Karpov had had a whole week to rest between game 47 and game 48, but after his losing both Botvinnik said: <The match can end in three ways. The first is the least probable: Karpov wins a game and the match is over. The second is that Kasparov wins three games, it is more probable. The third is that the match will be postponed. That is the most probable alternative, since the second is more probable than the first>.

Kasparov says that the first he heard of stopping the match was after the 47th game. The suggestion was that only 8 more games would be played, and Karpov would keep the title even if he went -3 in these 8 games. Kasparov says that he probably would have been prepared to stop the match by then, if he had been given reasonable terms.

Kasparov means that Karpov’s terms if the match was to be stopped (instead of following the 8 games more suggestion) at this stage were that Kasparov first should admit that he had lost the match, then he would have to win the next match in the end of 1985 with at least a four point margin. If Kasparov won with three points or less Karpov would regain the title by January 1st 1986.

When Kasparov eventually is told by phone that the match is to be stopped at a press conference the following day, he is not invited but turns up anyway. What he did say when getting a microphone was that he was <certain that he was going to win the match> and wanted to continue. This was followed by the sentence: <For the first time in five months I have real chances, let’s say 25-30%, and now they try to take them away from me>.

When Kasparov was stopped from playing tournaments abroad, he was told by the Sports Committee that they already had a World Champion in Karpov and didn’t need another one. After initially being stopped from playing Korchnoi in the Candidates match Kasparov gets more and more convinced that “everyone” wants to stop him. He claims that the Vice Chairman of the Sports Committee publicly said that they would do anything to stop Kasparov from playing Karpov in the 1982-84 cycle.

The Soviet Chess Federation wanted to continue from 5-3 and claimed it wasn’t against the rules, while Botvinnik said that there was nothing in the rules against going to the moon and play there either. Kasparov didn’t deny that he could have accepted a termination earlier, even if he doesn’t agree that since he could have accepted it earlier he must also by default support it after having won the last two games.

Kasparov also talks about an extra meeting of the Soviet Chess Federation, where he was going to be disqualified and not allowed to play the second match (because of critical statements in foreign press). According to Kasparov the disqualification is stopped only thanks to help from Aliev and other prominent backers.

So far Kasparov’s version from the 1980’s. In a couple of months his new book will be released, with his 2008 version of things:

By the way, why is it that people say the match was 48 games but only 47 are listed here? They seem to be missing one of the drawn games between game 33 and game 46.

<a cut-and-paste treatment based on his earlier unreliable accounts (as scrutinized in, for instance, "The Termination" and Kasparov’s "Child of Change").>

Source: C.N. 5765
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Actually, if you would look at page 84, paragraph 3, he writes precisely that: "Haha! Karpov lost. LOL. In your face, Soviets!"

<Page 135 records the scene after Campomanes’ press conference announcement that a new match would start from scratch in September 1985:

‘There was a great deal of shuffling and noise in the audience at this news. The video tape shows my trainers and myself talking and laughing among ourselves.’>

Let's remember Karpov's victory over Korchnoi in their last game of the match in Bagio. Korchnoi started to ouplay Karpov at the end of the match. I don't know why that happened, Karpov must have got tired. When Korchnoi seized an advantage, Karpov demonstrated a brilliant play! As if nothing had happened and the score 5:2 had not turned into 5:5, and there were no hard play after adjournment where he lost in a bit worse rook ending, Karpov played as if it were the first game of the match! Despite wild pressure, when his future was dependant on the outcome of the match, he was playing as if he were training in his kitchen in a relaxed way. Of course, he was an incredible fighter!>

... and many are certain of a Karpov collapse...

Contrary to what many people will tell you, the “chess match of the 20th century” was not Fischer-Spassky, Reykjavik 1972. It was Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow 1984. No wait, make that Karpov-Kasparov, Moscow 1984 and 1985. Of course, Fischer’s brilliancy and eccentricity, as well as the political situation between America and the Soviet Union made the Reykjavik match extremely sensational, but from a ”classical drama” point of view, the fight in ‘72 was really too much of a one-man-show.

In the series Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess, beautifully published by Everyman Chess, Kasparov has finally written about his epic clashes with Karpov in 1984-1985. The second part of the series, Kasparov s. Karpov 1975-1985, discusses all pre-1984 games between the two Ks (including one simul!) and their Moscow matches. (A Russian book by Kasparov about these matches had already been published, but this account had somehow never been translated.)