Triumph for aggressive chess

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 30

Triumph for aggressive chess

Garri Kasparov, who at 22 has become the youngest world chess champion in history, took the chess world by storm with an aggressive - playing style that fired the imagination of devotees and intimidated opponents.

. He secured the title by beating the champion, Anatoly Karpov, 13-11, taking the last game of a 24-game rematch. He became a grandmaster at 17 and then swept aside experienced veterans like the title challenger, Viktor Korchnoi, as he advanced directly to the world championship in his first appearance in the qualifying cycle. His title match against Karpov had been replayed after their initial encounter was controversially abandoned as the challenger staged a remarkable recovery.

During the five months of their first contest in Moscow, the most protracted and bitter in chess history, the challenger established a reputation as a bold individualist at odds with Soviet chess officialdom.

A rugged, athletic man of half-Jewish, half-Armenian origins, Kasparov publicly condemned the decision to abandon the match, saying it was intended to save a shattered Karpov, long a favourite with the Soviet chess establishment.

The International Chess Federation president, Florencio Campomanes, stepped in to halt the match last February, saying all concerned were exhausted by the 48-game marathon, after Kasparov had clawed his way back from a 5-0 deficit to 5-3. Most non-Soviet chess experts agreed with Kasparov’s argument. His outspokenness obscured his background as a model Soviet citizen who had joined the Communist Party at the unusually young age of 19.

Kasparov is also a member of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of Azerbaijan, his home republic, and has been awarded several State honours. After the Moscow debacle, Kasparov was allowed to travel to West

Germany and Yugoslavia and articulated his criticisms in press interviews before settling down in the Soviet capital in September to the rematch with Karpov. He told a Yugoslav magazine: “My relations with the U.SSR. chess establishment could not be worse. It is almost a part of Karpov’s family. It consists of people connected with Karpov for at least 10 years.”

The Soviet chess machine took no measures against Kasparov for his outbursts, which recalled the maverick style of two contemporary Soviet rivals, Boris Spassky and Korchnoi. Some nonSoviet experts held that Kasparov was protected by his association with Geidar Aliyev, a member of the ruling party Politburo who also hails from Azerbaijan. They theorised that Karpov’s days as the darling of Soviet chess had been numbered since Mikhail Gorbachev became party leader last March. Karpov, who is a pure ethnic Russian, was friendly with two of Gorbachev’s predecessors, Leonid Brezhnev and Konstantin Chernenko.

Karpov’s play has been compared with a spider spinning a web around its intended victim, while Kasparov once said his heart lay with the eccentric American genius, Bobby Fischer, a former champion whose style was to seek to win every game. In the rematch, Kasparov captured the imagination even of the champion’s fel-

low Muscovites. He eclipsed, the popularity of his rival with an aggressive' playing style and a flamboyant lifestyle which included dating a leading Soviet actress.

Kasparov attributes much of his drive to his mother Klara, always present in the audience at his world title games. After the death of Kasparov’s father, Klara changed the family name from Weinshtein to a Russian version of her maiden name, Kasparian, hoping to smoothe her son’s career.

Kasparov, born in the Azerbaijani'capital of Baku, speaks excellent English. A swimmer, cyclist and soccer player in his spare time — Karpov’s hobby is stampcollecting — Kasparov radiates energy and the efforts expended in his hunt for the world crown have already put flecks of grey in his bushy dark hair. He was a child prodigy and at the age of 10 was a candidate master of sports, one of the highest Soviet sporting honours.

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