Friday, March 11, 2005
Farewell to a Giant
Garry Kasparov has retired from professional chess. With his retirement, an era has passed.
Was Kasparov the greatest chess player of all time? Comparisons across the ages are bound to be subjective, since the game itself has evolved so much over the years; nonetheless, Kasparov has as good a claim as any (and better than most) to be called the best ever. Francois-Andre Philidor invented ‘modern’ chess strategy in the 1750s, and is considered the first true great of the game. A century later, the American prodigy Paul Morphy destroyed all comers both in the US and on a triumphant European tour. After Morphy, Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raoul Capablanca have both had their share of admirers – Lasker was World Champion for a record 27 years, while Capablanca had a spell of 8 years (from 1916 to 1924) in which he lost just one game. Closer to the present day, Bobby Fischer captured hearts and minds with his victory over Boris Spassky and the ‘Soviet Chess Machine’ at the height of the Cold War.
But nobody ever bought the same combination of strategic insight, tactical precision and above all psychological mastery to the chess arena as did Garry Kimovich Kasparov. His opening repertoire was vast, and few could match the depth of his positional analysis in the middle game. He was a brilliant, audacious attacker – the sharper the line, the better he played – but he could also defend tenaciously and accurately when called to do so. Above all it was his ruthlessness over the board that set him apart from his contemporaries – he had the killer instinct, the appetite for the big occasion, that won him games even before the first pawn was pushed forward. In an era where impregnable defence and the careful accumulation of minute advantages were threatening to destroy the aesthetics of the game for the viewing public (see Karpov, Kramnik, Leko; see also Kramnik’s rebuttal of this argument), Kasparov’s dynamic, aggressive and always exciting style rescued chess.
Political shenanigans and unseemly disputes about prize money have meant that Kasparov is no longer the undisputed world champion – he lost the PCA title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2000, and FIDE has been unable to organize (as yet) the long-awaited match between Kasparov and FIDE champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov that would presage any reunification bout. But there’s little doubt that he remains the strongest player in the world. After a two-year dry spell in which he didn’t play many games (“protecting his rating”, said the critics), he returned triumphantly to action with a runaway win in the 2004 Russian Championship; at times he seemed to be toying with his opponents on his way to a dominating +5 score. He followed that up with an astounding 9th win (in 14 attempts) at the Category 20 Linares tournament, which ended yesterday (no other player has won more than thrice). His ELO rating remains above 2800, higher than any other player in the history of the game. If there is such a thing as going out at the top, then Kasparov is the perfect example.
Was Kasparov the greatest chess player of all time? Comparisons across the ages are bound to be subjective, since the game itself has evolved so much over the years; nonetheless, Kasparov has as good a claim as any (and better than most) to be called the best ever. Francois-Andre Philidor invented ‘modern’ chess strategy in the 1750s, and is considered the first true great of the game. A century later, the American prodigy Paul Morphy destroyed all comers both in the US and on a triumphant European tour. After Morphy, Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raoul Capablanca have both had their share of admirers – Lasker was World Champion for a record 27 years, while Capablanca had a spell of 8 years (from 1916 to 1924) in which he lost just one game. Closer to the present day, Bobby Fischer captured hearts and minds with his victory over Boris Spassky and the ‘Soviet Chess Machine’ at the height of the Cold War.
But nobody ever bought the same combination of strategic insight, tactical precision and above all psychological mastery to the chess arena as did Garry Kimovich Kasparov. His opening repertoire was vast, and few could match the depth of his positional analysis in the middle game. He was a brilliant, audacious attacker – the sharper the line, the better he played – but he could also defend tenaciously and accurately when called to do so. Above all it was his ruthlessness over the board that set him apart from his contemporaries – he had the killer instinct, the appetite for the big occasion, that won him games even before the first pawn was pushed forward. In an era where impregnable defence and the careful accumulation of minute advantages were threatening to destroy the aesthetics of the game for the viewing public (see Karpov, Kramnik, Leko; see also Kramnik’s rebuttal of this argument), Kasparov’s dynamic, aggressive and always exciting style rescued chess.
Political shenanigans and unseemly disputes about prize money have meant that Kasparov is no longer the undisputed world champion – he lost the PCA title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2000, and FIDE has been unable to organize (as yet) the long-awaited match between Kasparov and FIDE champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov that would presage any reunification bout. But there’s little doubt that he remains the strongest player in the world. After a two-year dry spell in which he didn’t play many games (“protecting his rating”, said the critics), he returned triumphantly to action with a runaway win in the 2004 Russian Championship; at times he seemed to be toying with his opponents on his way to a dominating +5 score. He followed that up with an astounding 9th win (in 14 attempts) at the Category 20 Linares tournament, which ended yesterday (no other player has won more than thrice). His ELO rating remains above 2800, higher than any other player in the history of the game. If there is such a thing as going out at the top, then Kasparov is the perfect example.
