Karpov-Kasparov 1984

Karpov-Kasparov 1984 was the World Championship match between champion Anatoly Karpov and challenger Garry Kasparov. It began in Moscow in September 1984 and had no game limit: the first player to reach six wins would take the match. Draws did not count as wins, so play continued until someone reached six.

Karpov led 5-0 after game 27 but could not secure the sixth victory. Each further draw prolonged the match without bringing him closer to the target. For Kasparov, avoiding defeat kept the contest alive without narrowing the gap: holding out and making a comeback were still different things.

A first victory, but still 5-1

Game 32, played on 12 December, was Kasparov’s first win of the match. White’s attack along the h-file led into a queen ending. There, the white king’s shelter and the chance to gain tempi by checking the black king kept the initiative valuable. Winning required preserving that activity after the exchanges, rather than delivering an immediate mate.

Karpov resigned without resuming play the following day. The score ends with 41.g5 ; what follows is an analytical continuation, not actual play. The resulting 5-1 score still left the champion one win away from the title. Kasparov had won a game, but his position in the match remained very difficult.

Nor was the recovery uninterrupted. Fourteen draws, in games 33 through 46, separated that first win from the final two. Kasparov then won games 47 and 48, narrowing the win score to 5-3. The change was significant, but neither player had yet reached the required six victories.

Termination was not an adjournment

After 48 games, 40 of them drawn, International Chess Federation (FIDE) president Florencio Campomanes terminated the contest on February 15, 1985, citing its length and the players’ condition. The match ended without a result .

This was not a pause before continuing from 5-3. A new match was announced, starting at 0-0 . A letter from Soviet federation president Vitaly Sevastyanov, dated February 13 and reproduced by Edward Winter, had requested a three-month suspension; termination was a different decision. A contest still unresolved over the board was being closed, and its score would not carry over into the new match.

The decision was controversial, but it did not make either player the winner of the match. Karpov retained the title until a new 24-game match in 1985, which Kasparov won to become world champion. That later victory does not retrospectively settle who would have won had the first match continued.