163 Facts About Garry Kasparov

Garry Kimovich Kasparov was born on 13 April 1963 and is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, political activist and writer.

Garry Kasparov holds records for the most consecutive professional tournament victories and Chess Oscars.

Garry Kasparov became the youngest-ever undisputed world champion in 1985 at age 22 by defeating then-champion Anatoly Karpov.

Garry Kasparov defended the title against Karpov three times, in 1986,1987 and 1990.

Garry Kasparov held the official FIDE world title until 1993, when a dispute with FIDE led him to set up a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association.

Garry Kasparov continued to hold the "Classical" world title until his defeat by Vladimir Kramnik in 2000.

Since retiring from chess, Garry Kasparov has devoted his time to writing and politics.

Garry Kasparov formed the United Civil Front movement and was a member of The Other Russia, a coalition opposing the administration and policies of Vladimir Putin.

Garry Kasparov is chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and chairs its International Council.

Garry Kasparov is a security ambassador for the software company Avast.

Garry Kasparov began the serious study of chess after he came across a problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.

From age seven, Garry Kasparov attended the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku and, at ten, began training at Mikhail Botvinnik's chess school under coach Vladimir Makogonov.

Garry Kasparov was being coached by Alexander Shakarov during this time.

In 1978, Garry Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk.

Garry Kasparov had received a special invitation to enter the tournament but took first place and became a chess master.

Garry Kasparov has stressed that this event was a turning point in his life and that it convinced him to choose chess as his career: "I will remember the Sokolsky Memorial as long as I live", he wrote.

Garry Kasparov has said that after the victory, he thought he had a very good shot at the world championship.

Garry Kasparov was a replacement for the Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi, who was originally invited but withdrew due to the threat of a boycott from the Soviets.

Garry Kasparov won this high-class tournament, emerging with a provisional rating of 2595, enough to catapult him to the top group of chess players.

Garry Kasparov earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal tournament, which he won, to qualify for the Candidates Tournament.

In January 1984, Garry Kasparov became the No 1 ranked player in the world, with a FIDE rating of 2710.

Garry Kasparov became the youngest-ever world No 1, a record that lasted 12 years until being broken by Kramnik in January 1996.

Karpov, with White, needed to win the 24th game to retain the title but Garry Kasparov won it with the Sicilian Defence.

Garry Kasparov was 22 years old at the time, making him the youngest-ever world champion, a record held by Mikhail Tal for over 20 years.

At one point in the match, Garry Kasparov opened a three-point lead and looked well on his way to a decisive victory.

At this point, Garry Kasparov dismissed one of his seconds, grandmaster Evgeny Vladimirov, accusing him of selling his opening preparation to the Karpov team.

In November 1986, Garry Kasparov had created the Grandmasters Association to represent professional players and give them more say in FIDE's activities.

Garry Kasparov defended his PCA title in a 1995 match against Viswanathan Anand at the World Trade Center in New York City.

Garry Kasparov won the match by four wins to one, with thirteen draws.

Garry Kasparov tried to organise another world championship match under a different organisation, the World Chess Association, with Linares organiser Luis Rentero.

In 1997, Garry Kasparov supported a scholarship programme at the school.

Garry Kasparov made a critical error in game 10 with the Nimzo-Indian Defence, which Kramnik exploited to win in 25 moves.

Garry Kasparov won a series of major tournaments and remained the PCA top-rated player in the world, ahead of both Kramnik and the FIDE World Champion.

Garry Kasparov was to play a match against the FIDE World Champion Ponomariov in September 2003.

Garry Kasparov announced in January 2005 that he was tired of waiting for FIDE to arrange a match and had decided to stop all efforts to become undisputed world champion once more.

Garry Kasparov cited as the reason a lack of personal goals in the chess world.

Garry Kasparov expressed frustration at the failure to reunify the world championship.

Garry Kasparov said he might play in some rapid chess events for fun, but he intended to spend more time on his books, including the My Great Predecessors series, and work on the links between decision-making in chess and other areas of life.

On 22 August 2006, in his first public chess games since his retirement, Garry Kasparov played in the Lichthof Chess Champions Tournament, a blitz event played at the time control of five minutes per side and three-second increments per move.

Garry Kasparov coached Carlsen for approximately one year, beginning in February 2009.

In May 2010, Garry Kasparov played and won 30 games simultaneously against players at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Garry Kasparov began training the US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura in January 2011.

Garry Kasparov played two blitz exhibition matches in the autumn of 2011.

On 25 and 26 April 2015, Garry Kasparov played a mini-match against Short.

Commentators GM Maurice Ashley and Alejandro Ramirez remarked how Garry Kasparov was an 'initiative hog' throughout the match, consistently not allowing Short to gain any foothold in the games.

Garry Kasparov won the match decisively, winning all five games on the second day.

Garry Kasparov played and won all nineteen games of a simultaneous exhibition in Pula, Croatia on 19 August 2015.

At the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis on 28 and 29 April 2016, Garry Kasparov played a 6-round exhibition blitz round-robin tournament with Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So and Nakamura in an event called the Ultimate Blitz Challenge.

At the post-tournament interview, Garry Kasparov announced that he would donate his winnings from playing the next top-level blitz exhibition match to assist funding of the American Olympic Team.

On 2 June 2016, Garry Kasparov played against fifteen chess players in a simultaneous exhibition in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Halle of Monchengladbach.

On 7 October 2013, Garry Kasparov announced his candidacy for World Chess Federation president during a reception in Tallinn, Estonia, where the 84th FIDE Congress took place.

Garry Kasparov finished eighth in a strong field of ten, including Nakamura, Caruana, former world champion Anand and the eventual winner, Levon Aronian.

Garry Kasparov promised that any tournament money he earned would go towards charities to promote chess in Africa.

Garry Kasparov launched Kasparovchess, a subscription-based online chess community featuring documentaries, lessons, puzzles, podcasts, articles, interviews and playing zones, in 2021.

Garry Kasparov played in the blitz section of the Grand Chess Tour 2021 event in Zagreb, Croatia.

Garry Kasparov represented the Soviet Union four times and Russia four times, following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Garry Kasparov made his international debut for the USSR at age 16 in the 1980 European Team Championship and played for Russia in the 1992 edition of that championship.

Garry Kasparov represented the USSR once at the Youth Olympiad in Austria.

In 1999, Garry Kasparov reached an Elo rating of 2851 points, a record that stood for over thirteen years: on 10 December 2012, Carlsen achieved an unofficial rating of 2861 points, with which he topped the next release of the rating in January 2013.

On 1 January 2006, Garry Kasparov ranked first with a coefficient of 2812.

Karpov was considered a representative of the Soviet nomenklatura, while Garry Kasparov was young and popular, positioned himself as a "child of change", willingly gave candid interviews and had an aura of a rebel, although he never was a dissident.

Garry Kasparov's games are characterised by a dynamic style of play with a focus on tactics, depth of strategy, subtle calculation and original opening ideas.

Garry Kasparov was known for his extensive opening preparation and aggressive play in it.

Garry Kasparov's attacking style of play has been compared by many to Alekhine, his chess idol since childhood.

Garry Kasparov has described his style as being influenced chiefly by Alekhine, Tal and Fischer.

In 1973, Garry Kasparov entered the Botvinnik school and immediately attracted attention.

Garry Kasparov successfully used this opening, which was considered outdated, in the 1990 match against Karpov and in matches with Short and Anand.

Garry Kasparov used this variation in the 12th and 16th games of the match with Karpov in 1985; in the second of these games, he scored a victory.

Garry Kasparov headed the PCA rating list during the split from FIDE.

Garry Kasparov's rating has fallen inactive since the January 2006 rating list.

In January 1990, Garry Kasparov achieved the highest FIDE rating ever, passing 2800 and breaking Fischer's old record of 2785.

Garry Kasparov held that record until Carlsen attained a new record high rating of 2861 in January 2013.

Garry Kasparov holds the record for most consecutive professional tournament victories, placing first or equal first in fifteen individual tournaments from 1981 to 1990.

The streak was broken by Vasyl Ivanchuk at Linares 1991, where Garry Kasparov placed second, half a point behind him after losing their individual game.

Garry Kasparov went nine years winning every super-tournament he played, in addition to contesting his series of five consecutive matches with Karpov.

Garry Kasparov was awarded a BBC Micro, which he took back with him to Baku, making it perhaps one of the first Western-made microcomputers to reach the Soviet Union at that time.

Friedel founded Chessbase two years later, and he gave a copy of the program to Garry Kasparov, who started using it in his preparation.

That same year, Garry Kasparov played against thirty-two chess computers in Hamburg, winning all games.

Several commercially available Garry Kasparov computers were made in the 1980s, the Saitek Garry Kasparov Turbo King models.

On 22 October 1989, Garry Kasparov defeated the chess computer Deep Thought in both games of a two-game match.

In December 1992, Garry Kasparov played thirty-seven blitz games against Fritz 2 in Cologne, winning 24, drawing 4 and losing 9.

Garry Kasparov cooperated in producing video material for the computer game Garry Kasparov's Gambit released by Electronic Arts in November 1993.

The next day, Garry Kasparov lost to Fritz 3 again in a game on ZDF TV.

Garry Kasparov played in a pair of six-game chess matches with IBM supercomputer Deep Blue.

The match was even after five games but Garry Kasparov lost quickly in Game 6.

Garry Kasparov said that he was "not well prepared" to face Deep Blue in 1997.

Garry Kasparov said that based on his "objective strengths" his play was stronger than that of Deep Blue.

Garry Kasparov claimed that several factors weighed against him in this match.

Garry Kasparov requested printouts of the machine's log files but IBM refused, although the company later published them on the Internet.

Much later, it was suggested that the behaviour Garry Kasparov noted had resulted from a glitch in the computer program.

Garry Kasparov continued to regret the blunder in the second game that cost him a crucial point.

In 2021, Garry Kasparov promoted a series of 32 NFTs that detailed important moments in his career.

Garry Kasparov's grandfather was a staunch communist, but the young Garry Kasparov gradually began to have doubts about the Soviet Union's political system at age 13 when he travelled abroad for the first time in 1976 to Paris for a chess tournament.

Nevertheless, Garry Kasparov joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1984, and was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol in 1987.

In May 1990, Garry Kasparov took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia.

Garry Kasparov left the party on 28 April 1991, after its conference.

Garry Kasparov was involved with the creation of the "Choice of Russia" bloc of parties in June 1993.

Garry Kasparov took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin in 1996.

Garry Kasparov has vowed to "restore democracy" to Russia by restoring the rule of law.

Garry Kasparov was instrumental in setting up this coalition, which opposes Putin's government.

Garry Kasparov has criticised these two parties as being secretly under the auspices of the Kremlin.

Garry Kasparov has been the subject of a number of other episodes since, including police brutality and alleged harassment from the Russian secret service.

Garry Kasparov helped organise the Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March on 3 March 2007 and The March of the Dissenters on 24 March 2007, both involving several thousand people rallying against Putin and Saint Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko.

Garry Kasparov led a pro-democracy demonstration in Moscow in April 2007.

Garry Kasparov was held for some ten hours and then fined and released.

Garry Kasparov was later summoned by the FSB for violations of Russian anti-extremism laws.

Garry Kasparov has been very outspoken in his attacks on Putin and I believe that he is probably next on the list.

On 30 September 2007, Garry Kasparov entered the Russian presidential race, receiving 379 of 498 votes at a congress held in Moscow by The Other Russia.

In October 2007, Garry Kasparov announced his intention of standing for the Russian presidency as the candidate of the "Other Russia" coalition and vowed to fight for a "democratic and just Russia".

Garry Kasparov was charged with resisting arrest and organising an unauthorised protest, and was given a jail sentence of five days.

Garry Kasparov appealed the charges, citing that he had been following orders given by the police.

In December 2007, Garry Kasparov announced that he had to withdraw his presidential candidacy due to inability to rent a meeting hall where at least 500 of his supporters could assemble.

Garry Kasparov's spokeswoman accused the government of using pressure to deter anyone from renting a hall for the gathering and said that the electoral commission had rejected a proposal that would have allowed for smaller gathering sizes rather than one large gathering at a meeting hall.

Garry Kasparov was among the 34 first signatories and a key organiser of the online anti-Putin campaign "Putin must go", started on 10 March 2010.

On 31 January 2012, Garry Kasparov hosted a meeting of opposition leaders planning a mass march on 4 February 2012, the third major opposition rally held since the disputed State Duma elections of December 2011.

Garry Kasparov was arrested and beaten outside a Moscow court on 17 August 2012 while attending sentencing in the case involving the all-female punk band Pussy Riot.

Garry Kasparov later thanked all the bloggers and reporters who provided video evidence that contradicted the testimony of the police.

Garry Kasparov denied rumours in April 2013 that he was planning to leave Russia for good.

However, Garry Kasparov subsequently fled Russia less than three months later.

Further, at the 2013 Women in the World conference, Garry Kasparov told The Daily Beasts Michael Moynihan that democracy no longer existed in what he called Russia's "dictatorship".

Garry Kasparov said at a press conference in June 2013 that if he returned to Russia, he doubted he would be allowed to leave again, given Putin's ongoing crackdown on dissenters.

Garry Kasparov further wrote in his June 2013 Daily Beast article that the mass protests in Moscow 18 months earlier against fraudulent Russian elections had been "a proud moment for me".

Garry Kasparov recalled that after joining the opposition movement in March 2005, he had been criticised for seeking to unite "every anti-Putin element in the country to march together regardless of ideology".

Garry Kasparov responded with several Twitter postings to a September 2013 The New York Times op-ed by Putin.

Garry Kasparov wrote in July 2013 about the trial in Kirov of fellow opposition leader Navalny, who had been convicted "on concocted embezzlement charges", only to see the prosecutor, surprisingly, ask for his release the next day pending appeal.

Garry Kasparov has been outspoken regarding Putin's antigay laws, describing them as "only the most recent encroachment on the freedom of speech and association of Russia's citizens", which the international community had largely ignored.

Garry Kasparov emphasised that although he was "still a Russian citizen", he had "good reason to be concerned about my ability to leave Russia if I returned to Moscow".

Garry Kasparov spoke out against the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea and has stated that control of Crimea should be returned to Ukraine after the overthrow of Putin without additional conditions.

Garry Kasparov's website was blocked by the Russian government censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, at the behest of the public prosecutor, allegedly due to Garry Kasparov's opinions on the Crimean crisis.

Garry Kasparov's block was made in unison with several other notable Russian sites that were accused of inciting public outrage.

However, Garry Kasparov stated that his site had received no such notice of violations after its block.

In 2015, a whole note on Garry Kasparov was removed from a Russian language encyclopaedia of greatest Soviet players after an intervention from "senior leadership".

In October 2015, Garry Kasparov published a book titled Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.

On 20 May 2022, Garry Kasparov was designated as "foreign agent" by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

Garry Kasparov received the Keeper of the Flame award in 1991 from the Center for Security Policy, a Washington, DC-based far-right, anti-Muslim think tank.

Garry Kasparov gave speeches at other think tanks such as the Hoover Institution.

Garry Kasparov disparaged the economic policies of Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders, but showed respect for Sanders as "a charismatic speaker and a passionate believer in his cause".

Garry Kasparov considers this stance to be objective and without bias, as Soviet law allowed for autonomous republics to vote for independence separately and were given an equal right for self-determination, a factor he felt often went ignored.

Garry Kasparov recalled that he was criticised by Armenians for not taking a strong stance when the Karabakh movement began in 1988, explaining that he was living in Baku with 200,000 other Armenians at the time and did not want to increase tensions.

Garry Kasparov welcomed the Velvet Revolution in Armenia in 2018.

Garry Kasparov was named Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation in 2011.

Garry Kasparov was critical of the violence unleashed by the Spanish police against the 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia and accused the Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy of "betraying" the European promise of peace.

Garry Kasparov condemned the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Garry Kasparov had maintained a summer home in the Croatian city of Makarska.

Garry Kasparov published a controversial autobiography when still in his early 20s.

Garry Kasparov published an annotated games collection in 1983, Fighting Chess: My Games and Career, which has been updated in further editions.

Garry Kasparov wrote a book annotating the games from his World Chess Championship 1985 victory, World Chess Championship Match: Moscow, 1985.

Garry Kasparov has annotated his own games extensively for the Yugoslav Chess Informant series.

Kasparov contributed extensively to the five-volume openings series Encyclopedia of Chess Openings from Chess Informant, for which Kasparov wrote personal columns called Garry's Choice.

In 2000, Garry Kasparov co-authored Garry Kasparov Against the World: The Story of the Greatest Online Challenge with grandmaster Daniel King.

In December 2004, Garry Kasparov released volume four, which covers Samuel Reshevsky, Miguel Najdorf and Bent Larsen, but focuses on Fischer.

Garry Kasparov analysed some of the most notable games played in that period.

In October 2015, Garry Kasparov published a book titled Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped.

Garry Kasparov believes that the conventional history of civilisation is incorrect.

Garry Kasparov has cited several aspects of ancient history that, he argues, are likely to be anachronisms.

Garry Kasparov has written in support of the pseudohistorical New Chronology, although with some reservations.

Garry Kasparov wrote How Life Imitates Chess, an examination of the parallels between decision-making in chess and in the business world, in 2007.

Garry Kasparov is the chief advisor for the book publisher Everyman Chess.

Garry Kasparov collaborated with Max Levchin and Peter Thiel on The Blueprint, a book calling for a revival of world innovation, planned for release in March 2013 but cancelled after the authors disagreed on its contents.

Garry Kasparov served as a consultant for the 2020 Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit and gave an interview to Slate on his contributions.

That same year, Garry Kasparov collaborated with Matt Calkins, founder and CEO of Appian, on HYPERAUTOMATION, a book about low-code development and the future of business automation.

Garry Kasparov has been married three times: to Masha, with whom he had a daughter, Polina, before divorcing; to Yulia, with whom he had a son, Vadim, before their 2005 divorce; and to Daria, with whom he has two children, daughter Aida born in 2006 and son Nickolas born in 2015.

Garry Kasparov's wife manages his business activities worldwide through Garry Kasparov International Management Inc.