young man passed with a solid “A”.

In 1980, the already star chess player won the title of chess king of the world and grandmaster, which became the starting point in the great career of a chess player. His professional coach was his own mother, who, after the death of her husband in 1970, devoted her life to her only son and his career. Klara Shagenovna (according to Aida’s passport) traveled with Harry to different countries of the world and solved the chess player’s everyday problems, becoming his main adviser and assistant. Then the woman decided to change not only her son’s nationality, but also her surname - from then on, the Jewish chess player Weinstein became the Armenian Kasparov.

Chess career

Garry Kasparov's professional sports career is full of victories and awards. For 13 years, the greatest chess player was the constant leader of the prestigious Elo rating with 2800 points, and thanks to numerous victories at world chess championships, he took his place in the ranking the best professionals.

In 1990, after the start of massacres against Armenians, Garry Kasparov had to leave Baku and move to Moscow. In 1993, he decided to leave FIDE and create the “Professional Chess Association”. Since then, the world has seen a division of the world chess champion title, but this did not prevent the “Great and Terrible” from strengthening his position on the throne of chess Olympus.

In 1996, the world chess champion created the virtual chess “Kasparov Club,” which became popular on the Internet, and in 1999, Garry Kasparov won a match against all users of the World Wide Web, organized by Microsoft. Then the tense and exciting game of the chess king with amateur chess players, which lasted four months, was watched by more than 3 million people. This is the best viewership figure in the history of virtual chess sports.

In 2005, Garry Kasparov announced that he was leaving professional sports for politics, as he had achieved everything he wanted in chess. Then the grandmaster noted that in Russian politics there are many colonels and generals, but little intelligence, so he decided, with the help of his ability for strategic thinking, to help his homeland and make a valuable contribution to the development of Russia. Despite this, a brilliant athlete in the chess world is perceived as a person with imagination, original ideas and subtle calculation, and is also called a professional who surprised fans with effective play and unique solutions.

Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue

In 1996, the American corporation IBM invited Garry Kasparov to play against the chess supercomputer Deep Blue. The developers assured that the program is capable of evaluating up to 200 million positions per second, promptly making the right moves.

The Russian representative won the first meeting with a score of 4:2, but lost in the first game. Kasparov's defeat in the match against Deep Blue is the first time a computer has won a game against a human.

In 1997, the second batch of the meeting took place. The game was extremely interesting, because in one situation the chess player found himself in a difficult situation, sacrificed a pawn, and Deep Blue thought about the 37th move, spending a full 15 minutes on “thinking”, although he had previously stopped in action for only three minutes. Nevertheless, after move 45, the Russian chess player gave up.

Kasparov did not accept defeat, demanding to see the game log file, but IBM refused to show it Required documents. According to the grandmaster, in several cases there was human intervention, and the computer was helped from outside, since the program played intermittently, sometimes choosing moves that were uncharacteristic of a technological device.

World champion

In 1985, Kasparov became the 13th world champion in the history of chess, defeating. The fight, which took place in Moscow, would later be called an example of an enchanting game.

Kasparov managed to win the first game by using White's little-used continuation in the Nimzowitsch Defense. In turn, Karpov took the lead, taking over his opponent in games 4 and 5, but the next 5 ended in a draw. Game 16 turned out to be a turning point, in which Kasparov used the gambit variation and won a spectacular victory.

Garry Kasparov managed to become the youngest world champion at 22 years, 6 months and 27 days. In 2013, the world championship was won by a chess player from Norway, who was also under 23 years old, but the Scandinavian was several months older than the Russian.

Garry Kasparov vs Anatoly Karpov

Since 1994, Garry Kasparov had a serious rivalry with chess player Anatoly Karpov, who became his main competitor on the world chess arena. “The Two Ks,” as the rivalry between Karpov and Kasparov was called in the chess world, over 6 years they played 5 world championship matches, playing 144 games, during which the chess king managed to beat his opponent and prove his superiority. These games remain in the memory of fans today.

The beginning of the era of the great chess confrontation is said to be September 1984, when in Moscow the world chess championship match between Anatoly Karpov, the then world champion, and Garry Kasparov, the winner of the candidates competition. This match became the longest in the history of world championships, because the meeting lasted 48 games. Karpov was recognized as the unofficial winner of the meeting.

1985 was a successful year for Kasparov. The fight in the capital of the Soviet Union ended in victory for Garry Kimovich.

After this, the Soviet chess players officially met three more times. The rematch, which took place in 1986 in London and Leningrad, again turned out to be triumphant for Kasparov.

In 1987, the masters held another game in Seville. The confrontation was tense, because Karpov won the meeting by one point. Nevertheless, Kasparov made every effort to equalize the score. This allowed him to retain his world title.

In 1990, Kasparov continued his victorious march. The matches in New York and Lyon ended in victory for the chess player with a score of 12.5:11.5.

After a series of championship confrontations, chess players played each other more than once, but not in championship matches, but in official and unofficial tournaments.

Policy

After leaving professional sports, the great chess player created and led the opposition movement “United Civil Front”, whose work was aimed at opposing the current Russian authorities. This is how Kasparov’s political biography began. Then he and his associates loudly opposed the policies of the President of the Russian Federation and organized numerous “Dissent Marches,” for which he was repeatedly detained by the police.

In 2008, Kasparov created the opposition democratic movement “Solidarity” and began working to organize protest rallies for Putin’s resignation. But since the chess player’s ideas did not receive support and coverage in the media, he failed to become a member of the Opposition Coordination Council - in the elections, Kasparov was beaten by large quantity votes.

In 2013, Garry Kasparov stated that he did not intend to return to Russia, continuing to fight “Kremlin crimes” at the international level. In March 2014, Kasparov’s website, which openly published calls for illegal work and mass events, was blocked by Roskomnadzor.

After the events in Ukraine, Garry Kasparov began to openly support the new Kyiv government and accuse Russia of illegal annexation of Crimea and participation in the armed conflict in Donbass. At the same time, the great chess player calls on the West to increase pressure on President Putin, and considers sanctions against the Russian Federation adequate and rational. In December 2014, the opposition politician visited Kyiv and gave a simultaneous game to volunteers and the Ukrainian military in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2015, Kasparov published the book “Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped,” in which the politician presented his vision of the problems of modern Russia, the country’s place on the geopolitical map of the world, and also criticized the actions of Russian leader. In the new edition, the oppositionist also specifically dismissed the role of President of the United States from 1981 to 1989, positively assessing the American’s merits in defeating the “Evil Empire.”

Personal life

Garry Kasparov's personal life is no less eventful than his sports career and social and political activities. The chess king was married three times.

Kasparov’s first wife in 1989 was Intourist guide-translator Maria Arapova, who, like the mother of the world chess champion, devoted her entire life to her husband. In 1992, a daughter, Polina, was born into the Kasparov family, but soon the family union cracked, and the couple had to divorce on the initiative of Garry Kimovich. The divorce proceedings with Kasparov’s first wife lasted a year and a half. Now Maria and Polina live in America.

The chess player married 18-year-old student Yulia Vovk for the second time. In 1996, Kasparov’s second wife gave birth to his son, Vadim. After 9 years, the second marriage of the world chess champion also broke up.

Immediately after the divorce, the chess king again plunged into love relationship. This time, Garry Kimovich's chosen one was socialite Daria Tarasova, who is 20 years younger than Kasparov. In 2005, Harry Kimovich married Daria, who gave him a daughter, Aida, who was named after the chess player’s mother. In July 2015, the Kasparov family was replenished with an heir - Daria gave birth to her husband’s son Nikolai.

In addition to official relations, Garry Kasparov also had close relationships with a theater and film actress, who gave birth to the chess player’s daughter Nika. But at the request of her mother, the chess king refused to recognize her, despite the fact that the girl resembles her father like “two peas in a pod.” Today the artist and her daughter are in California.

Now

In 2017, the ex-world chess champion continues to actively participate in political processes. Interesting publications and thoughts of Kasparov can be found in the microblogging service

Garry Kimovich Kasparov (birth name Weinstein). Born on April 13, 1963 in Baku. Soviet and Russian chess player, 13th world chess champion, chess writer and politician.

International grandmaster (1980), Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1985), USSR champion (1981, 1988), Russian champion (2004). Eight-time winner of the World Chess Olympiads: four times as a member of the USSR team (1980, 1982, 1986, 1988) and four times as a member of the Russian team (1992, 1994, 1996, 2002). Winner of eleven chess Oscars (prizes for the best chess player of the year). Kasparov single-handedly led the FIDE rankings from 1985 to 2006 with two short breaks: in 1994 he was excluded from the ranking by a FIDE decision made in 1993, and in January 1996 Kasparov had the same rating as Vladimir Kramnik. In 1999, Garry Kasparov achieved a record rating of 2851 points, which stood for 13.5 years until it was broken by Magnus Carlsen.

Kasparov became world champion in 1985, winning. The confrontation between the “two Ks” lasted from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, during which time Karpov and Kasparov played five matches for the world title. In 1993, Kasparov and new challenger Nigel Short left FIDE and held a match under the auspices of new organization- PSA. FIDE deprived Kasparov of the title, and until 2006 there were two world champions - according to the FIDE version and according to the “classical” version. In 2000, Kasparov lost the world championship match to Vladimir Kramnik.

In 2005, he announced that he was ending his chess career in order to devote himself to political activities. He participated in a number of opposition movements: he was the chairman of the United Civil Front, one of the co-chairs of the All-Russian Civil Congress, and a deputy of the National Assembly of the Russian Federation. In 2008, he became one of the founders and a member of the Federal Bureau of the United Democratic Movement "Solidarity", but in 2013 he resigned from its governing bodies. In October 2012, he was elected to the Coordination Council of the Russian Opposition. In June 2013, he announced his departure from Russia and the continuation of the fight against the “Putin regime” in the international arena. Since 2011, he has headed the International Council of the Foundation for the Defense of Human Rights in New York.

In 2014, he participated in the FIDE presidential elections, losing to the current president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.

Garry Kasparov was born in Baku on April 13, 1963, his father Kim Moiseevich Weinstein was an energy engineer by profession, his mother Klara (Aida) Shagenovna Kasparova was an engineer, a specialist in automation and telemechanics. Kasparov is of Jewish origin on his father's side and Armenian on his mother's side.

Harry's grandfather, Moses Rubinovich Weinstein (1906-1963), was a famous Baku composer and conductor, head of the musical department of several drama theaters in the city. The whole family on my father’s side was musical: younger brother father Leonid Moiseevich Weinstein is also a composer, Honored Artist of Azerbaijan, grandmother is a music teacher in high school. Cousin Timur Weinstein is a television producer.

Kasparov's parents were fond of chess and solved chess problems published in the newspaper. Harry often watched them and once suggested a solution; he was five years old. After this, Harry's father taught him the game. Harry began regular chess lessons at the Baku Palace of Pioneers at the age of seven; his first coach was master Oleg Isaakovich Privorotsky. At the same age, he lost his father, who died of lymphosarcoma. After the death of her husband, Klara Shagenovna devoted herself entirely to her son’s chess career.

In 1975, when Harry was 12 years old, Clara Kasparova changed his last name from his father's Weinstein to Kasparov. This was done with the consent of relatives to facilitate the further chess career of the young, but already promising chess player, which, as she believed, could be hindered by the anti-Semitism that existed in the USSR.

In 1977, Garry Kasparov joined the Komsomol.

At the age of ten, at youth competitions in Vilnius, Harry met master Alexander Nikitin, who became his coach for a long time. Until 1976, Nikitin periodically gave consultations and written assignments, then they began to work constantly as a team. On his recommendation, in August 1973, Harry came to try out the former world champion’s chess school and was accepted there. Botvinnik ensured that the young chess player studied according to an individual plan, and later received a scholarship.

In 1974 in Moscow at the Palace of Pioneers tournament (it was a team tournament in which the children's team of each Palace was led by a grandmaster who gave a simultaneous game to other teams), Harry defeated grandmaster Yuri Averbakh. At the beginning of the next year, Harry took part in the national youth championship, playing against opponents 6-7 years older than him. In Leningrad, at the new Palace of Pioneers tournament, in a session against world champion Anatoly Karpov, he achieved an equal position, but made a mistake and lost. In the same tournament, in a session against Viktor Korchnoi, he forced the grandmaster to a draw.

In early 1976, at the age of twelve, Garry Kasparov won the USSR Youth Chess Championship, most of the participants in which were several years older. After this, since Nikitin lived in Moscow, Baku master Alexander Shakarov became Kasparov’s permanent coach. In the same year, at the insistence of the sports committee, Kasparov went to the world championship among cadets (boys under 18 years old), although his coaches objected to this, and shared third place. At the beginning of 1977, Kasparov again won the national youth championship, this time with a score of 8½ out of 9. At the World Cadet Championship, where the age limit had already been lowered to 17 years, Kasparov took third place. Three rounds before the end, he shared first place with future winner Jón Arnason, but due to fatigue, the remaining games were drawn.

In January 1978, Kasparov won the Sokolsky Memorial in Minsk and received the title of Master of Sports in chess. He fulfilled the master's norm five more rounds before the end, and in the last round he won against Anatoly Lutikov - this was Kasparov's first tournament meeting with a grandmaster. At the age of fifteen, Kasparov became Botvinnik's assistant. In July, he took first place in the qualifying tournament in Daugavpils and received the right to make his debut in the final of the USSR Championship. The final took place at the end of the year, Kasparov scored 50% in 17 games, which allowed next year do not qualify.

In April 1979, Kasparov took part in a tournament in Banja Luka (Yugoslavia). The sixteen-year-old master, who had no rating, was allowed into the tournament, fourteen of the sixteen participants in which were grandmasters, at the insistence of Botvinnik. As a result, Kasparov sensationally took first place, without losing a single game and securing an overall victory two rounds before the end. Smeikal and Andersson are 2 points behind, Petrosyan is 2½ points behind. In Banja Luka, Kasparov received his first grandmaster point. For the first time receiving an international rating, Kasparov immediately took fifteenth place on the rating list.

After returning to Baku, Kasparov was received by the influential politician Heydar Aliyev, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. From this time on, Aliyev began to patronize Kasparov. At the end of the year at the 47th USSR Championship, Kasparov started with three victories. A decline followed (six draws and three losses with one victory), but a strong finish allowed him to share 3rd-4th places with 10 points out of 17. Veteran Efim Geller won the tournament.

At the tournament in Baku (spring 1980), Kasparov fulfilled the grandmaster's norm. He took first place, beating Belyavsky by half a point, with whom he went through the tournament without defeat. That same year, again without losing a single game, he won the World Youth Chess Championship in Dortmund, where Nigel Short became the second prize-winner. Kasparov then graduated from high school with a gold medal. At the end of the year, he joined the USSR national team at the Chess Olympiad as the second alternate and showed the third result on his board.

At the beginning of 1981, Kasparov played on the first board of the youth team in the quadruple match tournament of the USSR national teams. He took first place on the board, and both games with world champion Karpov ended in a draw. Later that year, at the Moscow International Tournament, which Karpov won, Kasparov shared 2-4 places with Smyslov and Polugaevsky. The meeting between Kasparov and Karpov took place in the last round, the opponents quickly agreed to a draw. In December, eighteen-year-old Kasparov shared the title of USSR champion with Lev Psakhis, becoming the youngest USSR chess champion in the country's history. The championship took place in Frunze. Kasparov lost to Psakhis in the second round, and then they took turns leading. Before the last round, Psakhis was ahead by half a point, but could not beat Agzamov, while Kasparov beat Tukmakov with black.

In September 1982, an interzonal tournament was held in Moscow, from which the first two winners advanced to the candidates' matches. Kasparov went the distance without defeat (10 out of 13, +7 =6) and was one and a half points ahead of Belyavsky and two points ahead of Andersson. In November, at the Olympiad in Lucerne, nineteen-year-old Kasparov played on the second board and scored 8½ points in 11 games. At the same time, in the match against Switzerland, he replaced Karpov in the principle game with black against Korchnoi and won in complications. Even then, Kasparov was considered the favorite for the upcoming candidates' matches. Early next year, Kasparov played a quarterfinal match against Belyavsky in Moscow. Kasparov won the second game using the Tarrasch Defense, specially prepared for this Candidates' cycle. Belyavsky equalized the score in the fourth game, but Kasparov took the lead in the fifth, and ended the match early with victories in the eighth and ninth. According to the results of 1982, Kasparov became the winner of the chess Oscar, largely thanks to his victory over Korchnoi in Lucerne.

Kasparov's opponent in the semi-final match, scheduled for August 1983, was Viktor Korchnoi. According to the rules, the opponents had the right to choose the venue for the match from among the cities that provided the necessary conditions and the prize fund, and in controversial cases the FIDE President had the casting vote. Korchnoi chose Rotterdam, Kasparov chose Las Palmas, and FIDE President Campomanes chose the third option, Pasadena. The Soviet Chess Federation, under the pretext that the Soviet delegation would not be provided with security in the United States, decided that Kasparov would not go to Pasadena, and he was counted defeated without playing. Three days later, in the second semi-final in Abu Dhabi, Smyslov’s defeat in the match against Ribli was counted similarly. Heydar Aliyev, who was at that time the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, helped Kasparov by convincing the country's leadership to give Kasparov the opportunity to play the match. As part of the agreements reached, the Soviet side agreed to pay a large fine and lift the embargo on the performances of Soviet chess players together with Korchnoi. Both matches began in November 1983 in London. Korchnoi won the first game, the next four ended in a draw. In the sixth game, Kasparov took advantage of his opponent's mistake and leveled the situation. And starting from the seventh game, Kasparov imposed a Catalan start on his opponent for both colors, which became the decisive factor. He won the seventh, ninth and eleventh games, again ending the match early (+4 −1 =6). In the final, Kasparov met with Smyslov, who was exactly three times his age (Kasparov turned 21 on the last day of the match, Smyslov was 63). Kasparov won with a score of 8½:4½, without losing a single game.

In June 1984, Kasparov played on the second board in the match “USSR vs. the rest of the world.” Kasparov won his micro-match against Timman +1 =3.

The first match for the title of world chess champion Garry Kasparov played against world champion Anatoly Karpov. Before that, they played three games in different official competitions, which ended in a draw. To win, you had to be the first to win 6 games. Such regulations were introduced in February 1977 and two matches between Karpov and Korchnoi took place under it.

The match began on September 10, 1984 in Moscow. After the ninth game, Karpov was leading 4:0, and in subsequent games Kasparov changed his tactics: he began to play for a draw in each game and force Karpov to play for a different color against his favorite schemes. A series of seventeen draws followed, but the twenty-seventh game was won again by Karpov, who was now one point away from winning the match. Kasparov “soaked” the score in the thirty-second game. In the forty-first game, Karpov was close to winning, but missed it, and Kasparov won the forty-seventh and forty-eighth games. With the score 5:3 on February 15, 1985, FIDE President Florencio Campomanes at a press conference announced the termination of the match, citing the exhaustion of the physical and mental resources of the participants, and a repeat match between the same opponents in 1985. At the same time, both Karpov and Kasparov expressed their readiness to continue the match; Kasparov, at the same press conference, accused Campomanes of deciding to interrupt the match only when the challenger had a chance to win. Former head of the Chess Department of the USSR State Sports Committee, grandmaster Nikolai Krogius in the memoir book “Chess. Game and Life" indicates that the match was interrupted on the instructions of Heydar Aliyev, a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Kasparov later called February 15, 1985 “the beginning of his political career.”

At the next FIDE congress, new rules were approved: matches for the world champion title were played for the majority of 24 games, with a score of 12:12, the champion retained the title. In the summer of 1985, Kasparov gave a long interview to the West German magazine Spiegel, in which he accused the USSR Chess Federation of supporting Karpov by any means and of anti-Semitism and expressed doubt that a new match would take place. Three weeks before the start of the match, a meeting of the federation was supposed to take place, at which a decision on Kasparov’s disqualification was planned. Kasparov was saved by the new head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee, Alexander Yakovlev, who convinced the country's leadership that the match should take place.

A new match between Karpov and Kasparov began on September 1, 1985 in Moscow. Kasparov won the first game by using White's little-used continuation in the Nimzowitsch Defense. Karpov took the lead after winning the fourth and fifth games, the next five ended in draws. A. Suetin described this segment as “walking on a wire”: Karpov gained an advantage, but Kasparov nullified it with an inventive defense. In the eleventh game, Kasparov equalized the score thanks to a rough blunder by his opponent. The sixteenth game became a turning point, in which Kasparov, as black, used a gambit variation in the Sicilian Defense and won a spectacular victory (previously, the same variation was tried in the twelfth game, but then Karpov did not allow complications and the game quickly ended in a draw). Soon Kasparov won another game. The world champion reduced the gap to a minimum in the twenty-second game. The penultimate game of the match ended in a draw, and in the last, in which Karpov, who played white, was only satisfied with a victory that would allow him to equalize the score and retain the champion title, Kasparov turned out to be stronger in complications. The match ended on November 10, 1985 with a score of 13:11 in favor of the challenger.

At 22 years, 6 months and 27 days, Kasparov became the youngest world champion in chess history.(Previously, Mikhail Tal won the world championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960 at the age of 23). Kasparov continues to hold this record. In 2013, Magnus Carlsen became world champion, also under 23 years old, but he was several months older than Kasparov.

In April 1986, the “Kasparov-Botvinnik school” was opened in a holiday home in Pestovo near Moscow, which was a renewed Botvinnik school. 13 talented schoolchildren were invited to the first session, including Konstantin Sakaev and Vladimir Akopyan. Later, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexey Shirov, Sergey Tivyakov and other future grandmasters studied at the school. In the same year, Kasparov graduated from the Azerbaijan Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages.

In a rematch (London - Leningrad, July - October 1986), Kasparov defended his world champion title. In this match, Kasparov received a comfortable advantage of three points after victories in the 14th and 16th games. The sixteenth game became especially tense and eventful, in which Karpov countered the attack on his king with an attack on the queenside. In a game full of mistakes and difficult to analyze, Kasparov turned out to be stronger. But after that, the champion lost three games in a row and allowed Karpov to even the score. After the third defeat, Kasparov expelled international master Evgeniy Vladimirov from the coaching staff, whom he suspected of passing on tests to Karpov. The 22nd game was decisive, in which Kasparov, recording the move before adjournment, found a forced win. The last two meetings ended in a draw, with Kasparov winning 12½:11½.

At the end of the year, Kasparov won the Olympics in Dubai as part of the USSR national team. The FIDE Congress and elections of the organization's president took place there. Kasparov, in tandem with Raymond Keane, has been supporting Campomanes' opponent, Brazilian Lucena, for the past year. However, Campomanes secured the support of a majority of the delegates, and Lucena withdrew his candidacy before the vote.

On February 15, 1987, on the initiative of Kasparov, the Association of Grandmasters was created, whose task was to protect the interests of leading chess players and create a counterbalance to FIDE, which pursued a policy of supporting small federations. Kasparov became its president. At the end of the year in Seville, Kasparov again had a match against Karpov, who had previously defeated the Candidates' Cycle finalist Andrei Sokolov in a match. Karpov took the lead twice after the second and fifth games, then Kasparov won two victories, and in the sixteenth game Karpov evened the score. In the penultimate, twenty-third game, Kasparov made a tactical miscalculation: he sacrificed a rook, but after three moves the sacrifice was refuted. In the last game, Kasparov needed to win, and he coped with this task. Contrary to assumptions, he did not escalate, but accumulated a positional advantage. Karpov did not defend himself in the best way, and Kasparov won the game, retaining the title (12:12).

In the 1988-1989 season, the Association of Grandmasters held a World Cup for the 25 strongest chess players in the world, which consisted of six stages, held at round robin system. Each chess player could play in four tournaments, and the three best results were counted. Kasparov took part in tournaments in Belfort, Reykjavik, Barcelona and Skellefteå. He won the first two tournaments, in the other two he shared first places with Ljubojevic and Karpov, respectively, and eventually took first place in the overall standings, not much ahead of Karpov. All the strongest Soviet grandmasters took part in the 1988 USSR Championship. Kasparov and Karpov went the entire distance without defeat and shared first place, ahead of their closest pursuers, Yusupov and Salov, by one and a half points. The regulations provided for a four-game match for first place, but it did not take place.

In the fall of 1989, Kasparov won the two-round grandmaster tournament in Tilburg by a huge margin. He scored 12 points out of 14 and was 3½ ahead of second prize-winner Korchnoi. Thanks to this victory, Kasparov surpassed Fischer's record rating of 1972 (2785 points). At the end of the year, Kasparov won another tournament in Belgrade with a score of 9½ out of 11 (Timman and Elvest were three points behind), and his rating reached 2811. When Kasparov won the 1990 Linares tournament with a score of 8 out of 11 (Boris took second place Gelfand, the only defeat to the champion was inflicted by Boris Gulko), the points scored were not enough to maintain the rating.

At the end of 1990 in New York and Lyon, in the fifth match against Karpov, who won the Candidates' cycle, Kasparov again defended his title. At the start of the match, a scandal occurred: Kasparov played not under the Soviet flag, but under the white-blue-red Russian one. Karpov's delegation protested, and after four games both flags were removed. In the period from games 16 to 20, Kasparov won three games with one defeat, and after draws in the next two games, Kasparov scored the twelfth point, which allowed him to retain the title ahead of schedule. The result of the match is 12½:11½ in favor of the champion. As the winner, Kasparov received a check for $1.7 million and a diamond trophy valued at $600 thousand - the largest prize money in the history of world championships. Shortly before this match, Kasparov broke up with his long-time coach A. Nikitin.

The year 1991 began with a tournament in Linares, where Kasparov was ahead of Vasily Ivanchuk, who also won a personal match against the champion. In Amsterdam, Kasparov shared 3-4 places, and Salov won. Kasparov then won the two-round tournament in Tilburg with a score of 10 out of 14; second prize-winner Short was one and a half points behind. At the end of the year, Kasparov shared 2-3 places with Gelfand at the tournament in Reggio Emilia. The first place was taken by Viswanathan Anand, for whom this victory became a breakthrough into the chess elite. Linares 1992 was a victory for Kasparov, he did not lose a single game and scored 10 out of 13, two points more than Ivanchuk and Timman, who took the prizes. In the same year, a tournament took place in Dortmund, where Kasparov shared first place with Ivanchuk. He scored 6 out of 9 and lost two games at once - to Kamsky and Hübner. Linares 1993 Kasparov won again with a score of 10 out of 13, while achieving a brilliant victory over Karpov with black in 27 moves.

In February 1992, the first congress of the Russian Chess Federation took place. Kasparov nominated Arkady Murashov, the head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate and Kasparov’s ally in the Democratic Party of Russia, for the post of president. Murashov won, and Karpov, due to a conflict with Kasparov over the elections, refused to play for the Russian team at the 1992 Olympiad (at which, thanks to the very effective play of Kasparov and the young Vladimir Kramnik, the Russian team won). A year later, new presidential elections took place, in which Yevgeny Bebchuk, supported by Karpov, was elected instead of Murashov.

Disagreeing with the policy pursued by FIDE, on February 27, 1993, Kasparov and Nigel Short, who won the Candidates cycle, announced that they would play their match without the participation of FIDE and under the auspices of a new body, the Professional Chess Association (PSA). FIDE stripped Garry Kasparov of the title of world chess champion and excluded him from its rating lists.

Kasparov and Short were reinstated in the ranking only the following year, before the PSA managed to release its own ranking, which was headed by Kasparov. Simultaneously with the Kasparov-Short match, a FIDE World Championship match took place between Karpov and the Candidates Cycle finalist Timman. The match between Kasparov and Short was played for the majority of 24 games. Kasparov immediately took the lead 3½:½ and ended the match early after the 20th game (+6 −1 =13). Subsequently, Kasparov said that the break with FIDE in 1993 was the biggest mistake in his chess career.

At the 18th category super tournament in Linares in 1994, Kasparov shared second place with Shirov, and first place was taken by Karpov, who scored 11 of 13 points and was 2½ points ahead. This tournament is considered one of the strongest in the history of chess, and Karpov's performance is one of the most impressive tournament victories of all time. The tournament was also notable for an incident involving Kasparov and seventeen-year-old Judit Polgar. Kasparov made a knight move, saw White's possible response and moved his piece to another square. The camera recorded that before that he had taken his hand off the knight for 1/4 of a second, so that according to the rules, Kasparov could no longer change the move, but the game continued. In August, Kasparov won a two-round tournament in Novgorod, and in September - a tournament in Zurich, and at the finish of the tournament he defeated two direct competitors - Shirov and Yusupov. In April 1995, the first of three stages series of PSA tournaments “Super Classic” - Tal Memorial in Riga. The game between Kasparov and Anand, who soon faced a match for the world championship, was decisive for determining the winner. Kasparov used the Evans Gambit, rarely seen at the highest level, and won on the 25th move. The second tournament of the series took place in Novgorod a little over a month later. Kasparov was a point ahead of Short, Ivanchuk, Elvest and Topalov.

In the fall of 1995, Kasparov won the world championship match against Viswanathan Anand, held at the World mall in NYC. The first eight games ended in a draw, Anand won the ninth, but in the next five games Kasparov won four victories. The match ended early again - after the eighteenth game. Kasparov explained the result this way: “He was prepared very well, personally for me. Anand's coaches took into account all my habits, preferences and characteristics, the openings that I play, etc., etc., but they did not take into account individual characteristics Anand himself. They imposed on Vishy a style of play that was unusual for him.” At the end of the year, in the last Super Classic tournament in Horgen, Kasparov came fifth with 5 points out of 10 and only one game won. The first and second places were shared by Ivanchuk, who inflicted the only defeat on Kasparov, and Kramnik.

In January 1996, PSA's primary sponsor Intel announced that it would not renew its sponsorship agreement with PSA. According to Kasparov, the reason for this was Kasparov's desire to play a match against the Deep Blue computer, developed by IBM, a competitor of Intel. Soon the PSA ceased to exist.

In 1996, Kasparov won the first ever XXI category tournament in Las Palmas, which had a record average rating of participants (2756.6). In this tournament, Anand, Ivanchuk, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov played in two rounds. Kasparov won one victory each over Topalov, Karpov and Ivanchuk and drew the remaining games, eventually beating the second-place Anand by a point. The first tournament with a higher average rating of participants took place in 2009 (Tal Memorial in Moscow). The following year, Kasparov won in Linares, winning head-to-head matches against all participants who took places from second to sixth, and losing to Ivanchuk and Novgorod, and also shared first place in Tilburg with Kramnik and Svidler.

In 1998, Kasparov and the newly created World Chess Council, led by Linares tournament organizer Luis Rentero, planned a title match. The challenger was supposed to be determined in the match between Anand and Kramnik, but Anand refused, as he was bound by obligations not to play in challenger cycles not under the auspices of FIDE, so he was replaced by Shirov. Shirov unexpectedly won 5½:3½ and received the right to a match with Kasparov, which was scheduled for the fall of the same year. However, due to financial problems of the sponsor, Rentero, the match did not take place.

Over an 18-month period in 1999 and 2000, Kasparov won six super-tournaments in a row of at least category 18 each. At the beginning of 1999, Kasparov won the annual tournament in Wijk aan Zee (10 out of 13 with one defeat from I. Sokolov; Anand scored 9½, Kramnik - 8). Then he won in Linares with a result of +7 −0 =7, while scoring five victories with black. Kramnik and Anand were 2½ points behind. In May, a tournament took place in Sarajevo, in which Anand and Kramnik did not take part. Kasparov scored 7 out of 9 (no defeats), 2-3 places were shared by Bareev and Shirov (6 each). In the FIDE rating list of July 1999, Kasparov reached a record rating of 2851. The following year he won another tournament each in Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, Shirov became Kasparov's main competitor, but he lost in the penultimate round to Movsesyan, whom Kasparov himself defeated in the last round.

In the fall of 2000, Kasparov lost a match to Kramnik and lost the title of world chess champion. Before the match, the opponents had an equal head-to-head record (three wins and seventeen draws), but Kasparov was considered the favorite due to his vast match experience and a series of victories in tournaments in 1999-2000. The match, organized by Braingames, was played with a majority of 16 games and thus became the shortest world championship match in the post-war period. Kramnik outplayed his opponent in the second and tenth games with White, and the rest of the matches ended in a draw. This match was also the first since 1921 that the challenger won by a clean sheet. An important component of Kramnik’s success was the regular use of the Berlin variation of the Spanish game for black, with which he neutralized White color Kasparov in several games; Before that, no one had systematically used the Berlin variation in top-level competitions.

During 2001, Kasparov won three tournaments in a row. His first competition as a former world champion was the tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Kasparov scored 9 out of 13 and beat Anand by half a point, Kramnik shared 3rd-4th places. Kasparov then won the annual tournament in Linares (7½ out of 10) and the tournament in Astana. In Astana, before the last round, Kasparov was half a point behind Kramnik, but was able to win the decisive match, achieving his first victory over Kramnik since 1997. The following year, Kasparov won again in Linares (8 out of 12, one and a half points ahead of the new FIDE world champion Ruslan Ponomarev).

In September 2002, Kasparov, as part of the Russian national team, took part in the match tournament “Russian national team against the world national team.” He played ten games, winning one and losing three. As a result, the world team won with a score of 52:48, and Kasparov showed his worst result in his life in team competitions. In October-November of the same year, Kasparov played his last Olympiad in Bled, in which Russia again took first place. On the first board he scored 7½ points out of 9, this result corresponded to a rating of 2933, and according to this indicator, Kasparov’s performance was absolutely the best at the Olympiad.

Linares 2003 was unsuccessful, Kasparov shared 3-4 places with Anand. In the second round, Kasparov lost a winning position in a game with fifteen-year-old Teymur Radjabov. When it was announced at the closing ceremony that this game was recognized as the most beautiful in the tournament, Kasparov publicly stated that he regarded this choice as a public insult and humiliation. In 2004, Kasparov played for the first time in the Russian Chess Championship. The 57th national championship featured ten of the strongest chess players, with the exception of Kramnik and Karpov. Kasparov won with a result of +5 −0 =5 and was ahead of Grischuk by one and a half points.

Kasparov announced his retirement from sports on March 10, 2005 at a press conference at the end of the super tournament in Linares. In it, Kasparov scored an equal number of points with Topalov, from whom he suffered his only defeat in the last round, but according to additional indicators (the number of victories in black) he was declared the winner. Kasparov explained his decision by a lack of motivation - he had achieved everything in chess - and by the fact that he was never given the opportunity to fight for the world title again after losing to Kramnik (in particular, the match against FIDE world champion Ponomarev did not take place). Kasparov also said that he plans to continue to compete in blitz tournaments and other exhibition events in the future, and will make his main priorities work on books and participation in Russian politics.

In September 2009, Kasparov and Karpov played a 12-game match of rapid and blitz chess in Valencia. Kasparov won with a score of 9:3. At the same time, it became known that Kasparov, since March of the same year, had been working as a personal trainer of the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, who at that time, at the age of 18, was fourth in the world rankings. Kasparov and Carlsen met several times a year for training sessions. Collaboration ended in March 2010, by which time Carlsen topped the rating list. Carlsen later clarified that he had become responsible for his career decisions, but would continue to maintain contact with Kasparov.

In the fall of the same 2010, Kasparov supported Karpov, who was running for the post of FIDE President. However, the incumbent president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, won the elections. In 2014, Kasparov, running from Croatia, himself became Ilyumzhinov’s rival in the next election. He built a campaign on criticizing FIDE as "a corrupt organization and Ilyumzhinov as an ally of Putin's dictatorial regime." In turn, Ilyumzhinov accused Kasparov of trying to buy the votes of delegates: as a result of the leak, a draft agreement between Kasparov and a member of his team became available to the public general secretary FIDE Ignatius Leong, according to which Leong, for a fee, had to ensure that Asian delegates voted for Kasparov. Ilyumzhinov won the election with a score of 110:61.

Kasparov against the computer:

Garry Kasparov's matches against chess programs aroused great interest. In 1989, the chess program Deep Thought, running on Sun-4 computer hardware, achieved significant success. For the first time in history, the program beat an international grandmaster (Bent Larsen) in an official tournament.

On October 22, 1989, a match of two blitz games between Garry Kasparov and Deep Thought took place in New York. The world champion won them easily. The second meeting was especially significant, in which Kasparov won in a spectacular combination style. After the match, Kasparov said: "If a computer can beat the best of the best at chess, it will mean that the computer is able to compose the most best music, write the best books. I can not believe it. If a computer is created with a rating of 2800, that is, equal to mine, I myself will consider it my duty to challenge it to a match in order to protect the human race.".

In 1996, IBM representatives invited Garry Kasparov to play a match against their chess program. "Deep Blue" with a prize fund of $500 thousand. “Deep Blue” is a supercomputer based on the RS6000 system, consisting of 32 nodes, each of which consisted of 512 processors, hardware optimized for a chess program. Deep Blue's performance was 11.38 GFLOPS, and the computer could evaluate up to 200 million positions per second. Kasparov's first match against a chess computer took place in February 1996, and the man won with a score of 4:2, but lost the first game. This was the first time in history that a computer won a game against a world champion.

In the second match, IBM offered a prize fund of $1.1 million, of which $700 thousand was to go to the winner. A six-match match with normal time control (120 minutes for 40 moves) took place in May 1997. As a result, for the first time in history, the world champion lost to the computer with a score of 2½: 3½.

The supercomputer was in a separate room, and the representative of the IBM team, Feng-Xiong Xu, who was at the origins of the project, sat at the board opposite Kasparov. Feng-Xiong Xu carried out all communication with Deep Blue through a special monitor. Theoretically, a specially invited chess player could be between the monitor in the gaming room and the supercomputer and influence the course of the game.

In the second game of the 1997 match, Kasparov, finding himself in a difficult situation, sacrificed a pawn, “Deep Blue” thought about the 37th move for 15 minutes, although he usually spent 3 minutes “thinking” about the move, and rejected the sacrifice by playing Be4. After White's 45th move, Kasparov resigned. Post-match analysis showed that Black could force a draw with a perpetual check due to White's inaccurate last move. However, Kasparov was mistaken in believing that his electronic opponent, who played the rest of the game almost flawlessly, had calculated everything accurately. In the sixth and last game, Kasparov overlooked or deliberately allowed the sacrifice of a piece for the initiative, known to theory, but when Deep Blue accepted it, he defended poorly and admitted defeat already on the 19th move.

After the match, Kasparov demanded to see the log file of the game. Details of how the program "thought" were not provided, and Kasparov accused IBM of cheating. According to Kasparov, in several cases the computer could be helped by a person, since the program played with fluctuations, periodically choosing moves that were uncharacteristic for computers.

In January 2003, Kasparov played a match against the Deep Junior chess program. The match consisted of 6 games under standard time control. The prize fund for the fight was $1 million. The strongest program for personal computers at that time ran under the operating system Windows Server 2000 and 8 Intel processors Xeon 1.6 GHz. Kasparov, using an “anti-computer” strategy, won the first game and had a significant advantage in the second, but drew it. In the third game, he made a gross miscalculation and gave up on move 34. In the remaining games, Kasparov was careful and reduced them to quick draws. The result of the match is 3:3.

In November 2003, a match between Kasparov and “Fritz X3D” (a version of “Deep Fritz” with a three-dimensional interface) took place. According to the terms of the match, a person had to play with special 3D glasses. "Deep Fritz" ran on a computer with 4 Intel Xeon processors. A year before, the same program played a draw in a match with Vladimir Kramnik with similar rules. The meeting took place in New York. In a match of 4 games with one victory, one defeat and two draws, an equal result was achieved 2:2. It is interesting to note that in the fourth game, “Deep Fritz” unexpectedly offered a queen sacrifice, but the grandmaster rejected the sacrifice and calmly brought the game to a draw. Kasparov received $175 thousand and a gold statuette as a result of the fight.

"Deep Junior" and "Deep Fritz" are commercial programs with an evaluation speed of about 3-4 million positions per second (2003). Copies of the programs were provided to Kasparov before the match for analysis. The computer with the program was located directly in the gaming room. There were no suspicions of fraud on Kasparov's part. Summing up the match with “Deep Junior”, Kasparov shared the idea that in a few years a person will no longer have any chance in confrontation with chess programs.

Political activities of Garry Kasparov:

Kasparov was a member of the Komsomol Central Committee and a member of the Komsomol Central Committee of the Azerbaijan SSR. At the beginning of 1984, Kasparov was admitted to the CPSU: on the instructions of Heydar Aliyev - without completing a year of candidate experience, as evidenced by the head of the Chess Department of the USSR State Sports Committee N.V. Krogius. Later in an interview, Kasparov said that the Soviet contender for the title of world champion had a choice between joining the party and emigrating.

During the Armenian pogrom in Baku in 1990, Kasparov moved his family to Moscow. Later he blamed the Soviet leadership - and the KGB of the USSR - for the pogrom. That same year, Kasparov left the CPSU.

In 1990, Kasparov participated in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia (DPR). Kasparov was elected one of the deputy chairmen of Nikolai Travkin. Soon after the creation of the DPR, Kasparov, together with Arkady Murashov, founded the Free Democratic Faction, which was an internal party opposition. In April 1991, a month after the registration of the DPR with the Ministry of Justice of the RSFSR, the Free Democratic faction, including Kasparov, announced its withdrawal from the party. This happened after the Second Congress of the Democratic Party of Russia adopted not the program developed by Kasparov and Murashov, but Alternative option. In 1991, Kasparov’s collaboration with the Wall Street Journal began, which continues to this day; Kasparov regularly publishes articles on Russian politics in this newspaper.

In 1991, Kasparov received the “Keeper of the Flame” award from the US Center for Security Policy, which is awarded to citizens for public activities aimed at promoting democratic values ​​and respect for human rights. Later, in early 2007, political opponents claimed that Kasparov was on the advisory board of the Center for Security Policy, citing a list of its members published on the organization's website. In response, Kasparov stated that he had never been on the council and that his name was probably included there by mistake, along with other honorary members of the Center for Security Policy. Already in April 2007, Kasparov's name was not on the list of members.

In June 1993, Kasparov participated in the creation of the election bloc “Russia's Choice”.

In the 1996 presidential election, Kasparov supported the incumbent president, seeing him as an alternative to the communists returning to power. Kasparov was his confidant for campaigning. The following year, Kasparov was a financial advisor, with whom he parted ways after the latter's decision to run for governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

After being elected president of Russia, Kasparov at first considered him a “young pragmatic leader” who could contribute to the establishment of democracy in Russia, but he soon became disillusioned with him.

In 2004, Kasparov founded the Committee “2008: Free Choice” and became its chairman, and also became a co-chairman of the organizing committee of the All-Russian Civil Congress “Russia for Democracy, Against Dictatorship” (VGK), together with a participant in the human rights movement Lyudmila Alekseeva and former Yeltsin adviser Georgy Satarov. Announcing his retirement from sports on May 10, 2005, Kasparov, already known as a critic of Vladimir Putin and a potential contender for the 2008 presidential election, announced participation in Russian politics as a new life goal.

In 2005, he headed the “United Civil Front” he created, during the same period the activities of the 2008 Committee came to naught. In 2006, under the auspices of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, a conference was held in Moscow at which the creation of the “Other Russia” coalition was announced. The coalition was supposed to unite opposition representatives of various political persuasions, who agreed on the need to counter the policies of Vladimir Putin and United Russia and redistribute power from the president to parliament and the regions.

Since 2006, Kasparov has been one of the organizers of the “Marches of Dissent” organized by “The Other Russia”.

On September 30, 2007, a campaign began to nominate Kasparov as a candidate for the post of President of Russia in the March 2008 elections by the “Other Russia”: the coalition congress elected Kasparov as a single candidate. In November, he was sentenced to five days of arrest for participating in an unauthorized march. Kasparov's arrest was condemned by the non-governmental organization Amnesty International, which recognized Kasparov as a prisoner of conscience and called for his release. On December 13, Kasparov announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy because he had failed to hold the meeting of voters required to nominate an independent candidate. According to statements from Kasparov's representatives, all landlords approached by Kasparov's representatives refused to provide premises for such a congress. At the same time, polls showed that Kasparov’s support in Russia was low and he had no chance of winning these elections. Some members of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief considered that Kasparov’s activities violated the principle of apolitical congress and proposed to dissociate themselves from Kasparov, which the Supreme Commander did not agree to. In the fall of 2007, Alekseeva and Satarov, who by that time were in opposition to Kasparov, asked him to leave the Supreme Commander, and on January 14, 2008 they asked him to leave again. Since Kasparov did not respond to requests to leave the Supreme Commander both times, as a result, on January 17, Satarov, together with Lyudmila Alekseeva, left the Supreme Commander themselves.

In 2008, Kasparov became one of the founders of the opposition united democratic movement Solidarity. In December 2008, at the founding congress of the movement, he was elected a member of the federal political council of Solidarity and became a member of the Bureau of the movement's federal political council. Kasparov was considered one of the leaders of the opposition to the existing political regime, while in Russia his political activities remained unreported in the central media and did not enjoy widespread support.

In mid-2010, a conflict occurred within Solidarity. First, a member of its political council, S. Zhavoronkov, was expelled from the movement, and then, including due to disagreements with Kasparov, Vladimir Milov announced his resignation from the organization.

On March 10, 2010, Kasparov signed the appeal of the Russian opposition “Putin must leave.” In the process of preparing the appeal, Kasparov was part of the author’s group and coordinated the text with other signatories. In the spring and summer of 2010, there was an active collection of signatures for the appeal, and meetings between the organizers and signatories took place. In the fall and winter, rallies for Putin’s resignation were held in Moscow, at which Kasparov also spoke.

In the fall of 2011, Kasparov advocated a boycott of the State Duma elections. In October 2011, at the “Last Autumn” civil forum, a debate was held between representatives of three positions in relation to the elections: Garry Kasparov (boycott), Boris Nemtsov (damage to ballots), (voting for any other party). According to the results of the debate, the public gave preference to Navalny. Kasparov spoke at mass rallies in Moscow in December 2011 and 2012.

On August 17, 2012, Kasparov was detained at the Khamovnichesky Court on the day of the verdict in the group’s case Pussy Riot. According to law enforcement agencies, during his arrest, Kasparov bit a police warrant officer. According to Kasparov himself, this statement is false, and the police, on the contrary, beat him during his arrest. On August 24, the magistrate’s court acquitted Kasparov of charges of insubordination to police officers.

On October 22, 2012, in the elections of the Coordination Council of the Opposition, he took third place on the general civil list, gaining 33 thousand votes, losing to A. Navalny and D. Bykov.

On April 7, 2013, at the fourth congress of Solidarity, it was announced that Kasparov would not run for its political council, although he would remain a member of the movement. He himself explained the decision by disagreement with the transformation of Solidarity into “an appendage of the RPR-PARNAS party” and participation in “actions that work to legitimize the existing government,” such as elections.

In June 2013, Kasparov said that he had no plans to return to Russia from abroad and would continue to fight “Kremlin criminals” on the international stage. According to Kasparov, he expected to be called to the investigative authorities in connection with his activities in organizing a seminar for opposition activists in Lithuania and promoting the Magnitsky Act, and was afraid of initiating a criminal case and choosing not to leave the place. A ban on leaving the country would not have given him the opportunity to earn money by lecturing and running his foundations. Kasparov also said that he heads the “We Choose” committee in support of fair elections in Iran. The privately funded committee is monitoring parallel elections involving 20 suspended candidates. “I have been doing this for the last few months together with Leonid Volkov. The improved Democracy-2 system was used - this is a virtual platform with the help of which elections to the CSR were held. I am the informal organizer of the process, which began back in February. And Volkov is working on this directly with the Iranians.”

In March 2014, the website kasparov.ru became one of four resources that were blocked by Roskomnadzor at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation and without a court decision. According to the position of the prosecutor's office, they contained “calls for illegal activities and participation in mass events held in violation of the established order.” On August 6, 2014, the Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow confirmed the legality of blocking the site.

In 2014, Kasparov condemned the annexation of Crimea to Russia, Russia’s actions in connection with the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, and called on Western leaders to increase pressure on Putin. Kasparov considers Crimea to be the territory of Ukraine. On December 6, 2014, on the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Kasparov gave a simultaneous game in Kyiv to the Ukrainian military and volunteers in support of the Ukrainian army.

Personal life of Garry Kasparov:

Kasparov was married three times and has a child from each marriage.

In 1989, he married a graduate of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and Intourist guide-translator Maria Arapova, whom he had met three years earlier. In 1992, daughter Polina was born; in 1993, the couple separated. Later, Maria and her daughter moved to the USA.

In 1996, Kasparov married 18-year-old economics student Yulia Vovk. At the end of the same year, their son Vadim was born. In 2005, the marriage broke up.

In 2005, Kasparov married Daria Tarasova from St. Petersburg. In 2006, their daughter Aida was born.

In 1984-1986, Kasparov had an affair with an actress. Some sources call Kasparov the father of Nika Neyolova’s daughter (born in 1987). In the book “Child of Change,” Kasparov refuted this statement; later in an interview he did not give a definite answer. Neyolova has never made public comments.

Kasparov has real estate in Moscow, St. Petersburg, New York and New Jersey.

In February 2014, Kasparov received Croatian citizenship, where he has a house in the seaside resort town of Makarska. In 2013, Kasparov applied for Latvian citizenship, but was refused.

Ironically, none of his children play chess. Viva! recalls well-known and not so well-known facts from the biography of the 13th world chess champion, writer, the most influential Russian oppositionist in the West, personal enemy of the Kremlin and recognized playboy Garry Kasparov.

1. The main coach and adviser is mom.“I can be frank with her like I can with no one else. At critical moments, you hear a voice that you have been accustomed to believing for many years. Each of us needs someone whom you can trust, to express everything without hiding, calling things by their proper names. And then most often you yourself understand what to do. Mom jokes that she absorbs my stress.”

2. The first serious romance was with a famous actress.“Our close communication with Marina Neelova lasted more than two years. She was 16 years older than me, like all my friends at that time. Partly because I matured very quickly. But rather more due to the fact that women of the same age, as a rule, wanted to get married quickly. Of course, I couldn’t even think about this, as I was preparing for my first world championship match. Everything - my health, my training, my aspirations - was subordinated to this goal. On the other hand, I was a normal young man with normal needs and desires. Not a monk at all. It is quite possible that our union was also based on a sense of our exclusivity.”

3. Garry Kasparov did not recognize his daughter from Marina Neyolova.“We had a relationship. They were not fixed, moreover, they were in no way limited to the two of us. They probably didn’t end very well, but, nevertheless, I had no reason to believe that I abandoned her with the child. In any case, I believe that if I had something to do with the child, life would have turned out differently.”

4. In 2005, Garry Kasparov exchanged chess for politics.“In Russian politics there are too many generals and colonels and not enough intelligence. I hope that my ability to think strategically will help my homeland.”

5. Garry Kasparov considers chess players to be ordinary people.“Luzhin's Defense”, Zweig's chess novels - great literature, unfortunately, has created clichés that cannot withstand any clash with reality. It is clear that there are people with their own quirks. But there are no more of them than in any other mental activity that requires tension.”

6. Garry Kasparov is 19 years apart from his third wife.“I met my wife in St. Petersburg, at a lecture on alternative history. I was married, I had a son, but I decided to divorce. I realized that Dasha and I are on the same wavelength and I practically don’t feel the 19-year age difference. Now I'm driving extremely approximate image life and I really like myself this way. Although I am constantly on the move. I don’t have an oil well or a candle factory; I live mainly from lectures.”

7. Has a reputation as a playboy.“At the age of 22 I became the world champion, I had money, status, opportunities. All this created a lot of temptations. Therefore, life, let's say, was quite chaotic. The fans did not besiege the entrance, but there is something to remember. There was less confusion than one might expect, but still enough.”

8. Garry Kasparov plays sports every day.“In the late 90s, I had ideal athletic tone, I did a hundred push-ups. Having a routine has always been important to me. It doesn’t matter which one - the main thing is that it exists. Whenever possible, you need to get enough sleep. I try to sleep during the day. In addition, it is important to eat properly and efficiently. Naturally, I have never smoked, I have no need for alcohol. For me, four weeks at sea is recovery, six weeks is recharge. Walking, swimming, proper food, plus an hour a day - sports. You can do push-ups and pump up your abs without any exercise equipment.”

9. Garry Kasparov considers Putin to be Hitler's successor.“I have the feeling that Putin instinctively tries to repeat even the rhythm of Hitler’s speeches. How he does it is another matter, but the style of his statements has long become the style of the Third Reich. Many psychological moments in his behavior with world leaders are a copy of what the Fuhrer did. And I believe the final part of the equation will be the same.”

10. Garry Kasparov’s favorite number is 13.“I must strongly support the magical belief in the power of the number 13, because I have a lot connected with it: I was born on April 13, I became the 13th world champion. Although, it must be said that most of our superstitions are made up of a set of facts that are analyzed after the fact. We create for ourselves a kind of mosaic picture that has lined up successfully, and then we begin to adjust everything to it. Accordingly, we carefully push aside what does not fit into it.”

At the age of ten, at youth competitions in Vilnius, Harry met master Alexander Nikitin, who became his coach for a long time. Until 1976, Nikitin periodically gave consultations and written assignments, then they began to work constantly as a team. On his recommendation, in August 1973, Harry came to try out the chess school of ex-world champion Mikhail Botvinnik and was accepted there. Botvinnik ensured that the young chess player studied according to an individual plan, and later received a scholarship. In 1974 in Moscow at the Palace of Pioneers tournament (it was a team tournament in which the children's team of each Palace was led by a grandmaster who gave a simultaneous game to other teams), Harry defeated grandmaster Yuri Averbakh. At the beginning of the next year, Harry took part in the national youth championship, playing against opponents 6-7 years older than him. In Leningrad, at the new Palace of Pioneers tournament, in a session against world champion Anatoly Karpov, he achieved an equal position, but made a mistake and lost. In the same tournament, in a session against Viktor Korchnoi, he forced the grandmaster to a draw.

In early 1976, at the age of twelve, Garry Kasparov won the USSR Youth Chess Championship, most of the participants in which were several years older. After this, since Nikitin lived in Moscow, Baku master Alexander Shakarov became Kasparov's permanent coach. That same year, at the insistence of the sports committee, Kasparov went to the world championship among cadets (boys under 18 years old), although his coaches objected to this, and shared third place. At the beginning of 1977, Kasparov again won the national youth championship, this time with a score of 8½ out of 9. At the World Cadet Championship, where the age limit had already been lowered to 17 years, Kasparov took third place. Three rounds before the end, he shared first place with future winner Jón Arnason, but due to fatigue, the remaining games were drawn.

In January 1978, Kasparov won the Sokolsky Memorial in Minsk and received the title of Master of Sports in chess. He fulfilled the master's norm five more rounds before the end, and in the last round he won against Anatoly Lutikov - this was Kasparov's first tournament meeting with a grandmaster. At the age of fifteen, Kasparov became Botvinnik's assistant. In July, he took first place in the qualifying tournament in Daugavpils and received the right to make his debut in the final of the USSR Championship. The final took place at the end of the year, Kasparov scored 50% in 17 games, which allowed him not to qualify for the next year. In April 1979, Kasparov took part in a tournament in Banja Luka (Yugoslavia). The sixteen-year-old master, who had no ranking, was allowed into the tournament, in which fourteen of the sixteen participants were grandmasters, at the insistence of Botvinnik. As a result, Kasparov sensationally took first place, without losing a single game and securing an overall victory two rounds before the end. Smeikal and Andersson were 2 points behind, Petrosyan was 2½ points behind. In Banja Luka, Kasparov received his first grandmaster point. For the first time receiving an international rating, Kasparov immediately took fifteenth place in the rating list. After returning to Baku, Kasparov was received by the influential politician Heydar Aliyev, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and a candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Starting from this time, Aliyev began to patronize Kasparov. At the end of the year at the 47th USSR Championship, Kasparov started with three victories. A slump followed (six draws and three losses with one win), but a strong finish allowed him to share 3rd-4th places with 10 points out of 17. Veteran Efim Geller won the tournament.

Fight for the title of world chess champion

In September 1982, an interzonal tournament was held in Moscow, from which the first two winners advanced to the candidates' matches. Kasparov went the distance without defeat (10 out of 13, +7 =6) and was one and a half points ahead of Belyavsky and two points ahead of Tal and Andersson. In November, at the Olympiad in Lucerne, nineteen-year-old Kasparov played on the second board and scored 8½ points in 11 games. At the same time, in the match against Switzerland, he replaced Karpov in the principle game with black against Korchnoi and won in complications. Even then, Kasparov was considered as the favorite for the upcoming candidates' matches. Early next year, Kasparov played a quarterfinal match against Belyavsky in Moscow. Kasparov won the second game using the Tarrasch Defense, specially prepared for this Candidates' Cycle. Belyavsky equalized the score in the fourth game, but Kasparov took the lead in the fifth, and ended the match early with victories in the eighth and ninth. Based on the results of 1982, Kasparov became the winner of the chess Oscar, largely thanks to his victory over Korchnoi in Lucerne.

Kasparov's opponent in the semi-final match, scheduled for August 1983, was Viktor Korchnoi. According to the rules, the opponents had the right to choose the venue for the match from among the cities that provided the necessary conditions and prize fund, and in controversial cases the FIDE President had the casting vote. Korchnoi chose Rotterdam, Kasparov chose Las Palmas, and FIDE President Campomanes chose the third option, Pasadena. The Soviet Chess Federation, under the pretext that the Soviet delegation would not be provided with security in the United States, decided that Kasparov would not go to Pasadena, and he was counted defeated without playing. Three days later, in the second semi-final in Abu Dhabi, the defeat of Smyslov in the match against Ribli was counted in the same way. Heydar Aliyev, who was the first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers at the time, helped Kasparov by convincing the country's leadership to give Kasparov the opportunity to play the match. As part of the agreements reached, the Soviet side agreed to pay a large fine and lift the embargo on the performances of Soviet chess players together with Korchnoi. Both matches began in November 1983 in London. Korchnoi won the first game, the next four ended in a draw. In the sixth game, Kasparov took advantage of his opponent's mistake and leveled the situation. And starting from the seventh game, Kasparov imposed a Catalan start on his opponent for both colors, which became the decisive factor. He won the seventh, ninth and eleventh games, again ending the match early (+4 −1 =6). In the final, Kasparov met with Smyslov, who was exactly three times his age (Kasparov turned 21 on the last day of the match, Smyslov was 63). Kasparov won with a score of 8½:4½, without losing a single game.

In June 1984, Kasparov played on board two in the USSR vs. the Rest of the World match. Kasparov won his micro-match against Timman +1 =3.

At the next FIDE congress, new rules were approved: matches for the world champion title were played for the majority of 24 games, with a score of 12:12, the champion retained the title. In the summer of 1985, Kasparov gave a long interview to the West German magazine Spiegel, in which he accused the USSR Chess Federation of supporting Karpov by any means and of anti-Semitism and expressed doubt that a new match would take place. Three weeks before the start of the match, a meeting of the federation was supposed to take place, at which a decision on Kasparov’s disqualification was planned. Kasparov was saved by the new head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee, Alexander Yakovlev, who convinced the country's leadership that the match should take place.

World champion

In April 1986, the “Kasparov-Botvinnik school” was opened in a holiday home in Pestovo near Moscow, which was a renewed Botvinnik school. 13 talented schoolchildren were invited to the first session, including Konstantin Sakaev and Vladimir Akopyan. Later, Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov, Sergei Tivyakov and other future grandmasters studied at the school. In the same year, Kasparov graduated. In a rematch (London - Leningrad, July - October 1986), Kasparov defended his world champion title. In this match, Kasparov received a comfortable advantage of three points after victories in the 14th and 16th games. The sixteenth game became especially tense and eventful, in which Karpov countered the attack on his king with an attack on the queenside. In a game full of mistakes and difficult to analyze, Kasparov turned out to be stronger. But after that, the champion lost three games in a row and allowed Karpov to even the score. After the third defeat, Kasparov expelled international master Evgeniy Vladimirov from the coaching staff, whom he suspected of passing on tests to Karpov. The 22nd game was decisive, in which Kasparov, recording the move before adjournment, found a forced win. The last two meetings ended in a draw, with Kasparov winning 12½:11½.

At the end of the year, Kasparov won the Olympics in Dubai as part of the USSR national team. The FIDE Congress and elections of the organization's president took place there. Kasparov, in tandem with Raymond Keane, has been supporting Campomanes' opponent, Brazilian Lucena, for the past year. However, Campomanes secured the support of a majority of the delegates, and Lucena withdrew his candidacy before the vote.

On February 15, 1987, on the initiative of Kasparov, the Association of Grandmasters was created, whose task was to protect the interests of leading chess players and create a counterbalance to FIDE, which pursued a policy of supporting small federations. Kasparov became its president. At the end of the year in Seville, Kasparov again had a match against Karpov, who had previously defeated Candidates' Cycle finalist Andrei Sokolov in a match. Karpov took the lead twice after the second and fifth games, then Kasparov won two victories, and in the sixteenth game Karpov evened the score. In the penultimate, twenty-third, game, Kasparov made a tactical miscalculation: he sacrificed a rook, but after three moves the sacrifice was refuted. In the last game, Kasparov needed to win, and he coped with this task. Contrary to assumptions, he did not escalate, but accumulated a positional advantage. Karpov did not defend himself in the best way, and Kasparov won the game, retaining the title (12:12).

In the 1988-1989 season, the Grandmasters Association held a World Cup for the 25 strongest chess players in the world, which consisted of six round-robin stages. Each chess player could play in four tournaments, and the three best results were counted. Kasparov took part in tournaments in Belfort, Reykjavik, Barcelona and Skellefteå. He won the first two tournaments, in the other two he shared first places with Ljubojevic and Karpov, respectively, and eventually took first place in the overall standings, slightly ahead of Karpov. All the strongest Soviet grandmasters took part in the 1988 USSR Championship. Kasparov and Karpov went the entire distance without defeat and shared first place, ahead of their closest pursuers, Yusupov and Salov, by one and a half points. The regulations provided for a four-game match for first place, but it did not take place.

In the fall of 1989, Kasparov won the two-round grandmaster tournament in Tilburg by a huge margin. He scored 12 points out of 14 and was 3½ ahead of second prize-winner Korchnoi. Thanks to this victory, Kasparov surpassed Fischer's record rating of 1972 (2785 points). At the end of the year, Kasparov won another tournament in Belgrade with a score of 9½ out of 11 (Timman and Elvest were three points behind), and his rating reached 2811. When Kasparov won the 1990 Linares tournament with a score of 8 out of 11 (Boris Gelfand took second place, Boris Gulko inflicted the only defeat on the champion), the points scored were not enough to maintain the rating. At the end of 1990 in New York and Lyon, in the fifth match against Karpov, who won the Candidates' cycle, Kasparov again defended the title. At the start of the match, a scandal occurred: Kasparov played not under the Soviet flag, but under the white-blue-red Russian one. Karpov's delegation protested, and after four games both flags were removed. In the period from games 16 to 20, Kasparov won three games with one defeat, and after draws in the next two games, Kasparov scored the twelfth point, which allowed him to retain the title ahead of schedule. The result of the match is 12½:11½ in favor of the champion. As the winner, Kasparov received a check for $1.7 million and a diamond trophy valued at $600 thousand - the largest prize money in the history of world championships. Shortly before this match, Kasparov broke up with his long-term coach A. Nikitin.

1991 began with a tournament in Linares, where Kasparov was ahead of Vasily Ivanchuk, who also won a personal match against the champion. In Amsterdam, Kasparov shared 3-4 places, and Salov won. Kasparov then won the two-round tournament in Tilburg with a score of 10 out of 14; second prize-winner Short was one and a half points behind. At the end of the year, Kasparov shared 2-3 places with Gelfand at the tournament in Reggio Emilia. The first place was taken by Viswanathan Anand, for whom this victory became a breakthrough into the chess elite. Linares 1992 was a victory for Kasparov, he did not lose a single game and scored 10 out of 13, two points more than Ivanchuk and Timman, who took the prizes. That same year, a tournament took place in Dortmund, where Kasparov shared first place with Ivanchuk. He scored 6 out of 9 and lost two games at once - to Kamsky and Hübner. Linares 1993 Kasparov won again with a score of 10 out of 13, while achieving a brilliant victory over Karpov with black in 27 moves.

In February 1992, the first congress of the Russian Chess Federation took place. Kasparov nominated Arkady Murashev, head of the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate and Kasparov’s ally in the Democratic Party of Russia, for the post of president. Murashev won, and Karpov, due to a conflict with Kasparov over the elections, refused to play for the Russian team at the 1992 Olympics (at which, thanks to the very effective play of Kasparov and the young Vladimir Kramnik, the Russian team won). A year later, new presidential elections took place, in which Yevgeny Bebchuk, supported by Karpov, was elected instead of Murashev.

Break with FIDE and creation of the Professional Chess Association

Disagreeing with the policy pursued by FIDE, on February 27, 1993, Kasparov and Nigel Short, who won the Candidates cycle, announced that they would play their match without the participation of FIDE and under the auspices of a new body, the Professional Chess Association (PCA). FIDE stripped Garry Kasparov of the title of world chess champion and excluded him from its rating lists. Kasparov and Short were reinstated in the ranking only the following year, before the PSA managed to release its own ranking, which was headed by Kasparov. Simultaneously with the Kasparov-Short match, a FIDE World Championship match took place between Karpov and the Candidates Cycle finalist Timman. The match between Kasparov and Short was played for the majority of 24 games. Kasparov immediately took the lead 3½:½ and ended the match early after the 20th game (+6 −1 =13). Subsequently, Kasparov said that the break with FIDE in 1993 was the biggest mistake in his chess career.

At the 18th category super tournament in Linares in 1994, Kasparov shared second place with Shirov, and first place was taken by Karpov, who scored 11 of 13 points and was 2½ points ahead. This tournament is considered one of the strongest in the history of chess, and Karpov's performance is one of the most impressive tournament victories of all time. The tournament was also notable for an incident involving Kasparov and seventeen-year-old Judit Polgar. Kasparov made a knight move, saw White's possible response and moved his piece to another square. The camera recorded that before that he had taken his hand off the knight for 1/4 of a second, so that according to the rules, Kasparov could no longer change the move, but the game continued. In August, Kasparov won a two-round tournament in Novgorod, and in September - a tournament in Zurich, and at the finish of the tournament he defeated two direct competitors - Shirov and Yusupov. In April 1995, the first of three stages of the PSA “Super Classic” tournament series took place - the Tal Memorial in Riga. The game between Kasparov and Anand, who soon faced a match for the world championship, was decisive for determining the winner. Kasparov used the Evans Gambit, rarely seen at the highest level, and won on the 25th move. The second tournament of the series took place in Novgorod a little over a month later. Kasparov was a point ahead of Short, Ivanchuk, Elvest and Topalov.

In the fall of 1995, Kasparov won the world championship match against Viswanathan Anand, held at the World Trade Center in New York. The first eight games ended in a draw, Anand won the ninth, but in the next five games Kasparov won four victories. The match ended early again - after the eighteenth game. Kasparov explained the result this way: “He was prepared very well, personally for me. Anand's coaches took into account all my habits, preferences and characteristics, the openings that I play, etc., etc., but they did not take into account the individual characteristics of Anand himself. They imposed on Vishy a style of play that was unusual for him.” At the end of the year, in the last Super Classic tournament in Horgen, Kasparov came fifth with 5 points out of 10 and only one game won. The first and second places were shared by Ivanchuk, who inflicted the only defeat on Kasparov, and Kramnik.

In January 1996, PSA's primary sponsor Intel announced that it would not renew its sponsorship agreement with PSA. According to Kasparov, the reason for this was Kasparov's desire to play a match against the Deep Blue computer, developed by IBM, a competitor of Intel. Soon the PSA ceased to exist.

In 1996, Kasparov won the first ever XXI category tournament in Las Palmas, which had a record average rating of participants (2756.6). In this tournament, Anand, Ivanchuk, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik and Topalov played in two rounds. Kasparov won one victory each over Topalov, Karpov and Ivanchuk and drew the remaining games, eventually beating the second-place Anand by a point. The first tournament with a higher average rating of participants took place in 2009 (Tal Memorial in Moscow). The following year, Kasparov won in Linares, while winning head-to-head matches against all participants finishing second to sixth, and losing to Ivanchuk, and Novgorod, and also shared first place in Tilburg with Kramnik and Svidler.

In 1998, Kasparov and the newly created World Chess Council, led by Linares tournament organizer Luis Rentero, planned a title match. The challenger was supposed to be determined in the match between Anand and Kramnik, but Anand refused, as he was bound by obligations not to play in challenger cycles not under the auspices of FIDE, so he was replaced by Shirov. Shirov unexpectedly won 5½:3½ and received the right to a match with Kasparov, which was scheduled for the fall of the same year. However, due to financial problems of the sponsor, Rentero, the match did not take place.

In 1999 he won an exceptional match against the whole world. Subsequently, over 18 months in 1999 and 2000, Kasparov won six super tournaments in a row of at least category 18 each. At the beginning of 1999, Kasparov won the annual tournament in Wijk aan Zee (10 out of 13 with one defeat from I. Sokolov; Anand scored 9½, Kramnik - 8). Then he won in Linares with a result of +7 −0 =7, while scoring five victories with black. Kramnik and Anand were 2½ points behind. In May, a tournament took place in Sarajevo, in which Anand and Kramnik did not take part. Kasparov scored 7 out of 9 (no defeats), 2-3 places were shared by Bareev and Shirov (6 each). In the FIDE rating list of July 1999, Kasparov achieved a record rating of 2851. The following year he won another tournament each in Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, Shirov became Kasparov's main competitor, but he lost in the penultimate round to Movsesyan, whom Kasparov himself defeated in the last round.

According to Kasparov, this is the best game he played.

Man vs computer

Garry Kasparov's matches against chess programs aroused great interest. In 1989, the chess program Deep Thought, running on Sun-4 computer hardware, achieved significant success. For the first time in history, the program beat an international grandmaster (Bent Larsen) in an official tournament.

On October 22, 1989, a match of two blitz games between Garry Kasparov and Deep Thought took place in New York. The world champion won them easily. The second meeting was especially significant, in which Kasparov won in a spectacular combination style. After the match, Kasparov said:

If a computer can beat the best of the best at chess, it will mean that the computer is able to compose the best music, write the best books. I can not believe it. If a computer is created with a rating of 2800, that is, equal to mine, I myself will consider it my duty to challenge it to a match in order to protect the human race.

In 1996, representatives of IBM invited Garry Kasparov to play a match against their chess machine “Deep Blue” with a prize fund of $500 thousand. “Deep Blue” is a supercomputer based on the RS6000 system, consisting of 32 nodes, including a total of 512 processors , of which 480 were hardware optimized for the chess program. Deep Blue's performance on general computing (without using special chess processors) corresponded to 11.38 GFLOPS; the computer could evaluate up to 200 million positions per second. Kasparov's first match against a chess computer took place in February 1996, and the man won with a score of 4:2, but lost the first game. This was the first time in history that a computer won a game against a world champion using classical time control.

In the second match, IBM offered a prize fund of $1.1 million, of which $700 thousand was to go to the winner. A six-match match with normal time control (120 minutes for 40 moves) took place in May 1997. As a result, for the first time in history, the world champion lost to the computer with a score of 2½: 3½.

2nd game of the match “Deep Blue” – Kasparov (1997). The computer brilliantly realizes positional advantage 35. Bxd6! B:d6 36. ab ab 37. Ce4!!. Why didn't White play 36. Qb6 Qe7 and then 37. ab Lab8 38 Q:a6? Black sacrifices three pawns, getting a difficult counterplay with possible chances, but the benefit of the continuation chosen by the program 37. Ce4 not at all obvious. According to Sergei Makarychev, it is difficult to explain how a chess program could find such a typically human, subtle positional move.

The supercomputer was in a separate room. A representative of the IBM team sat at the board opposite Kasparov. Feng-Xiong Xu, who was at the origins of the project, or one of the other two Deep Blue programmers. Feng-Xiong Xu carried out all communication with Deep Blue through a special monitor. The technical terminal (monitor) in the room adjacent to the machine room was under the control of one of the match referees. One of the regular grandmasters was also on duty there, who could accept or reject Kasparov's offer of a draw. Theoretically, a specially invited chess player could be between the monitor in the gaming room and the supercomputer and influence the course of the game.

In the second game of the 1997 match, Kasparov, finding himself in a difficult situation, sacrificed a pawn (see diagram). “Deep Blue” thought about the 35th move for 14 minutes, and over the 36th move for 6 minutes, although he usually spent from one to five minutes “thinking” about the move, and Kasparov received fragments key points. Details of how the program "thought" were not provided, and Kasparov accused IBM of cheating. According to Kasparov, in several cases the computer could be helped by a person, since the program played with differences, periodically choosing moves that were uncharacteristic of publicly available programs of that time.

20 years after the match, Kasparov summed up his doubts in his new book, Deep Thinking:

I've been asked countless times, "Did Deep Blue cheat?" and my honest answer was always, "I don't know." After twenty years of soul-searching, exposure and analysis, my answer is now “no.” As for IBM, the lengths they went to win was a betrayal of the principles of fair competition, but the real victim of this betrayal was science.

It worked under the Windows Server 2000 operating system and 8 Intel Xeon 1.6 GHz processors. Kasparov, using an “anti-computer” strategy, won the first game and had a significant advantage in the second, but drew it. In the third game, he made a gross miscalculation and gave up on move 34. In the remaining games, Kasparov was careful and reduced them to quick draws. The result of the match is 3:3.

In November 2003, a match between Kasparov and “Fritz X3D” (a version of “Deep Fritz” with a three-dimensional interface) took place. According to the terms of the match, a person had to play in special 3D glasses. "Deep Fritz" ran on a computer with 4 Intel Xeon processors. A year before, the same program played a draw in a match with Vladimir Kramnik with similar rules. The meeting took place in New York. In a match of 4 games with one victory, one defeat and two draws, an equal result was achieved 2:2. It is interesting to note that in the fourth game, “Deep Fritz” unexpectedly offered a queen as a sacrifice, but the grandmaster rejected the sacrifice and calmly brought the game to a draw. As a result of the fight, Kasparov received $175 thousand and a gold statuette.

"Deep Junior" and "Deep Fritz" are commercial programs with an evaluation speed of about 3-4 million positions per second (2003). Copies of the programs were provided to Kasparov before the match for analysis. The computer with the program was located directly in the gaming room. There were no suspicions of fraud on Kasparov's part. Summing up the match with “Deep Junior”, Kasparov shared the idea that in a few years a person will no longer have any chance in confrontation with chess programs.

Former world champion

During 2001, Kasparov won three tournaments in a row. His first competition as a former world champion was the tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Kasparov scored 9 out of 13 and beat Anand by half a point, Kramnik shared 3-4 places. Kasparov then won the annual tournament in Linares (7½ out of 10) and the tournament in Astana, where Russia again took first place. On the first board he scored 7½ points out of 9, this result corresponded to a rating of 2933, and according to this indicator, Kasparov’s performance was absolutely the best at the Olympiad.

Linares 2003 was unsuccessful, Kasparov shared 3-4 places with Anand. In the second round, Kasparov lost a winning position in a game with fifteen-year-old Teymur Radjabov. When it was announced at the closing ceremony that this game was recognized as the most beautiful in the tournament, Kasparov publicly stated that he regarded this choice as a public insult and humiliation. In 2004, Kasparov played for the first time in the Russian Chess Championship. The 57th national championship featured ten of the strongest chess players, with the exception of Kramnik and Karpov. Kasparov won with a result of +5 −0 =5 and was ahead of Grischuk by one and a half points.

Kasparov announced his retirement from sports on March 10, 2005 at a press conference at the end of the super tournament in Linares. In it, Kasparov scored an equal number of points with Topalov, from whom he suffered his only defeat in the last round, but according to additional indicators (the number of victories in black) he was declared the winner. Kasparov explained his decision by a lack of motivation - he had achieved everything in chess - and by the fact that he was never given the opportunity to fight for the world title again after losing to Kramnik (in particular, the match against FIDE world champion Ponomarev did not take place). Kasparov also said that he plans to compete in blitz tournaments and other exhibition events in the future, and will make his main priorities work on books and participation in Russian politics. Carlsen later clarified that he had become responsible for his own career decisions, but would continue to maintain contact with Kasparov.

In the fall of the same 2010, Kasparov supported Karpov, who was running for the post of FIDE President. However, the incumbent president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, won the election.

In 2014, Kasparov, running from Croatia, himself became Ilyumzhinov’s rival in the next elections. He built a campaign on criticizing FIDE as a “corrupt organization” and Ilyumzhinov as an ally of “Putin’s dictatorial regime.” In turn, Ilyumzhinov accused Kasparov of trying to buy the votes of delegates: as a result of the leak, a draft agreement between Kasparov and a member of his team, the FIDE Secretary General, became available to the public Ignatius Leong, according to which Leong, for a fee, had to ensure that Asian delegates voted for Kasparov. Ilyumzhinov won the election with a score of 110:61. In September 2015, the FIDE Ethics Commission found Kasparov and Leong guilty of violating clause 2.1 of the FIDE Code of Ethics, which prohibits offering or accepting a bribe to influence the outcome of a chess game or an election for a position in FIDE. On October 21, 2015, FIDE suspended Kasparov and Leong from any official chess-related activities. “Kasparov and Leong are prohibited from holding any position in FIDE, including in its member national federations, continental associations, affiliated organizations, as well as from participating in FIDE meetings as a delegate, representative or member for two years,” it says in the organization's statement. He scored 3.5 out of 9 in rapid chess and 9 out of 18 in blitz, sharing 8th-10th places in total points.

KASPAROV GARRY KIMOVICH

Real name: Harry Kimovich Weinstein

(born 1963)

Famous chess player, grandmaster. The youngest world champion in the history of chess, who has won this title many times. Sevenfold Olympic champion. Publicist, politician and financier.

Kasparov's creative rise is amazing. Already at the age of sixteen he became the world chess champion among youths, at seventeen he received the title of grandmaster, and at twenty-two he became the world champion among adults. The regalia of this outstanding chess player can be listed for a very long time. For example, he held the title of world champion for fifteen years and received the Chess Oscar nine times. Of course, time passes, new champions appear, but we should not forget those who have been the elite of international sports for many years.

Garry Kimovich was born on April 13, 1963 in Baku. His father, Kim Moiseevich Weinstein, was a power engineer by profession. His mother, Klara Shagenovna Kasparova, whose last name Harry later took, worked for a long time as a senior researcher at the Azerbaijan Scientific Research Electrotechnical Institute.

Garry Kasparov's father was very versatile developed person, loved art, played chess well. The boy learned to play chess very early, watching his parents play. When the choice arose - to study chess or music, the father, who noticed his son’s analytical abilities, decided that he had to make a choice in favor of chess. Harry began to seriously study chess at the Baku Palace of Pioneers. He was distinguished by his great work ethic and this is what attracted the attention of his coach, Oleg Privorotsky. Classes at the All-Union School of ex-world champion Mikhail Botvinnik gave Kasparov an understanding of the strategy of the game and developed his inherent analytical skills. For the first time, Harry showed himself in serious competitions in 1973 - then he competed as part of the Azerbaijani team at the All-Union Youth Games in Vilnius. After this, Harry confidently won the USSR youth championships in 1976 and 1977. In fact, already at this time he was playing like a master. Officially, he received this title after winning the 1978 Memorial Match in memory of A. Sokolsky. Two years later, Kasparov became the champion of the USSR - the youngest in history.

By the age of eighteen, Harry already had an impressive set of chess awards and titles. In addition, he also had a gold medal for excellent completion of high school. And now there remains one, but the most cherished goal - to become a world champion. Enormous long-term work yielded results: Kasparov wins the candidates' matches and receives the right to the match for the world championship, which took place in 1984 between him and the then world champion Anatoly Karpov. In terms of the drama of the struggle and the intensity of non-sports passions, this match has no equal to this day. The rivals played out to the point that FIDE President Florencio Campomanes was forced to interrupt the match without announcing the result. The new match, which began on September 1, 1985 in Moscow, brought Kasparov the long-awaited championship title - the thirteenth in the history of chess.

However, Karpov did not give up and continued the fight. He tried to take revenge a year later, but was defeated again. And this continued until 1990, when Karpov lost the last, fifth match and dropped out of the fight for the world championship.

One of Kasparov's main character traits is the ability to overcome difficulties, despite opposition. In order to hone his already extraordinary skills, he arranged simultaneous games with the national teams of Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, and Israel. And he won in all of them.

In 1988–2000, Kasparov became the winner of numerous tournaments and matches. As a result of a series of victories in super tournaments in 1999, his rating rose to 2851 units (Elo rating is the main indicator of a chess player’s playing strength in modern chess). And this despite the fact that so far no one has managed to overcome the 2800 unit mark.

By leaving FIDE in 1993, Kasparov provoked a serious split among chess players. He created an alternative to FIDE, the Professional Chess Association, which began holding international competitions and organized the 1995 world championship. After its collapse, for five whole years no one undertook to organize a duel for the chess crown against Kasparov. It turned out that for five years the champion rested on his laurels, without defending his title. And in 2000, the English company Brain Games Net Work organized such a match. For the first time, the contender was not determined through preliminary qualifying games, but was appointed at the request of the sponsors. Initially there were two such candidates - Anand and Vladimir Kramnik, but Anand was not satisfied with the conditions of the match. The match took place in November 2000. Kasparov was defeated and lost the championship title to Kramnik. Despite his seemingly good relationship with his opponent, Kasparov regularly criticizes him for refusing a rematch.

In general, Garry Kimovich has been criticizing more than playing in recent years. From his point of view, the whole world is bad and getting worse. Kasparov does not cooperate with FIDE, blaming its president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for the collapse of organizational activities. He accuses his fellow grandmasters of excessive love of money, forcing them to compete in the FIDE World Championship. At the same time, he advocates for the professionalization of sports and seeks to control the prize fund of his matches. In early 2003, Kasparov tried to sign a contract for a world title match with Ruslan Ponomarev, the official FIDE champion. Despite what was supposed to be a fair fight, which also included a semi-final match between Kramnik and Peter Leko, Ponomarev was offered to sign a contract stating that his match with Kasparov was a match for the championship title. Having not agreed on conditions that suited both rivals, Ponomarev’s lawyers did not agree to sign the contract, as a result of which the match was disrupted. Although it is possible, if the parties are able to agree, it will still happen.

The confrontation between Kasparov and FIDE continues. And because of this, the audience loses, for whom, in fact, the athletes perform. It is difficult to imagine further world championships held by FIDE without Kasparov and Kramnik. And they may get tired of playing with each other.

Kasparov was and is actively involved in promoting chess, as well as the combination of chess art with the latest technologies. The matches held in 1996 in Philadelphia and 1997 in New York against the supercomputer Deep Blue, created by IBM, gained enormous popularity. Kasparov's game was a demonstration of the enormous capabilities of man, despite the final loss. By the way, Kasparov's successor in the championship title, Vladimir Kramnik, also failed to beat the computer in November 2002, ending the game in a draw with a score of 4:4.

Garry Kimovich is an active supporter of using the Internet for live broadcasting of competitions, organizing the educational process, and actively advertising chess. The chess website “Kasparov Club”, created in 1998, is now quite popular. During the Kasparov vs. the World match, organized in 1999 by Microsoft, the site was visited by more than three million people.

On November 18, 2003, the match between Garry Kasparov and the chess computer X3D Fritz ended with a score of 2:2. The fight was broadcast on the Internet in real time. One of the main features of this match was that the game was played on a virtual board, which the grandmaster saw using special glasses that provided a three-dimensional image. It was precisely the unusual and difficult conditions in which the match took place that was put forward by Kasparov as the argument for defeat in two games. At a press conference after the match, he said that the organizers had failed to create equal conditions for the participants, meaning themselves first and foremost. “In my opinion, the person should have been given more time,” he said. However, despite the defeat, the prize fund of the match in the amount of 250 thousand dollars was divided equally between Kasparov and the Fritz developers.

Despite the fact that chess occupies a central place in Kasparov’s life, it is not limited to it. He prefers to harmoniously combine sports, family and even politics. True, with varying degrees of success.

Any sport comes easily to him. Kasparov enjoys playing football, tennis, doing gymnastics and running, and swimming.

His family life Harry is completely satisfied. He is married for the second time, his wife’s name is Julia. In 1996, their son Vadim was born. From his first marriage he has a daughter, Polina (1993).

But Kasparov’s attempts to get involved in politics were not very successful. When in 1991, the chess player, unexpectedly for his fans, went into politics, he believed that he could influence the situation in the country. He became chairman of the Moscow city organization of the Democratic Party of Russia. Then he announced the creation of his own Liberal Conservative Party. But over the years, disappointment grew, and gradually Garry Kimovich withdrew from active participation in public life, and then finally left big politics.

Now Kasparov states in an interview that he has completely lost faith in reforms, does not want to have any business with Russia and all his interests are abroad. In general, over the years, Kasparov’s comments about Russia have become increasingly harsh. From his point of view, chess is dead here. The ex-champion is apparently offended for some reason by the country that raised him to be a grandmaster. Well, everyone has the right to their opinion. And Harry Kimovich’s opinions are sometimes very interesting, as the German magazine Sport Review noted in the early 1990s. The magazine decided to create a portrait of the ideal champion. And the head of such a champion, according to the magazine, should have been the head of Garry Kasparov. The magazine noted that it takes Kasparov 6–8 hours a day to train his thoughts, but these thoughts are original and sometimes paradoxical.

This paradoxical nature of thoughts was brilliantly confirmed by Kasparov, who became interested in a new field of activity for himself - history. He wrote an article for the Ogonyok magazine on the so-called “new chronology”. In this article, with the aplomb of an amateur, he “defeated” what he considered to be history professionals. And everything would have been fine if Harry, in a rush of research, had not declared himself literally the founder and discoverer of the genre, accidentally forgetting to mention the actual authors of his widely advertised theory - mathematicians Nosovsky and Fomenko. And in terms of the level of scientific ignorance, he far surpassed even these reformers, which he brilliantly confirmed folk proverb: “Don’t get in your own sleigh.”

Despite the failures and disappointments of recent years, Garry Kasparov is not yet thinking about retiring from big-time sports. He is going to fight for the future of chess, for its introduction into the education system. For this purpose, he even took up writing. Kasparov is currently working on a five-volume edition of “My Great Predecessors.”

Garry KASPAROV MONUMENT TO THE OLD REGIME It is commonly said: you are lucky to have friends. But it can also be lucky against enemies. Karpov was historically very lucky that his main opponent for many years was Korchnoi. “Renegade”, “traitor”, “traitor”, “defector”... Which