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| Sep-29-03 | | Dickens: 5. Anatoly Karpov
Style: Karpov played highly positional chess. He consistently improved his position by moves that show extraordinary positional understanding. He played without taking many risks, and without making many mistakes. He waited for his opponents to make the slightest inaccuracy and then grinded them to dust. Karpov's mastery of the ending was unparalleled, although he kept his openings repertoire relatively narrow, his middlegame was always solid.
* World Junior Chess Champion in 1969.
* 1st shared with Victor Korchnoi at Leningrad Interzonal 1973.
* Defeated Polugaevsky, Spassky, and Korchnoi in Candidates matches in 1974.
* In 1974 he scored 12 out of 14 in the Nice Olympiad for a gold medal and top board one.
* Received world title when Fischer abdicated in 1975.
* World Chess Champion for 10 years from 1975 to 1985.
* Defended his world championship title against Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio City, Philippines, 1978. Karpov won with 6 wins, 5 losses and 21 draws.
* 1st place at Montreal, Waddinxveen, and Tilburg in 1979. All three events were Category 15 events (average rating over 2600)
* Won World Chess Championship rematch with Korchnoi in 1981. He won the match with 6 wins, 2 losses and 10 draws.
* In 1984 World Chess Championship against Gary Kasparov he started off strongly going 5-1 but lost 2 games in a row when match was halted. The match was for the first to win 6 games. After 5 wins, 3 losses, and 40 draws FIDE President Campomanes stopped the match after 5 months of play. Karpov was suffering from exhaustion.
* In 1985 rematch he succumbed title to Gary Kasparov who won 6-3-16 in a 24 game match.
* 1986 World Championship rematch against Kasparov he lost narrowly 4-5-15.
* 1987 World Championship in Seville he tied with champion Kasparov 4-4-16.
* 1990 World Championship in Lyons lost narrowly to Kasparov 3-4-17.
* Won FIDE chess championship in 1993 Match over Timman when Champion Kasparov formed his own organization.
* 1st Place Linares Super GM Tournament in1994 with an incredible 11-2 record and a 3000 ELO performance rating.
* 1st Place Groningen 1995 Category 17 Super GM Tournament
* 1996 defended his FIDE Championship by defeating Gata Kamsky (USA) with the score 6 wins 9 draws and only 3 losses.
* One of the most successful tournament players in history achieving over 140 victories in major chess events.
* Peak ELO Rating 2725. Chessmetrics Rating 2815 |
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Oct-26-03
 | | Open Defence: I wonder, how come Karpov is blamed for the match not taking place with Fischer ? Who was finicky about playing conditions Fischer or Karpov ? Who played in almost every high level tournament and won convincingly ? Karpov or Fischer ? Who has never made a breakaway federation ? Kasparov or Karpov ? Who has played fine chess consistently for decades without making a circus out of chess? Fischer, Kasparov or Karpov ? If Karpov is not popular, that is not Karpov's fault. Has Karpov been accused of taking moves back ? (Kasparov vs Polgar) has Karpov not turned up for matches (Fischer vs Spassky)? If you want to believe cold war propoganda, you do one of the greatest chess players who ever lived a great disservice |
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Oct-26-03
 | | lostemperor: Open defence: you make Karpov look like holy mother Theresia. Karpov did not need popularity (here in the West). He was the lean mean chessmachine produced to get the title back for the USSR and defend it against Korchnoi the defector. If it interest you Karpov did manage to turn a (rapid) game he already resigned to be replayed and then won it. But somehow he arranged it with the arbiter and did not cheat. |
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Oct-27-03
| | Open Defence: Well, I prefer to let Karpov's chess stand up to the criticism, it doesn't need an unrated amateur like me to defend it, but interestingly, for someone who was produced to get the title back for the USSR... it's odd that he didnt actually find favour with Botvinnik who thought he was too frail for chess hmmmmmmm ... regarding the rapid game incident.. I don't know which game this is, I did read about a dispute with Smyslov over whose flag fell first...
Anyway, his chess speaks volumes |
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| Oct-27-03 | | Diggitydawg: <Open Defence> I understand what you mean about letting the chess speak for itself. One of my favorite players is Botvinnik. I like his games because they are so clear to me. He was certainly not a perfect human being and he was by no means the strongest player ever, hence his claim that he was "first among equals". But there is a clarity in his play that really is beautiful. I hope I can develop that type of clarity in my chess and in my life. |
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| Oct-27-03 | | drukenknight: >> First, I think it's impossible to really compare players of different generations - the game has changed so much even in the last 20 years! Like they didnt allow pawns to move 2 spaces until 1983, I think.... |
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| Nov-04-03 | | fred lennox: "Who do I rate more highly, Kasporav or Karpov? Of course they are both outstanding talents, but the one with the more versatile talent is Karpov" - Botvinnik |
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| Nov-04-03 | | AdrianP: <Fred Lennox> That's like Botvinnik saying that his own talent is more versatile than Tal's... |
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| Nov-04-03 | | aulero: It seems that Botvinnik once said about a young 12 year old boy named Anatoly Karpov: "The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession." |
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Nov-04-03
| | lostemperor: Did Botvinnik really said Karpov has the more versatile talent, Lennox? It is almost the same I've said (Spassky too btw.) about Karpov's talent in comparison to Kasparov's on page 1 but I'm not sure because I'm no expert like Botvinnik. Coming from Botvinnik it does mean a lot. He indeed praised Kasparov and downgraded Karpov before (I knew that comment aulero). He also said about 12 year old Kasparov "in this boy's hands lie the future of chess". How right he was, unfortunately perhaps. |
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| Nov-04-03 | | fred lennox: <lostemperor> I was surprised by it myself but Botvinnik did say so. He even wrote a book called <Anatoly Karpov: His Road to the World Championship> As for aulero's comment that judgement was based on games Karpov showed him. Karpov wanted to impress his fighting spirit so he showed him games, not his bests, but ones where he got into trouble and heroically saved the day. According to Karpov Botvinnik stopped looking at the games before he got to that point so unimpressed he was by the opening play. It was a little naive of Karpov but he was only 12 years old. |
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| Nov-04-03 | | aulero: As far as I know, Botvinnik was so impressed by Karpov's positional play that he considered his strategic understanding unrivalled. But Botvinnik disliked Karpov's approach to the game: too much tournaments, poor opening preparation and lack of scientific methodology. In contrast both Botvinnik and Kasparov made of the opening preparation their main weapon. In my opinion Karpov played the greatest number of great games, and great does not mean necessarily beatiful. |
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| Nov-04-03 | | Kenkaku: <As far as I know, Botvinnik was so impressed by Karpov's positional play that he considered his strategic understanding unrivalled.> Perhaps with one exception: Capablanca, his idol. |
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Nov-05-03
| | Open Defence: Botvinnik a au commencement pensé qu'anatoly Evgenyvich était trop frêle pour les rigueurs des échecs de niveau élevé mais plus tard convenues qu'il était un talent fin |
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Nov-05-03
| | lostemperor: Ola, I'm impressed and aroused too;) Ou vous avez apprendre ceca? |
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| Nov-05-03 | | Diggitydawg: Sometimes Botvinnik could be inflexible in his thinking when he formed an opinion. Wasn't Karpov once nicknamed, "the Fetus"? Maybe Karpov's extraordinary endurance in playing in so many tournaments changed his mind. |
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| Nov-05-03 | | Drstrangelove: I always heard that Botvinnik didn't care much for either Karpov or Kasparov, in terms of liking them as individuals. |
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Nov-05-03
 | | Chessical: Botvinnik never seemed to "care" for his rivals. He seems to have regarded top Soviet grandmasters as potential dangers to him in what he saw as a very dog eat dog world of Soviet chess. You can sense this in his annotations which have a lot of digs at his rivals. Considering the terrible syetm he lived under we should not be too hard on him. To those who were no threat he was generous, and he also set up the Botvinnik school. Yet when his pupils matured and went their own ways his affections seemed to cool. |
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| Nov-05-03 | | tud: <Botvinnik stopped looking at the games before he got to that point so unimpressed he was by the opening play>
Karpov's single manuals by the age of 15 were Chess Fundamentals and My Career in Chess by Capablanca, known by heart. What openings ? This was his main problem in playing Kasparov. |
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| Nov-05-03 | | Benzol: I think this is the game where Botvinnik thought that "Karpov didn't know anything about the game". I might not have got the quote quite but it was something along those lines. Karpov vs Botvinnik, 1964 |
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| Nov-27-03 | | crobzub: I like to make my chess computer play against itself. I put the moves into the Opening Explorer until I can whittle it down to one game with those moves. Strangely, every time I've tried it (4 times so far) it's given me a Karpov game.... |
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| Nov-27-03 | | Bears092: crob - I do that too, here's what I got for five of them: No repetitions at all, sadly Romanishin vs P Nikolic, 1987
A Sokolov vs Ulf Andersson, 1987
Lasker vs Steinitz, 1896
H Pfleger vs Korchnoi, 1988
Jiangchuan vs R Cifuentes Parada, 1994 |
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| Nov-28-03 | | MoonlitKnight: Karpov behaves like a crybaby: http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp... It can't be easy being the ex-champion and knowing you're about to get slaughtered by a 16-year-old. |
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| Nov-28-03 | | Spitecheck: Karpov's complaints were somewhat truthful though, it used to be the done thing for rounds to be played out of sequence now and then for many reasons. Karpov's request would have no doubt been upheld if he was still up there in the world rankings. It must have been terribly off putting when a 16 year old tells the organisers to tell Karpov the former world champion and all round nice guy, couldn't hurt a fly, "I don't give a rat's". I guess both Karpov and Kasparov will want to beat the kid up with the blunt end of a chainsaw shortly. The normally quiet Karpov doesn't use the plural idiots very often. It's hard to picture, maybe since he's put a bit of weight on, he feels he can throw it around now. LOL Look out, there won't be a single used can of soft drink on the sidewalks safe from persecution upside of the equator. Spitecheck |
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| Nov-28-03 | | tud: 2003 is Karpov's worst year ever. Better off than damaging this 1971-2000 carreer... |
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