Kasparov

Garry Kasparov (born 1963) won the Candidates cycle, the stage that decides who can challenge the World Champion, and, after an unfinished first match against Anatoly Karpov in 1984, defeated him 13-11 in 1985. He became the youngest World Champion up to that time and defended the crown against Karpov in three later matches.

Kasparov combined extremely deep opening preparation with dynamic play. The opening is the initial phase of a game; preparing it means studying likely positions, ideas, and concrete sequences in advance. Kasparov used that preparation to reach active positions and then exploited them through calculation and piece coordination while keeping the initiative, the ability to create threats that force the opponent to respond.

In 1993, Kasparov and Nigel Short played their title match outside FIDE, the International Chess Federation. This split the World Championship into two rival lines. Kasparov held the line usually called classical until Vladimir Kramnik defeated him in 2000; the championship titles were not reunified until 2006.

He also holds a key place in computer-chess history. In 1997 he lost a six-game match to IBM's Deep Blue, the first computer system to defeat a reigning World Champion in a match under standard tournament controls. It was a landmark on the path toward today's chess engines, programs that calculate and evaluate positions at enormous depth.