whether you're a recent or long time fan of chess certainly you must have heard of gary kasparov
gary is arguably the greatest chess player of all time and if you ask most people he is in
their top three gary was the world champion for many years and he was ranked world number one
from 1984 to 2005 the year that he retired at the beginning of his rise to the top he had a
long and bitter rivalry with anatoly karpov and in this video i'm going to show you the game that
made him world champion in 1985. the first match that they ever played was actually in 1984. that
match was first to six wins and it was five wins for karpov three for kasparov and 40 draws and it
was called off because it was going too long so they reconvened the match in 1985 and actually
they also played three more matches after that but this is not a history lesson let's jump into
this absolute masterpiece from game 24 of the 1985 world championship so after 23 games of chess it's
currently 12 for kasparov and 11 for karpov karpov must win the final game of the match tying it up
at 12 back then they did not have any tie break system so if it was 12 12 the defending champion
would retain their title and you'll notice i said in 1984 they just played until six wins for this
match they reset that original score and it was 24 games maximum that they played and that tradition
is carried out all the way up until today where uh there's a set number of games that are played and
then we go to a tie break system now karpov begins with e4 and normally if you're gonna play for
for a draw with black for a non-losing situation you're going to play something like e5 because
e4 e5 is very solid and standard and that's just the way it goes but gary kasparov doesn't have
any sort of art school degrees he's not a fan of drawing so he plays c5 the sicilian defense one of
the most confrontational defenses white plays knight f3 d6 there's a lot of variations that
black can choose and now d4 a lot of variations white can choose white trades the d for the c
pawn and the players get out to this variation this position is known as the nidorf variation
of the open sicilian a lot of different things can happen here a lot of different plans by white
i wouldn't say there's a lot of different plans for black though black generally has a few kind of
sentence standard ways to play this position the night or is spelled n a j d o r f the j silent uh
not the najdorf that's how you uh you would know that you are not a you know you can fool people
now you could say oh i know the night or sicilian at this point white has like 20 different moves
i'm not even joking in this position white can go here here here here here here here here even here
here here here here and uh just about everything in between no joke white has played all of these
moves in this position uh it's an insane battleground back then karpov plays the move
bishop to e2 kasparov plays e6 big decision for black in the night or if do you play two squares
or one you would say well two's great knight's hanging it's not that easy night moves and now you
have kind of a hole here on d5 whereas kasparov likes to play this like e6 this is known as the
shaving again or cheviningen or chavengyon or i i sounded vaguely french but it's a dutch word i'm
very sorry plays bishop e7 and castles and this bishop looks passive and i'm not gonna lie to you
yeah i mean that bishop is literally shut tight it literally it cannot move it doesn't have a single
move but black's position is like a slingshot you know you're pulling it back and you're ready
to go in the sicilian you're oftentimes a counter puncher you'll notice as white
kind of develops the position uh that king h1 and a4 are the next thing we say how did karpov just
play a move on that side with the king and on that side with the pawn well both of these moves are
prophylactic moves and king h1 is played because he wants to get off of this diagonal it's also
played because he wants to push his g pawn while supported by the bishop and the queen on the same
side pawn storm of gary kasparov's position that's why he moves the king off the g file and he plays
the move a4 because he wants to stop kasparov from playing b5 so he's stopping kasparov's counter
play on the queen side which is where he knows the general kind of sicilian counter play comes
in and he's also preparing to get his king out of the way when he starts his assault knight c6
bishop e3 both sides here in the next few moves finish their development rook two rook moves by
kasparov bishop f3 and queen d2 slight one square improving moves by karpov and now the knight drops
back to b3 basically karpov says look man i gave you enough time to make this night trade you don't
want it i'm going to bring my horse back now here uh because sparrow plays a move that again to the
to the uninitiated looks a bit strange basics what why do you push that i mean at the beginner level
we go well if they take me i just take back whoops i just take back so it's a good move
yeah but they're not like that the reason they played b6 is he's restricting karpov
and what he wants karpov wants a5 so for example if i just play a random move carpet wants a5 and
what that does is it locks in this b6 square the knight is guarding it the rook is guarding
it so the carpet will then be able to transfer in pieces to b6 and so by playing b6 himself he
doesn't allow karpov to play a5 and so kasparov's happy but now carpool plays g4 and the threat of
g4 is to play g5 and trap tonight so what do you got to do sometimes you have to make moves that
look a bit ugly bishop back to c8 gary kasparov is not setting up the pieces for the next game
he's anticipating the move g5 and he's going to bring the knight back to d7 and it's kind
of funny because again it's like he's so passive like the game of chess has a concept in it called
space which is the amount of squares that you control on your opponent's side of the board
for gary kasparov he has two spatial squares on his opponent's side of the board that he's
fighting for right now whereas karpov has one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven
twelve thirteen fourteen fifty i mean fifteen to two you would think that one guy is dominating
the other but that's the way the sicilian is at any moment you're ready to you know hit him with
the what you know with the uh out listen i'm gonna embarrass myself saying names of boxing
you know punches or or whatnot but you're ready to hit him with it with a counter you know maybe
a hook you know uh it that's that's the nature of the sicilian defense it's a very confrontational
opening it's like you know you you hang back there like a yoel romero
granted the fight without asanya was a snoozer but still right and now karpa plays queen f2 the
whole point of queen f2 you line up the queen with the bishop to target there and you want to bring
the queen here and launch an attack in the future kasparov plays bishop back to f8 still retreating
slowly improving his position ready for the war that is coming we get bishop back to g2
and now bishop to b7 this move is not retreating it's lining up the bishop to this diagonal
rook d1 and now kasparov plays g6 now normally when you see an attack about to come down toward
your king you don't want to give your opponent something called a hook you don't want to push
pawns in front of your king because they can turn into hooks hooks are targets for your opponent
so you'll notice that in this position if f5 happened this is the only thing that's in the way
whereas if you play g6 now there are two things and i'm i'm gonna take i'm gonna take somebody
but karpov again was kind of slowly just improving the position he plays bishop c1
again not just setting up the pieces for the next game he wants to play the move
rook d3 and by getting the bishop out of the way he wants to bring his rook over here
so gary plays knight before he says go and do it well you want it so bad go and do it all right bro
cage three you got what you want right it's very rare in chess that both players get what they want
now bishop to g7 and the bishops are kind of lined up here it's a very messy and complex position
and here's the big moment i mean he's got the rook staring down he's got the queen staring down he's
got the rook staring down surely he's going to play f5 i mean it's time i mean just go you got
to do it well it's not so fast i mean chess is a very complex game he plays another improving move
he brings the bishop right back now gary plays rookie 7 he's ready
he's anticipating the opening here right in f7 he's like i'm going to guard it i'm ready
surely now carbon's going to play five please kg1 now i'm not gonna lie to you ladies and gentlemen
i can't explain the move king to g1 to you a lot of you uh you know a lot of you are watching me
for not the first time and i explain things to you i don't understand king to g1 maybe maybe
what karpov didn't like was the fact that if he plays f5 that it might come with like a check in
the future maybe like for example here you know this is coming with check like he didn't like
that because now black is winning moves or tempe against his so he plays another prophylactic move
but gary didn't need another moment to waste and gary himself now plays f5 again counterintuitive
pushing a pawn where he's being attacked now by the rule of ompassant we get g takes f6 if you
don't know what that is welcome to the world of chess we have a lot of complex unnecessary rules
but i promise it's a good time hope you stick around and um it's when you push upon two squares
and it stands side by side with your opponent's pawn just for that move they can take the square
behind you listen i don't make the rules okay don't get mad at me go get mad at the rules
makers knight takes f6 this transformation allows black to activate the knight and also fight on the
f-file it's a big improvement for black copper plays rook to g3 we get that we get rook f7
sacrificing this pawn you'll notice gary didn't just hang this pawn he sacked it he sacrifices
that b-pawn and drops the queen back to b8 why would you sacrifice a pawn to open lines well you
and i lose pawns because we lose pawns and then we claim it to sacrifice gary sacrificed this because
white is overextended white's pieces look good but they're kind of mismanaged the right squares are
not being fought for and gary's got tactics that will now stockpile on the b-file keep that b-file
in mind bishop goes back to e3 now gary plays knight h5 attacking the rook carpal moves up and
gary offers what would be a repetition in chess if you repeat a position three times it's a draw
now remember karpov has to win so karpov plays rook h4 now gary lashes out again pushing upon g5
pawn takes attacking the knight yeah but now the rook sees the queen so we get a little knight g4
action a move that looks like it's not possible because rook takes but we have a discovered
attack here the carpet plays real queen to d2 we get takes takes and takes look at these horses
it's got the horses in the back please don't copyright strike me for saying that right the
horse is coming in from both sides bang bang bang and now the queen infiltrates on b6 gary in this
position plays bishop to a8 says what's up what's up anatoly let's make that trade remember that b6
pawn you took a long time ago now it's gonna come back to bite if you take and take i'm getting
the counter play down that b file i'm hitting your knight i'm hitting the pawn behind on b2
well it's a big decision and here it's move 35 now the players have a set amount of time
for which they can play the first 40 moves of the game we've played 35 of those moves
and then once they cross the 40th move they gain extra time that's how slow chest classical chess
works frequently the grandmasters have very low time here because they mismanage their time
like they mismanage other elements of their life like not wearing the same shirt five
days in a row totally a thing that happens with grandmasters welcome to the world of chess not
these guys because when you're playing for the world championship you have to wear a suit you
have to look nice um but other grand masters who i will not name but in this position bishop 2a comes
offering the trade of queens to create counter play and karpa plays the move rook takes pawn
which looks like a good move because you guard your queen and you win another pawn the problem is
gary's got reinforcements from the other side of the board bam
uh-oh and uh now that beef i remember that pawn you took a long time ago yeah it's coming back
to hurt now so we get queen moves out of the way taking another pawn rook takes knight rook takes
pawn if we take stock of this position white's got four extra pawns why does five pawns black has
but black is a bishop extra bishop right i have two bishops you only have one now it's a
totally chaotic position i mean all the pieces are interacting bam bam you know we got the rooks here
you can't really take me because i'm gonna take you with a check and hit your rook and you gotta
hide in the corner and i mean you really wanna get under the fire of my queen and my rook they're
angry they want revenge for what you've been doing on the queen side so at this moment gary plays the
move rook takes pawn it's a free pawn and in the future you've got a line up here also that kicks
out the defense of that knight that knight has no guard anymore and i'm threatening to infiltrate on
the back rank carpool plays a a very nice move here he plays queen c4 and queen c4 lines up an
attack on the king so now if again if you take i got this so what does gary do it's gary's 39th
move he plays king to h8 it's a scary looking move but you get out of the way and even though you're
walking into this you're fine here karpov on move 40 plays the move e5 e5 shuts out this bishop
and opens up these bishops to each other and opening up this corner sniper to g2 would
prove to be the fatal error you feel free to pause here and find the knockout combination which made
gary kasparov the world champion in 1985. i'll take a sip of my water i'll give you a second
this is why you always look for checks in this position gary has
one check that is safe rook b1 check loses a rook queen b6 czech loses a queen but there's one check
queen a7 and no one can get in the way anybody who gets in the way will be bulldozed by the queen the
only moves are here and here and when that happens i take you now with my bishop your king moves
and anywhere i move my knight is going to be check with my rook a discovered check all the while you
are a move away from beating me the whole time you could take but because i'm threatening your king
you have to move so gary plays knight to d4 check he could have played knight to e3 with
double check picking up the queen both would have been okay but he plays this and he takes the rook
and in this position anatoly karpov the reigning world champion resigned gary kasparov won the
match 13 to 11 and he was crowned the world champion at the time the youngest 22 years of age
like i said in the introduction he also played a lot of matches after this verse anatoly karpov
and not just karpov also against anand and kramnik but this was a crazy game uh mainly because if you
go back 15 moves it was it was complex and we were really waiting for this moment like when is karpov
gonna throw this punch he's got to do it but he never did gary said it's time for me to take
the position into my own hands understanding the dynamics of the position it's incredible
how much of this game was won and lost on the queen side down the middle and on the left side
the beautiful thing about going through these masterpieces of old classical games i mean not too
old at this point just 35 years ago is the fact that they're able to manage all sides of the board
and the way all the pieces interact now on move 40 there was a decisive error this e5 but what could
have karpov what could karpov have done he could have played g6 so g6 actually threatens checkmate
right because it threatens rook takes pawn which will lead to a mate when this all reopens in fact
here's an example of how you can lose check here check and mate so if karma had played g6
it would have been gary's turn to play a move gary probably would have played h6 and now the players
would have gotten extra time and the game would go on the problem is that because in all these
complications it was anatoly karp of losing a bishop there's a very low chance that he's going
to be able to make a comeback for example he's probably forced to now trade another pair of rooks
and the material is equal it's three pawns for that bishop but because there's so much pressure
here on this diagonal with the queen with this and this and the rook coming in there's a chance that
he wouldn't have won the game but there also is a much higher chance it would have went on
rather than just ending the way it did but this was the game that crowned gary kasparov the world
champion it's also the first game on my channel that i've ever done kind of covering one of these
uh historical games from the world championship if there's any more that you'd like me to cover
by all means tell me it's currently march 2021 i don't know when you're watching this in the future
uh but maybe i've made some of those videos by now upvote some of the comments that you
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um and that's basically it i hope you enjoyed and i look forward to seeing you in the next video