Kasparov vs Karpov, 1984

[Cyrus]

This started in SMP (link) but the proper forum for a debate is probably here. As chess aficionados among you probably know, there was in 1984 a controversial decision by FIDE president Campomanes to abort the match for the world championship between champion Karpov and contender Kasparov, when the score was 5-3 for Karpov.

It was a match under "Fischer rules", i.e. with only wins to count. Karpov built an early 4-0 lead but a string of draws kept his next win until the 27th game, whereby he was leading by 5-0. Kasparov won the 32nd game, and, after another sting of wins which took the match to five months, won the 47th and the 48th games. (Not "three wins in a row" as many people mistakenly assert.)

At that time, citing as reasons the "physical condition" of the contestants, Campomanes, the Philippine president of FIDE, aborted the match.

I submit that the FIDE decision was more beneficial to Kasparov than to Karpov.

1. People focus on the "Kasparov comeback" but neglect the fact that the match was not interrupted (to continue at some later date, after the contestants had ostensibly "recovered") but aborted completely! The contenders would have to start anew from 0-0, which was surely an injustice to the player leading by 5-3 at the time of interruption. Kasparov himself stated (Child of Change, p. 133), "In a way this wasn't so bad for me. I was sure I would win the second match. I had become much wiser that at the beginning of this one. And to start playing again at 0-0 was better than 5-3 against."

2. Karpov needed only 1 more win, to Kasparov's 3 to win the match. Even if Karpov was indeed physically deteriorating, he was till a 3:1 favourite in the arithmetic. Kasparov himself estimated his chances of winning the match, were it not aborted, at "about 25 or 30%" (p. 141, ibid.)

3. Karpov was most probably NOT "deteriorating physically" as subsequently claimed by his various critics and adversaries (such as Kasparov or the odious Raymond Keene). What better evidence about Karpov's state of physical and mental health during the latter stages of the match than ..Kasparov himself ?

[ QUOTE ]
[From pp. 124-125 and p. 143 of Child of Change :]
Some people ... have claimed that the quality of the chess at the end was very poor, showing that the champion must have been very sick and that my victories were a fluke. This is not borne out by close analysis. GMs have picked out the following games for outstanding technical expertise, brilliant ideas or sheer sporting excitement: Numbers 6, 9, 27, 32, 36, and crucially 48 -- the very last one.

The people around Karpov couldn't understand what was happening. Because he had beaten me so easily in the early games, they assumed he must be unwell to be losing at the end. But Karpov himself knew better. ... He knew it was my chess that was beating him.

[/ QUOTE ]4. Was Kasparov in good physical and mental shape at the end of the match ? Possibly not.

[ QUOTE ]
[From a Kasparov interview to New In Chess, 1985, with Gary referring to himself in the third person :]
Exhaustion did exist anyway ... Psychological exhaustion increased even when a game was not so intense, because the match lasted a long time, and the responsibility was great. One could not relax and had to think about the match all the time. One's brain was working, and the nervous tension did not stop, not even for a moment.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, that's the evidence, or at least most of it. (Gratefully lifted from Edward Winter's exemplary Kings, Commoners and Knaves.) Kasparov eventually became world champion and proved to be among the greatest and possibly the greatest champion of all*. But at the time, in his match against Karpov, he was not the favourite to win it.

--Cyrus

* Kasparov is notorious for contradicting himself about chess personalities. But here is his opinion on Robert Fischer in 1990:

[ QUOTE ]
[From p.275 of Mortal Games] :
Bobby [Fischer] says that he is not sure he could have beaten Capablanca. Ridiculous. He would have won easily ... To compare players from different eras makes no sense ... The only way to judge the old players is relative to the other players of their period. Fischer was far ahead of the other players of his day. By this measure, I consider him the greatest world champion.

[/ QUOTE ]