In 1979 he celebrated his 16th birthday and for the first time, entered a foreign adult tournament. Garry finished first ahead of fourteen Grand Masters.

In 1980, he won the World Junior Championship.

At 21, Garry Kasparov was the youngest player in chess history to compete in a World Championship final match.

On November 9, 1985 Garry became the youngest ever World Chess Champion when he beat Anatoli Karpov. This made him the 13th World Champion and he had already become the number one ranked player in the world.

In January of 1990, Kasparov created two milestones in chess history. First, he moved past Bobby Fischer's best ever rating of 2785 and then broke the magical 2800 sound barrier. He was the first player in Chess history to do so. At that time, it was the chess equivalent of breaking the four-minute mile.

In 1999, after winning the three major events of that year, he created a new milestone by topping the 2850 ELO ratings mark. (The only player to do so.)

From December 1981 to February 1991, Kasparov made chess history by not losing a single event for nearly ten years. This was the perio! d in which he created the reputation of invincibility.

In 1988, a computer program was devised to analyze a vast collection of chess statistics, in order to create a ranking of the all-time chess greats. Top of the list, above Capablanca, Karpov, Fischer and the rest, was the twenty-five year old Russian, Garry Kasparov. Today, in his late thirties, Kasparov has been THE #1 RANKED PLAYER FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS.

Early Days

A child chess prodigy who started playing as a five-year old, Kasparov qualified as an International Chess Master at the age of sixteen.

The Person

Those close to Garry know his unrestrained contagious laugh, his kindness and caring and know him as a multi-faceted and unique person. All of his adult life the courage of his convictions have been put to the test. His matches against Anatoll Karpov (the previous champion closely connected with the Communist establishment) were widely regarded as a show of individual opposition to the authoritarian state. He had difficulties with the USSR Sports Committee, the Communist Party and even the KGB. He was in the fore-front of the anticommunist movement, resulting in real threats.

The Flight from Baku

Tragic events in Baku at the end of the 1980's marked the beginning of a whole chain of multi-national conflicts in the USSR. Kasparov showed bravery and leadership when he went into Baku, into the midst of massacre and carnage to rescue the families of his relatives and friends. With difficulty he chartered a flight to Moscow, re-housing the entire group at his own expense and helping them start new lives. Garry could have left the collapsing Soviet Union, but preferred to stay in Moscow.

The Number One Ranking

For eighteen years, Kasparov has held the #1 chess ranking. In 1989, he became "the first" player to top the 2800 level, a distinction he still holds today.

Championship Defenses

He successfully defended his title more times than any champion in modern times.

Team Challenges

The restless Russian is always looking for new challenges and for the past decade has astounded the Chess world by beating some of the world's strongest Olympic chess teams, playing four or six Grandmasters simultaneously.

Computers

Kasparov has been at the forefront of the use of computers in Chess and in 1998 he played against Topolov in the first highly publicized game of AAdvanced Chess in Leon, Spain. AAdvanced Chess is Man & Computer vs. Man & Computer and the fascination for everyday chess fans is that they feel that they are "peeking" inside the minds of the great players.

Deep Blue

In February, 1996 in Philadelphia, he played IBM's Deep Blue computer. His opponent was able to analyze 50 billion moves in three minutes. In NYC in May 1997, Kasparov ag! ain played the monster computer. The series stands at one match each and the World Champion, baked by the world's estimated 300 million Chess players, has challenged IBM to a tie-breaking third match. Has IBM cashed in its silicon chips and sailed off into the sunset, satisfied with a tied series, or will they rise to the challenge for the tie-breaker? Whatever the outcome, these two matches created two incredible statistics. Chess received the greatest exposure the game has ever known and IBM's PR unit was quoted as saying that the company received over one billion dollars in quantifiable publicity and 72 million hits on their Internet site.

1990 The Brain of the Year

The Brain Club and Synapsia elected Garry as its first "Brain of the Year" and described him as "The World Chess Champion, athlete and humanitarian both, and a cultivated and curious man who closely follows literature, films and politics".

Writer/Author/Speaker/Spokesperson

He has authored several books on chess and is a regular contributor for the Wall Street Journal. Other recent contributions have been made to TIME magazine and Forbes ASAP. His speeches are as dynamic as his chess. Groups of all descriptions invited him to talk on Chess, The Deep Blue matches, Computing in Chess, Internet and Chess, Artificial Intelligence, and Russia, It's Politics and Business.

As in everything he does, Garry is both thoughtful and articulate and is a powerful imaging tool for corporations. He has endorsed Schwepps, Titus, Audermars Piguet and Saitek, to name a few.

Kasparov Activities

Garry Kasparov's #1 activity is still playing chess. For example:
• The World Chess Championship
• Major Chess Tournaments - Classical, Rapid and Blitz
• Computer Challenges
• Man & Machine vs. Man & Machine
• The Olympiad and the World Team Cup
• The Grand Prix
• Russia vs. The Rest of the World

Simuls all around the world. For corporate entertainment, Chess Clubs or charities, these range between 15 to 120 opponents, played simultaneously.

Kasparov versus the National Olympic Chess Team of four to six players, played simultaneously is a Kasparov specialty.

Apart from his match against Deep Blue, Kasparov has always been at the cutting edge of innovations in chess. For four months, he battled THE WORLD in a Microsoft sponsored event which opened new frontiers for chess.

Kasparov has played serious Internet Chess Tournaments. On the lighter side, he even played Boris Becker "live" on CNN for one hour. Garry was in Manhattan and Boris was in Munich.

He is a regular on TV talk shows.

He enjoys popularity on TV Commercials. He has made half a dozen ads in three countries and his Pepsi ad, shown during the Superbowl, was nominated for an Oscar.

He is a frequent keynote speaker with choice of subjects ranging from Russian Politics Today to the Middle East, World History and Computers.

He is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

Charity

Garry does a great deal of Charity work. From Israel to London to New York City, he plays Charity Simuls and has recently created his own Foundation in the US based on his dream of bringing Chess into classrooms throughout the nation.