1995 - Kasparov vs. Anand

GM Vishy Anand (India)


GM Garry Kasparov

After the last Kasparov-Karpov match (another tough one) in 1990, which was again won by Kasparov by 1 point, finally, we had someone who could break the K-K domination – Nigel Short.
He managed to win against Karpov in the semifinal candidates match, and then in the final, he beat Timman. So he became the new challenger for Kasparov.
In the negotiations for the title match, Kasparov and Short were dissatisfied with FIDE and criticized the organization vehemently. Eventually, they decided to break off from FIDE and found their own PCA – Professional Chess Association. They managed to organize a match for the PCA world champion title in 1993, which was easily won by Kasparov: 6-1 with 13 draws. At the same time, FIDE organized their own match between Karpov and Timman, and Karpov won by 6-2 and 13 draws. And, we had for the first time in chess history 2 world champions! However, everyone could see that Kasparov and Karpov were not only very strong but still on the top!
The PCA organization lasted for several years, and in the meantime, FIDE organized different types of events to determine the FIDE world champion.
In this video, GM Misa presents the 1995 match between Kasparov and Anand because it is more important than what was happening in the FIDE cycle. Not to mention that Anand became a 5-time world champion later on, and he lost his title only to Carlsen!
Anand became the challenger by defeating Kamsky in the Candidates final match, 6.5-4.5.
The match was played in 1995 in New York, on the 107th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Those buildings don’t exist anymore; we all know what happened on 9/11, 2001, unfortunately.
At the time of the match, Anand was 25 years old, and Kasparov 32, so the age difference was not significant. But Kasparov had an ELO of 2805 (ranked 1st in the world), and Anand “only” of 2715 (ranked 4th in the world).
The match was to be played in 20 games (best of 20 games), but it was over after 18. Kasparov won by 4-1, with 13 draws.

Despite the final result, the match was far from easy. The first 8 games ended in a draw! Then, Anand struck! He won game 9, but that was all from him in this match. Kasparov won games 10 and 11, and later on 2 more, to finish the match after 18 games.
The next match was played in 16 games, and from then we could see the trend of shorter and shorter matches: best of 16, then 14. Nowadays, we have a match for the world title in 12 games. In the next video, GM Misa will present the famous 2000 match, Kramnik-Kasparov, which Kasparov lost!
Stay tuned…