Anatoly Karpov

Anatoli Yevgenyevich Karpov (????????? ??????????? ???????) (born May 23, 1951) is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He is the most successful tournament player of all time, and as of July 2005 he has 161 first-place finishes to his credit. From 1978 to 1998 he played in every FIDE World Championship match. His overall professional record is 1,118 wins, 287 losses, and 1,480 draws in 3,163 games. His peak ELO rating is 2780.

Towards Retirement?

In 1991 Karpov temporarily dropped to third in the FIDE ranking list, the first time since 1971. Though he quickly recovered, many said that Karpov had lost his edge, and that his playing level had declined. However, Karpov bounced back against the world's very strongest players (in the order of their finish, Kasparov, Shirov, Bareev, Kramnik, Lautier, Anand, Kamsky, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Illescas, Judit Polgar, and Beliavsky) in the landmark "super-strong" tournament Linares 1994 (average ELO rating 2685, the highest in history, meaning it was the first Category XVIII tournament ever held).

Related Topics:
1991 - 1971 - Kasparov - Shirov - Bareev - Kramnik - Lautier - Anand - Kamsky - Topalov - Ivanchuk - Gelfand - Illescas - Judit Polgar - Beliavsky - Linares - 1994 - ELO rating

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Impressed by the strength of the tournament, Kasparov had said several days before the tournament that the winner could rightfully be called the world champion of tournaments. Perhaps spurred on by this comment, Karpov played the chess of his life and dramatically won the tournament. He was undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13 possible (the best world-class tournament winning percentage in 64 years), dominating second-place Kasparov and Shirov by a huge 2.5 points. Many of his wins were spectacular (in particular, his win over Topalov, detailed below, is considered possibly his finest throughout his career). This performance against the best players in the world put his ELO rating tournament performance at 2985, the highest performance rating of any chess player in any tournament in all of chess history.

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Even recently, few players have surpassed Karpov's achievements. Since he dropped out of the top three players in the world on the FIDE rankings, only Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, and (as of January 2005) Veselin Topalov have been in the top three slots. In other words, Karpov is the last person to have been in the top three in the world before Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov. In addition, Karpov is the only player among these to ever have ranked number one in the world ahead of Kasparov.

Related Topics:
Garry Kasparov - Viswanathan Anand - Vladimir Kramnik - January - 2005 - Veselin Topalov

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However, Karpov's outstanding classical tournament play has been seriously limited since 1995, since he prefers to be more involved in politics of his home country of Russia. He had been a member of the Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs and the President of the Soviet Peace Fund before the Soviet Union broke up. In addition, he had been involved in several disputes with FIDE and became increasingly disillusioned with chess. In the October 2005 FIDE rating list, he is 33rd in the world with an ELO rating of 2672.

Related Topics:
1995 - Supreme Soviet - October - 2005

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However, more recently, because of his traditional strength at managing his thinking time, Karpov has instead begun revamping his style to specialize in rapid chess.

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