Karpov Anatoly Evgenyevich (23.05.1951)
Russian Grandmaster (1970). Karpov was the 12th World Champion 1975-1985 and 1998-1999, European Rapid Chess Champion in 1996. From 1973-1977, 1979-1981 and 1984 he was awarded the “Chess Oscar” prize nine times. Karpov studied Economics, English and Spanish at the Leningrad University and is also known as a stamp collector.
Karpov began to play chess at the age of four. He joined a correspondence chess school founded by the Trades Unions Sports Society. He was very talented and met regularly with Mikhail Botvinnik for private lessons and in Riga he learned openings with Semyon Furman. At fifteen, after getting the title of National Master, he became the youngest Master in the Soviet Union. That same year he participated in and won his first international tournament in Trinec, Czechoslovakia. At sixteen he won the 1967/68 European Junior Championship and in 1969 he won the World Junior Championship three points ahead of the nearest opponents. After getting the GM title at the 1970 FIDE Congress, Karpov’s climb to the top was unstoppable. During the next three years, he achieved exceptional results in seven strong tournaments. He achieved first place at the Alekhine Memorial, Moscow 1971 equal with Leonid Stein but in front of Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, and Boris Spassky then went straight to Hastings 1971-72 to share another first place with Viktor Korchnoi and he continued the next year to San Antonio sharing first place with Petrosian and Lajos Portisch. Karpov tied with Korchnoi for first place at the 1973 Leningrad Interzonal, which qualified him to his first World Championship cycle.
After his impressive victories in the next three stages of Candidates matches (beating Lev Polugaevsky +3=5, Boris Spassky +4=6-1 and Viktor Korchnoi +3=19-2, he became the official challenger for the World title in 1974. In April 1975 FIDE declared Karpov the 12th World Champion by default because Bobby Fischer did not want to defend his title according to the FIDE regulations.
As the World Champion, Karpov continued to successfully take part in strong tournaments like Portoroz 1975, Amsterdam, Skopje and Montilla 1976, Bad Lauterberg, Las Palmas and Tilburg 1977 and Bugojno 1978 where he finished equal first with Spassky. At the end of 1978, he managed to retain his title after a very long and tragic match against Korchnoi +6=21-5 in Baguio, Philippines. From 1979 to 1981 he participated in ten international tournaments, doing especially well in Montreal where he was equal first with Tal, coming first in Waddinxveen 1979, followed by Bad Kissingen, Bugojno and Tilburg in 1980 and Moscow in 1981. Karpov retained his World Championship title for the second time in 1981, after an easy victory against Korchnoi in Merano. Karpov was the strongest player in the world and hardly anyone could challenge him. He went on to win in London, Tilburg and Turin in 1982, in Hanover and Tilburg in 1983 and in London and Oslo in 1984.
For the final match of the World Championship 1984, organized in Moscow, Karpov had to face the new rising star, Garry Kasparov. After five months of struggle and hard fighting, the match was surprisingly stopped by the FIDE President, Campomanes and remained unfinished. In 1985, after a victory in the double-round tournament of Amsterdam, he met Kasparov again for the supreme title in Moscow but this time he was clearly defeated by his challenger with the score 13:15, +5-3=16. In 1986 he participated in two strong tournaments in Brussels and Bugojno then, as per contract, used his right for a return match. The match held in London and Leningrad finished with the score 12½:11½, +5-4=15 in favor of Kasparov who retained the chess crown. In 1987 Karpov won in Amsterdam and Bilbao. Having beaten Andrei Sokolov in the Candidates final match, he got another chance to play for the 1997 World Championship. The match was organized in Sevilla and ended with an equal score of 12:12, +4-4=16 but Kasparov kept his title due to regulations. In 1988 Karpov won the first Active Chess World Championship title in Mexico. During the following three years he took part in and won in Brussels, Tilburg, Wijk aan Zee 1988, Skelleftea 1989 and in Biel 1990. After winning against Jan Timman for the final Candidates match, he met and lost again to the World Champion Garry Kasparov in New York and Lyon 1990 with the score +4=17-3. He continued to play successfully in very important contests in Reggio Emilia and Linares in 1991. In August 1991 he won the quarter final of the Candidate match in Brussels against Viswanathan Anand but was defeated by Nigel Short in the semi-final in Spain 1992. He continued to play successfully and get good results: first place in tournaments in Baden-Baden, Biel and Madrid in 1992 and at Wijk aan Zee, Dortmund, Dos Hermanas and Tilburg in 1993. As a result of the withdrawal of Kasparov and Short from the 1991-93 World Championship cycle, Karpov played and beat Timman in a final that was organized in Holland and Indonesia. He had success in Linares 1994, winning eleven out of thirteen games. This was probably his best tournament and the highest performance ever achieved in a chess tournament. He also played well in Las Palmas, Groningen, Monaco, Dos Hermanas, Baden-Baden and Alma-Alta in 1995 and in 1996 he won in Vienna and in Biel, where he beat Kamsky 10½:7½, also in Elista to keep the title of the FIDE World Champion and in Cap d’Agde for the Euro Rapid Tournament 1996. One of his last major successes was in Lausanne 1998 where, after receiving the huge privilege of being seated in the final, he beat Anand after tie-break games and kept his title of FIDE World Champion. He also won the World Rapid Championship 1998 in Cap d’ Agde.
Since 1999, Karpov has never reached the highest positions, due to his age but also because of a new generation of strong players coming into the circuit. The same year, he got into a conflict with FIDE when he refused to defend his FIDE World Champion title in Las Vegas. As a result of his ELO going down, Karpov is no longer invited to top tournaments however he is still among the best in Rapid Chess, winning tournaments in Aix en Provence 2004 and Bordeaux 2005. In 2006 Karpov shared first place with Vassily Ivanchuk at the Keres Memorial. Karpov also played a great number of matches. In Las Palmas 1994 he beat Ivan Morovic-Fernandez 5:1 and in Shangi Nagar WC 1995 he won the FIDE World Championship semi-final match against Gelfand 6:3. He drew a few friendly matches with Vassilios Kotronias 2½:2½ in Athens, with Utut Adianto 3:3 in Jakarta 1997, with Drazen Marovic 1:1 in 1998, in Santiago, Chile and with Jeroen Piket 4:4 in 1999 in Monaco. In 1998 in Budapest he lost to Judit Polgar with the score 3:5. In 2002 he beat Kasparov in a rapid match in New York but lost ‘the revenge’ in 2009 9-3, in 2005 he beat Andrei Istratescu and in 2012 Yasser Seirawan 8-6.
Karpov is still playing chess, running his chess foundation and travels around the world for chess exhibitions. Besides being a chess player, he has always been interested in ‘chess politic’. In 2010, with the help of Kasparov, he ran for FIDE President but was unsuccessful.
During the period 1970-1988, he participated six times in the USSR Championship and won the title twice in 1976 and 1983, finally in 1988 he shared the first place with Kasparov.
Karpov will be remembered as one of the strongest chess players in history. Leading the chess world for more than ten years and still being in the top twenty after thirty years, he was never too tired to play tournament after tournament. Karpov had the luck to be backed by the Soviet regime for more than twenty years and he received all kinds of support and privileges, but his immense talent shouldn’t be denied. Karpov’s style, often compared with Capablanca, was very quiet, but of deadly accuracy. Karpov likes to play the classical style looking for simple positions with strategical advantage and mastering defence systems; he is cool and calm showing no emotion but determined to win. His play is characterized by a deep and infallible sense of position and tactical logic. Tal said that numerous plans became clear to his opponents when their situation was hopeless. Kasparov said that many people could not understand the phenomenon of Karpov and he himself could not get the bottom of him.
Karpov didn’t lose too many games during his chess career and he probably kept the record of the highest number of victories of around 150.
In the 1980s Karpov was the chief editor of the magazine 64-Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie and co-author of the Chess Dictionary Shakhmaty (1990). He also wrote many books on opening or middle games and also published Chess in my Life and Sto Pobednykh Partiy (1984) containing 100 annotated games.
