Immediately when the both players shook hand to each other, the public made a standing ovation to the 13th World Chess Champion, the youngest in the chess history: Garry Kasparov. To arrive to such proclamation, both competitors played 72 games with a score of 8 wins for each player and 56 draws.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Total | ||
| Kasparov G | 1 | = | = | 0 | 0 | = | = | = | = | = | 1 | = | = | = | = | 1 | = | = | 1 | = | = | 0 | = | 1 | 13.0 | |
| Karpov A | 0 | = | = | 1 | 1 | = | = | = | = | = | 0 | = | = | = | = | 0 | = | = | 0 | = | = | 1 | = | 0 | 11.0 |
Both players were interviewed by Soviets journalists:
Kasparov: “I am happy to be called the World Champion. It is a victory based on work and a right strategy. Two hundred and twenty days of labour it is a great day for me and my team. We went through a huge amount of information and following some criteria we chose new openings, plans, tactic…Psychologically we had to adjust according the circumstance. We didn’t plan my victory in game 1! I was never affected when I lost a game because the next day I always recovered with …a victory. Karpov is a great player. Surely been the best player of the world for more than 10 years means something. His contribution to the chess theory and development will stay for long. And the fact that he played so many tournaments shows that he deserves to be called world champion.
I believe in this match Karpov didn’t play at full strength. The fact that he had for so long never find any opposition has limited his capacity. However it is admirable how he played the last part of the match. I think he didn’t analyse too well our first match I was expecting something else this time.
After the fifteenth game I felt I could win the match. This was more concrete after I won the nineteenth game. I played the last game as if I played the most important game of my life. It motivated me a lot.”
Karpov: “Of course I am unhappy with the final result. Kasparov was very well prepared and if we have to compare this match with the previous we may say that my opponent’s level has increased and mine decreased a bit. My best period was between the second and the eleventh game but I lost the phase after an incredible blunder in the 11th. Despite all this I am quite happy I could hold the suspense until the last game. In this last game I had even some winning chance but…draw or lost the issue was the same. According me the best games were the fifth a Spanish that I won the sixth a Sicilian won by Kasparov. Overall the match was very exciting and disputed till the end. This shows that the new formula of 24 games is better than the previous one.” “As I am the world champion … as I was the world champion…’
Correcting himself at his press conference in Belgrade on his way to Bugojno, Yugoslavia’s tournament of the top, Karpov did not even bother to lay the slightest stress, as one would usually do, upon the past tense. His typically ‘Freudian’ lapse indicated that he considered Kasparov’s reign as a mere formality, or Caissa’s passing whim.
Asked to compare his present, obviously good physical form with the one after his match with Kasparov, he promptly recited a whole list of comparisons:
“Right before his first match with Korchnoi, which lasted 70 days, his weight was 5l kg, as compared with 47 kg afterwards.
In Baguio he started with 50 kg, and ended, after 93 days, with 51 kg.
In Merano, for the shortest of his world title matches, the difference was accordingly smaller 57 kg — 54-5 kg.
Before the first match with Kasparov, he weighed 60 kg, and ended, after 5½ months, with 55 kg
At the beginning of his last world title match, he weighed 61 kg, and at the end— 57.5 kg.”
In the postscript of his book on the match Kasparov wrote: “…As regards the final scores of the two opponents, it must first be mentioned that this was a meeting between representatives of absolutely dissimilar chess tendencies. Karpov’ s purely competitive approach is based on a deep knowledge and understand ing of his favourite set-ups, as well as on the maximum exploitation of the minimal resources in a position, and I opposed this with the idea of a continual creative search, leading to a revealing of the unlimited possibilities of chess. It is here, in the clash of diametrically opposed chess conceptions, that the deep-rooted causes of Karpov’s defeat are to be found. It should not be forgotten that before the match we both had some invaluable material for analysis — 48 games played less than a year earlier. Karpov was unable to evaluate correctly the progressive development of the previous match, and, in my opinion, attributed his failures at the finish of it to the effect of extreme fatigue, or perhaps even simply to chance. Karpov therefore determined his strategic course for the new match by relying on earlier directives, based on obsolete impressions of Kasparov’s play.
Karpov repeatedly stated that the first 48 games had been a good training for Kasparov, and this is indeed so. But for some reason he failed to take into account how much of use can be extracted from lessons received, if a deep and comprehensive analysis is carried out. At the end of the previous match I had already managed to adapt to Karpov’s distinctive playing style, and had learned to cover my weak points, i.e. graphically speaking I was able without any particular disadvantage to give battle on my opponent’s territory. The six-month interval had also not been wasted. During this time my trainers and I were able to plan a new match strategy, based in particular on the features of my opponent’s style and his tastes. Revealing in this respect is the creative debate in the Nimzo-Indian Defence. In the opinion of many, my success in the first game was determined by the factor of surprise, but subsequently too, throughout the entire match, Karpov experienced serious difficulties in this opening. The strategic pattern obviously did not appeal to him, and it was precisely this factor that we had taken into account in our preparations.
At the same time, Karpov did not prepare for the match anything radically new, but restricted himself merely to insignificant improvements in variations which had occurred in the first encounter. What told here was evidently Karpov’s dislike for serious analytical work. Regarding this one recalls Karpov’s controversy with my teacher, Ex-World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, who has always emphasized the exceptional importance of the research tendency in chess. Karpov retorted that Botvinnik’s views were hopelessly outdated, and asserted that in our day it is only constant practice that can be a source of the raising (or maintenance?) of chess mastery.
I should mention that it was easy for Karpov to make such a criticism — he himself had available a large team of highly qualified helpers, who regularly supplied him with fresh ideas. Well, our encounter at the chess board can be regarded as a practical solution to this theoretical argument
However, for a long time Karpov’s immense composure and very fine technique in difficult positions enabled him to neutralize the defects in his preparations. Even so, in the second half of the match my strategically correct planning began to bear fruit. When my playing advantage became obvious, Karpov, by mobilizing his remarkable
fighting qualities, managed to avoid a heavy defeat, and even almost to save the match. But in the end the more progressive modern- day approach to chess came out on top….”
Korchnoi: “I am very pleased that Gary Kasparov has become the new World Champion. I only fear that he might, like Karpov did after winning the title, begin to get involved with politics…”
Tal: “To define Kasparov’s style, it is best to use the expression ‘total chess’. The World Champion plays an explosive, exceptionally dynamic chess, while his extremely inspired play is combined with the greatest opening theory knowledge. His imaginativeness is also exceptional, as well as his logic, and his striving to put as much fire into any position as possible.
Should Karpov decide to play the return match, however, he will will not come to that duel bare-handed. I have to warn Kasparov that he should not bask too much in the glory which he has rightly deserved. I am saying that on the basis of my own experience. Gary has taken from me the unofficial but pleasant title of the youngest World Champion in the history of chess. However, if he should think that the former Champion has been definitely dethroned, he should stand a very good chance to take from me the last title that I have — the one of the Youngest Ex-Champion!”