Garry Kasparov: The Greatest Chess Player Who Ever Lived

 

He was the youngest World Champion in history. He held the number one ranking for twenty consecutive years — longer than any other player in the history of the official Elo rating system. He fought five matches against Karpov, took on IBM's supercomputer, and then walked away from chess to fight for democracy in Russia. Garry Kasparov was not just the greatest chess player of his era. He may be the greatest who ever lived.

Born in Baku — Two Cultures, One Fire

Garry Kasparov was born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on April 13, 1963, in Baku — the capital of the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. His father, Kim Weinstein, was Jewish. His mother, Clara Kasparova, was Armenian. In a city dominated by ethnic Azerbaijanis and Russians, he was a double minority from birth.

As Kasparov describes in How Life Imitates Chess, the book he wrote after retiring from professional chess, his earliest memory of ambition was not chess — it was maps. On his sixth birthday, he woke to find an enormous globe beside his bed. His father read him stories of Marco Polo, Columbus, and Magellan. The young Garry memorized the capitals and populations of every country in the world. He wanted to blaze new trails. That pioneer spirit, formed before he was seven years old, never left him.

Chess arrived the same year. The five-year-old Kasparov noticed his parents puzzling over a chess problem in the local newspaper. He worked it out himself. His father taught him the rules. He was soon beating his teacher. Two years later, Kim Weinstein died of cancer. Kasparov and his mother went to live with her parents — and at twelve, he took his mother's family name. Garik Weinstein became Garry Kasparov.

His mother Clara became his manager, his protector, and his greatest supporter — a presence that ran through his entire chess career. He dedicated How Life Imitates Chess simply: "To my Mother, for a lifetime of inspiration and support."

Botvinnik's School — The Making of a Champion

By age 12, Kasparov had won the Soviet Junior Championship. By 17 he was world under-20 champion. He was accepted into the Botvinnik School — the legendary training institution that had already produced Karpov — and studied under the Patriarch himself.

In How Life Imitates Chess, Kasparov writes about the profound influence of Botvinnik's method: "Turning a game into a science." Botvinnik's rigorous system of preparation, analysis, and self-examination shaped everything Kasparov would later become. But where Botvinnik was scientific and methodical, Kasparov added something volcanic — a competitive fury that the Patriarch had never possessed and would not have known how to teach.

He became Grandmaster in 1980 at age 17. By 1984, at just 21, he was ranked number one in the world. And then came the matches against Karpov.

The Style — Fire and Science Combined

Kasparov was the synthesis of everything that had come before. He had Botvinnik's preparation and scientific method. He had Tal's attacking instinct and appetite for chaos. He had Alekhine's ferocity and desire to crush. And he wrapped all of it inside a universal style — capable of playing any type of position, adapting to any opponent — that no player in history had combined so completely.

In How Life Imitates Chess, Kasparov describes how his formula developed: not through a fixed method, but through constant self-examination, constant challenge, and the refusal to stay in a comfort zone. "Throughout my chess career I sought new challenges, looking for things no one had done before," he writes. "I wanted to blaze new trails."

What made him terrifying was the combination of depth and aggression. He prepared openings to a level nobody had reached before — memorizing lines twenty or thirty moves deep, creating novelties that his opponents could not have anticipated. Then, inside those positions, he attacked with a ferocity that overwhelmed even players who knew what was coming.

"The highest possible goal is to combine the qualities of the machines — their calculation speed and lack of bias — with the human ability to use knowledge creatively, to see the big picture, and to dream." — Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess

The Five Matches — Karpov

Between 1984 and 1990, Kasparov and Karpov played five World Championship matches — 144 games across six years. It is the greatest sustained rivalry in chess history, and arguably in all of sport.

The 1984 match was stopped after 48 games with Karpov leading 5-3 — controversial to this day, with many believing Kasparov had turned the match around and was about to win it. In 1985, Kasparov became the thirteenth World Chess Champion at 22 — the youngest in history, breaking Tal's record. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/BBgDvtoUR5M 

In 1986 he defended the title. In 1987 in Seville, Karpov led going into the final game and needed only a draw — Kasparov won it in one of the greatest clutch performances in championship history. In 1990, Kasparov won again.

Five matches. Five years. And by the end, as Kasparov reflects in How Life Imitates Chess in his chapter on crisis: "Crisis in Seville, a case study" — he had learned something no training could have taught him. That the decisive moments of a career define who you are. And that the game can be won before you get to the board, in the inner preparation that nobody sees.

Breaking With FIDE — 1993

In 1993, Kasparov challenged the structure of world chess itself. Dissatisfied with FIDE's management and prize money arrangements, he and challenger Nigel Short broke away from FIDE to form the Professional Chess Association and held their own match outside FIDE's jurisdiction. Kasparov won.

FIDE stripped him of the official title and declared Karpov the new FIDE champion. For the next seven years, chess had two world champions — Kasparov, recognized by the chess world as the strongest player by far, and Karpov, holding the FIDE title. The split damaged the sport and was not fully healed until 2006. Kasparov's rating and results throughout this period left no doubt about who was the best player in the world. But the institutional damage was real and lasting.

Man vs Machine — Deep Blue 1996 and 1997

In 1996, IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue became the first machine to beat a reigning World Champion in a game played under standard tournament conditions. Kasparov won the match overall 4-2. Then came 1997.

The 1997 rematch against the upgraded Deep Blue remains one of the most discussed events in the history of human-machine competition. Kasparov lost 3½ to 2½. He famously accused IBM of cheating after a mysterious move in Game 2 that appeared to show a depth of positional understanding beyond what the machine was supposed to be capable of. IBM denied it. The match was never rematched. Deep Blue was retired shortly after. The controversy has never been fully resolved.

Kasparov later wrote extensively about this period in his book Deep Thinking. And in How Life Imitates Chess, he addresses the human-machine relationship with characteristic directness: "Man plus machine is stronger than either." He believed — and still believes — that collaboration between human intelligence and computational power is the correct model, not competition. His defeat by Deep Blue did not change that conviction.

"Imagination, calculation and my greatest game... The highest challenge is to combine these — to use calculation as a tool of imagination, not a substitute for it." — Garry Kasparov, How Life Imitates Chess

The Fall — Kramnik 2000

In 2000, Vladimir Kramnik — Kasparov's own student, a man he had coached and mentored — challenged him for the Classical World Championship in London. Kasparov had not lost a match in fifteen years. He had been number one for two decades. Nobody seriously expected him to lose.

Kramnik had prepared something nobody saw coming. He adopted the Berlin Defence — a supposedly dry, drawish variation of the Ruy Lopez that Kasparov had never taken seriously. It strangled Kasparov's attacking possibilities completely. Kasparov could not find a way through. The match ended 8½ to 6½ in Kramnik's favor — two wins to Kasparov's zero, with thirteen draws.

In How Life Imitates Chess, Kasparov's chapter on "Question Success" addresses this directly: "Success is the enemy of future success." The gravity of past success, the comfort zone of expertise — these were the dangers he had written about, the dangers that caught him. Kramnik had studied him more deeply than anyone, and Kasparov had not seen it coming.

Retirement and the Fight for Democracy

In March 2005, Kasparov announced his retirement from professional chess at the age of 41. He was still rated number one in the world. He left not because he had to — but because he had decided to fight a different battle.

He became a leading opposition figure in Russia, founding the United Civil Front and the Other Russia coalition, organizing protests against Vladimir Putin's government, and writing extensively about democracy and authoritarianism. As he describes in How Life Imitates Chess: "Being passionate about advocating for democracy isn't enough. To build coalitions and organize conferences requires me to apply my strategic vision and other chess skills in entirely new ways."

He was arrested multiple times during protests in Moscow. He was physically attacked. He received death threats. In 2013, he became a citizen of Croatia, and later of Iceland — the same country that had given Bobby Fischer refuge. He now lives outside Russia, continuing his advocacy from abroad and writing for publications including the Wall Street Journal.

Facts That Nobody Tells You

1. He was born Garik Weinstein — and changed his name at 12. Kasparov's birth name was Garik Kimovich Weinstein — his father was Jewish, his mother Armenian. After his father died of cancer when Kasparov was seven, he and his mother went to live with her family. At twelve, he took his mother's family name and became Garry Kasparov. The name change was practical — but it also marked the beginning of the career that would make him the most famous chess player in history.

2. He remained world number one for twenty consecutive years. From January 1984 until his retirement in 2005, Kasparov was ranked number one in the world — with only two brief interruptions. No other player in the history of organized international competition has held the top ranking for anything close to that length of time in the Elo rating era. It is worth noting that Emanuel Lasker held the World Championship title for 27 years — the longest reign in history — but Lasker played before the official rating system existed. Within the Elo era, Kasparov's dominance has no equal. He broke Bobby Fischer's rating record in 1990 and his own peak rating of 2851 remained the highest ever recorded until Magnus Carlsen surpassed it in 2013.

3. His mother was his manager for his entire career. Clara Kasparova managed her son's career from the beginning — handling negotiations, travel, logistics, and the politics of the Soviet chess establishment. She accompanied him to every major match and championship. Kasparov dedicated How Life Imitates Chess to her: "To my Mother, for a lifetime of inspiration and support." In the chess world, their partnership was unlike anything seen before or since.

4. Deep Blue's mysterious move in Game 2 of 1997 has never been fully explained. In Game 2 of the 1997 Deep Blue rematch, the computer played a move of such subtle positional depth that Kasparov — and many grandmasters who analyzed it afterwards — believed it was beyond the machine's supposed capabilities. Kasparov accused IBM of human interference. IBM denied it. Deep Blue was retired and never played again. The move has never been fully accounted for, and the controversy has never been resolved.

5. The student who beat him had been his own protégé. Vladimir Kramnik, who defeated Kasparov in 2000, had been coached and mentored by Kasparov himself. Kasparov had recognized Kramnik's talent and helped develop him. The match in London was won by Kramnik with the Berlin Defence — a variation Kasparov had dismissed as too passive and had not seriously prepared for. He was beaten by someone who had learned from him, using something he had not taken seriously.

6. He wrote one of the most ambitious chess book series in history. After retiring, Kasparov wrote My Great Predecessors — five volumes covering every World Chess Champion from Steinitz to Karpov, with full game annotations and historical analysis. It is considered one of the most comprehensive works of chess literature ever produced. He also wrote On My Great Predecessors about his contemporaries, and How Life Imitates Chess — his personal philosophy of decision-making drawn from a lifetime at the highest level of the game.

7. He was still rated number one in the world when he retired. Kasparov retired from professional chess in March 2005 — while still ranked number one. He did not retire because his results were declining. He retired because he had decided to redirect his competitive energy toward politics and democracy in Russia. He remains the only World Chess Champion to retire voluntarily at the peak of his powers, still the highest-rated player alive.

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What He Left Behind

Garry Kasparov left behind the most dominant competitive record in chess history. Twenty years at number one. Fifteen years as World Champion in one form or another. Five matches against Karpov. A peak rating that stood as the highest ever for fourteen years.

But he also left behind something less measurable — a philosophy. In How Life Imitates Chess, written after his retirement, he articulates what chess taught him about decision-making, strategy, preparation, and the inner game. The book is not a chess manual. It is a distillation of what twenty-five years of competing at the highest level of human endeavour teaches a person about how to think. "Better decision-making cannot be taught," he writes, "but it can be self-taught." That idea — that self-examination is the only path to genuine improvement — runs through everything he did at the board and everything he has done since.

Magnus Carlsen has described Kasparov as his greatest influence. Kasparov coached Carlsen from 2009 to 2010 — the period immediately before Carlsen became number one. Anand, Kramnik, Nakamura — every major player of the modern era has studied his games, absorbed his opening innovations, and competed in a chess world shaped by his twenty years at the top.

He left chess at 41 to fight for something he believed mattered more. That choice tells you everything about who he is. The board was never enough. There was always a bigger game.

Want to Go Deeper?

There is no better way to understand Kasparov's chess than through his own eyes. Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part 1: 1973-1985 — written by Kasparov himself — covers his most fascinating encounters from his emergence as a chess star in Baku all the way to his first World Championship match against Karpov. Rigorous, detailed, and deeply personal, it is the first volume in a series that records the greatest chess battles played by the greatest chess player of all time.

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His Greatest Games — Study Them Yourself

You can find all of these on chessgames.com

• Kasparov vs Topalov — Wijk aan Zee 1999 (widely called the greatest game ever played)
• Kasparov vs Karpov — World Championship 1985, Game 16
• Kasparov vs Karpov — World Championship 1986, Game 22
• Kasparov vs Deep Blue — Philadelphia 1996, Game 1 (first win by a human over a machine)
• Kasparov vs Shirov — Linares 1994
• Kasparov vs Karpov — World Championship 1987, Game 24 (the Seville save)
• Kasparov vs Short — PCA World Championship 1993, Game 7
• Kasparov vs Anand — Riga 1995
• Kasparov vs Geller — USSR Championship 1981
• Kasparov vs Smyslov — Candidates Final 1984

Every champion before him defined chess by their style. Kasparov redefined what was possible — in preparation, in rating, in dominance, and in the courage to walk away from the game entirely when something more important demanded his attention.