Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov, PhDis a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once again after Kasparov broke away from FIDE in 1993. He held the title until 1999, when he resigned his title in protest against FIDE's new world championship rules. For his decades-long standing...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionChess Player
Date of Birth23 May 1951
CountryRussian Federation
If, in our first match for the world champion's title, I had managed to make the score 6-0, there would have been no Kasparov as a good chess player at all.
Like dogs who sniff each other when meeting, chess players have a ritual at first acquaintance: they sit down to play speed chess.
To be champion requires more than simply being a strong player; one has to be a strong human being as well.
The first great chess players, including the world champion, got by perfectly well without constant coaches.
By all means examine the games of the great chess players, but don't swallow them whole. Their games are valuable not for their separate moves, but for their vision of chess, their way of thinking.
My idea is to make moves to bring chess back to the world's map, to make it part of the world's geography again.
I was world champion. For me, chess is my life. It is everything.
To be a champion requires more than simply being a strong player; one has to be a strong human being as well.
Putin needs strong moves to keep the country as one. There is some criticism that he is centralizing power, but in Russia, if you don't centralize power, you have the risk of losing the country.
Las Vegas is a beautiful place. I like it more and more and plan to be here often. It's a great place for chess.
Russia is a state within a state. To understand the population of Russia, you need to know the areas of the country; you need an understanding of the people and their interests.
I like 1.e4 very much but my results with 1.d4 are better.
I didn't picture myself as even a grandmaster, to say nothing of aspiring to the chess crown. This was not because I was timid - I wasn't - but because I simply lived in one world, and the grandmasters existed in a completely different one. People like that were not really even people, but like gods or mythical heroes.
But how difficult it can be to gain the desired full point against an opponent of inferior strength, when this is demanded by the tournament position!