Karpov vs. Kasparov - Round 16 - 1985 World Championship Tournament!

Hi, this is @Phantom_Beast23 and today, I wanted to share and discuss about one of the most famous games ever played in the history of chess! This game was played between 2 grandmasters, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov! This was a very intense game, both sides playing very well, but ultimately ended with Kasparov winning the game. I've always been a Karpov fan due to his sportsmanship and his play, but nonetheless, this was still a beautiful game!

Background info -

Some history about this game is that it was played during Round 16 in the 1985 World championship tournament! This game had a lot of hype surrounding it since they were slowly heading to the last couple of rounds. I actually came across this when our coach told us to give 5 games that featured the Sicilian Defense. This game is in fact so popular, it's been called "The best game of all time" and "Kasparov's masterpiece"!

Anyways here is the full game with annotations. Note, after some requests, I have decided to just show the whole game, and then go deep with the annotations and thoughts later.

This was an overall, beautiful game by both sides, but frankly, in the end, Kasparov just outplayed Karpov. Karpov in the end had trouble keeping his king safe and supporting his back rank and Kasparov took advantage of that and demolished him with some beautiful attacks and moves. Before I move towards the end of this blog, I wanted to go over one of the moves that I had annotated in the main game:

It's a very nice "Trap" found by Kasparov. If the queen took the knight, then there is a double attack with the knight check/fork and the bishop attacking the queen at the same time. After rook takes knight, then bishop can just take the queen and not only does Kasparov have a queen which Karpov doesn't, but it also SIGNIFICANTLY weakens the back rank. A beautiful move and game indeed.

Some things Kasparov did to help him win the game was

- Develop, I mentioned this earlier in one of the annotations, once both sides castle, it can sometimes be easier to see who has the advantage since their kings (kind of) have equal safety. Once we saw the kings get into safety, it was pretty clear that Kasparov was FAR ahead in the game in terms of development with 3 minor pieces developed compared to Karpov's 2.

- Kept on making pressure moves. Kasparov vigorously attacked Karpov's pieces the whole time, especially in the end, where Kasparov's attacks to the back rank were too much for Karpov's to bear and ultimately led to his resignation.

Fun Fact: Kasparov ultimately edged out Karpov in the World Championship tournament getting 13 points to Karpov's 11 points. Had Karpov won, or at least gotten 12-12 points, he would have kept his World Chess champion title as he had won back in 1984.

Here is a picture taken from the game:

Anyways, thanks for reading till here if you did, I just wanted to share this game as it's just so awesome, and proves how great both players truly were, always fighting back, and trying to win at all costs

And as always, make sure to check my other Blogs, They're pretty good as I take my time and effort to do them! I also hope to get Top Blogger soon so your support would be much appreciated!

Thank you,

@Phantom_Beast23