1995 World Chess Championship

The 1995 World Chess Championship, the reigning champion, Garry Kasparov was challenged by Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand.

At this time there were two rival World Chess organisations; FIDE and the Professonal Chess Association (PCA). The following World Championship was organized by the PCA.

Anand qualified by defeating Romanshin, Adams and Kamsky.

Before looking at the World Championship match, here is Anand's best game against Gata Kamsky. It begins with the Ruy Lopez closed variation:

Move 9...Bb7 is known as the Flohr-Zaitsev System.

This move was favored by Karpov and played in several good games between Karpov and Kasparov.

Moves 10 to 13 are all book moves and moves 14 are also the best moves.

15...Qd7 is a very rare move. The main line here is 15...c5

At the master level White has won a few games with 15...Qd7, but Kamsky arguably errors. It looks like a slow move given all of the pawns moving up the board.

The move 23...h5 further weakens the Black King. Kamsky's Rook would be better placed on the b-file.

The first move considered an inaccuracy by the engine is 24...Kg8. There are a lot of weak dark squares surrounding the Black King.

Under increasing pressure, Kamsky eventually blunders with 49...Ndx5 and Anand follows with the strongest move f7+. At this point, Anand is about to create a second Queen and there is a forced mate in six.

Anand earned Kamsky's resignation by playing a fine game throughout.

Anand also crushed Kasparov in April 1995 in Moscow with this game:

A Stockfish 14 analysis at depth 50 shows up 2 mistakes from Anand (25. exd5? and 27.b4?)

and 5 mistakes by Kasparov (moves 20, 21, 23, 24 and 27).

The chess.com analyzer says 4 of Kasparov's 5 "mistakes" were merely inaccuracies but gives Kasparov an astonishingly low CAPS score of just 39%.

For the championship matches, Kasparov hired Grandmasters Kramnik, Dokhoian and Pigusov to help him in his preparation.

Anand was seconded by Yusupov, Wolff and Speelman.

In earlier years games were adjourned allowing the players to consult with their teams during the break. However the advent of powerful computers meant any adjournment was no longer a workable idea. So each game began at 3pm and lasted up to 7 hours, which the players needed to complete in one session.

The contest was played on the 107th floor of one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center and the first game first game was played on 11th September. For the benefit of the press, Mayor Giulani made the first move for Anand but "blundered" by playing 1.c4 instead of the move Anand wanted 1.e4. Anand corrected the move after the cameras stopped rolling.

https://www.chess.com/openings/Sicilian-Defense-Open-Scheveningen-Classical-Variation-6...a6-7.a4

I could not find any chess.com lessons on the Scheveningen variation but there is a video available online by Jonathan Schrantz at the St Louis Chess Club:

Also see the Hanging Pawns video:

The game played the Classical Variation which is described at 18:52 HOWEVER the starting position in that video is a little different than what was played in this 1995 game where Kasparov played 7...Nc6

Here is the game in full:

Stockfish 12 game analysis (depth 30):

"Balanced — Neither player ever had an advantage."

White accuracy 95.9% Black accuracy 99.0%

No mistakes or inaccuracies

11 Best, 7 Book and 9 Excellent moves for White

16 Best, 6 Book and 5 Excellent moves for Black 

After the game Kasparov said "Better for Black, but he cannot win. I offered a draw because it was the first game. Apart from that I had four minutes less than Anand for the last 13 moves. He had 21 minutes left to my 17. Anand is a fast player, but this time he was also thinking a lot."

Anand commented on the draw humorously "Well we both basically agreed with each other that we didn't have a clue what was going on."

The follow documentary gives an overview of the whole contest:

Game 2 also ended in a draw. After the game, Anand said "Kasparov was happy with the draw. I am simply playing chess as well as I can, not taking unnecessary risks."

Anand had the opportunity to win the third game with a sacrifice on move 20, but didn't see it so that ended in another draw.

Kasparov tried the English opening in the 4th game, but another draw was agreed on move 21.

Game 5 was another Sicilian game, and another draw.

In Game 6, Anand played 1.e4 again, and this time decided to reply 1.e5. It was a Ruy Lopez game.

And another draw. This time the end of the game was greeted by slowing clapping from some of the audience. In the final position the computer evaluates +0.5 so there is no decisive advantage but a draw was not necessarily inevitable.

There is a previous World Championship game that may have inspired the opening for Game 6, also Game 10 of the 1995 Championship.

The same opening was played in the World Championship 1978 match 10 between Karpov and Korchnoi

Both Kasparov, Anand and their seconds would have studied this game. Note in particular move 11.Ng5 offering to sacrifice the knight. If 11...Qxg5 then 12.Qf3 Kd7 13.Bd5 gives White the advantage. So Anand chose the same defensive reply that Korchnoi played in 1978: 11...dxc3

Game 7 was another Sicilian and followed all of the moves from Game 5 up to move 15. It was also another draw. At this stage, there was even some booing from the audience. The world championship now resembled Karpov v Korchnoi 1978 where the first seven games were also all draws.

After Game 7, Kasparov said "I had a slightly better position at the end, but I could not find a plan to play for the win." When questioned about the modest levels of aggression in their games, Kasparov replied "That question you have to put to Anand. I respect Anand as a human being, while as a chessplayer he has matured. The match has been equal. I don't blame a player for not taking too much risk. There is too much at stake."

So the first 8 games were all draws.

Game 8 was a Scotch game. It ended in a draw, breaking the 1978 record for most consecutive draws. Anand said "It's not a record I wanted to break. I would not really be satisfied with a tied match. We are not deliberately postponing the tension for the later part of the match, we are just trying to make the best moves."

Jay Leno satirised the players depicting them playing on a room full of cobwebs.

Then the next two games were both decisive.

FM Aviv Friedman has a good talk on the next two games.

Game 9:

Kasparov makes two bad captures in this game. Firstly he trades his bishop for a knight. Secondly, capturing the rook was a mistake, and in fact was a trap that Anand and his team had prepared specially for him!

The move 27. Rd5 is in an inaccuracy according to engines but human annotators instead mark it 27.Rd5! probably because it is such a clever trap.

Kasparov spent 7 minutes thinking about whether to capture and then went for it. It was the losing move.

The chess.com move analyzer gives the response 28.exd5!! the teal brillancy category as no other move leads to a win for White.

The game is reviewed in more detail by GM Daniel King in this video:

I will be covering these games in more detail as soon as time allows.

Great thread here. Thanks, @KevinOSh.

Cheers @AunTheKnight

Here's GM Daniel King's analysis of Game 10.

Kasparov's performance in game 9 fell short of his best, and before game 10 there was a lot of negative speculation over Kasparov over his ongoing divorce and his business interests and predictions that would lose the championship.

But in this game he proved his detractors wrong with a brilliant comeback game.

The game started exactly like Game 6, with the Ruy Lopez opening.

https://www.chess.com/openings/Ruy-Lopez-Opening-Morphy-Defense-Open-Bernstein-Karpov-Gambit

From Game 10 Kasparov learned that Anand favors Korchnoi's defensive reply 11...dxc3 and for this game Kasparov and his team prepared a dramatically improved follow up, as explained in the videos by Daniel King and Aviv Friedman.

After 15.Nb3!! offer to sacrifice his rook, Anand was so surprised and concerned that he spent the next 45 minutes thinking before playing his next move. The Daniel King video above explains the variations.

Robert Byrne in The New York Times wrote:

"Anand has awakened the sleeping lion. One day after being overwhelmed and embarrassed by a younger, much less experienced opponent, Garry Kasparov roared back to even the world championship with powerful, imaginative attacking play. It was as if the real world champion had abruptly replaced some impatient, insecure understudy who had been playing in his place."

After the game he said the moves took 2 minutes to play, and 48 hours to prepare.

Here's GM Daniel King's analysis of Game 11

Sicilian Dragon

This game is dead level up until move 30 when Anand makes a blunder with 30.Nb6??

Normally forking two rooks with a knight is a great move, but in this situation it gave the game to Kasparov.

Game 12 was another Ruy Lopez and another draw,

Game 13 was more memorable. Here is Daniel King's analysis:

After Kasparov's success in Game 11, he decides to play the Sicilian Dragon again.

The blunder that gave a big advantage to Black was 21.c3. 21.Rd1 is the best move there.

GM Byrne in the New York Times wrote "The downfall of a contender for the world chess championship goes like this. First come second rate moves that create problems. Then agonising over the problems creates tension, which produces errors. Then the opponent lights up the board with explosive power. This was Viswanathan Anand's misfortune in game thirteen."

So the match at the world trade center had the 1st game on september 11th.  Hmm, interesting.

Game 14

This was the first ever Scandinavian game played in a World Championship match.

Kasparov offered a draw on move 16 because he realized he had been outplayed in the opening. In this position the engine evaluates to -1.12

After thinking for a few minutes Anand refused, but ran into time trouble at the end of the game and was forced to play some rushed moves. On move 40 he made a blunder that he realized one move later and resigned.

After the game Kasparov was asked about his draw offer and said "I just wanted to see how long it took him to respond. It took Anand several minutes to refuse the draw. I therefore knew that he was not as confident as he should have been. His refusal should have been instantaneous."

After the game, Kasparov criticized the result of the O.J. Simpson trial (the game was played on the day O.J Simpson was acquitted) and then criticized Anand's mistakes in the game: "Anand's errors can be explained because he has abandoned the most vital elements of his personality, those which define his immense talent. His play is not consistent because he is not playing in consonance with his own character."

Game 15 was a disappointing early draw

The engine evaluates Anand's position to be very slightly better at +0.2

Game 16 was also a draw, giving Kasparov almost enough points to retain his PCA World Champion status.

The engine evaluates the final position at -0.15, so again Anand was slightly better when he agreed the draw.

There were two further games played.

To be concluded...

A draw in the Sicilian Dragon? IMPOSSIBLE

I thought Fischer said against the dragon the plan was sac, sac, mate. So that doesn't work?

Two draws. DOUBLE IMPOSSIBLE.

Before this World Championship, the Sicilian Dragon was not very highly regarded at the very top level of chess players, but Kasparov's success with it made many players reconsider the merits of this opening. It's reputation more or less changed from a dubious opening to a solid defense for Black.

In Game 17, Kasparov was on 9.5 points and Anand needed to win to have any chance of winning the title. This was the longest game of the match, both in moves and in time. The game took 4 hours and 53 minutes.

After the game Kasparov said "This has one of my toughest matches and I am very happy to have retained the title. Anand would have crushed other players. My three point advantage does not reflect how difficult and psychologically draining the match has been."

Game 18 was a battle for the majority of the prize fund. Although Kasparov had already retained the title, the prize fund would be split evenly if Anand won all the remaining games.

Anand's heart was apparently not in the fight anymore because a draw was agreed after only 12 moves.

Only one pawn each had been traded at the end of this game.

This shameful ending to the world championship raised questions about whether the rules should be changed to prevent these early draw agreements.

Ah, interesting.

Today I found that one of Anand's seconds, Two time US champion GM Wolff wrote a book on this match. You can download it from http://chabris.com/pub/Wolff/index.html

In the introduction he credits Kasparov's excellent match strategy. The whole of Anand's team was focused on countering his Sicilian Najdorf when Kasparov switched it up and played the Sicilian Dragon.

There is a very good new lessons series with Vishy Anand talking with Danny Rensch about the most important and best games of his career.

In lesson two Anand goes over game 9 of this championship: https://www.chess.com/lessons/how-i-became-a-five-time-world-champion/anand-kasparov-how-i-became-a-five-time-world-champion

Anand writes about the 1995 match in his book Mind Master, specifically the subject of opening surprises:

"Kasparov's use of [the Sicilian Dragon] caught me completely off guard in game 11, which led me to make a blunder and I lost the game.

He brought it back again in game 13 and though I had a good idea of it by then I managed to mess up my responses, make screaming mistakes and was lost. Suddenly the Dragon, which I could have negotiated, looked like a stroke of genius."

He goes back to the topic of this match in the following chapter:

"...I focused my energies on not going down [Nigel] Short's path and losing too many games at the start, because when early losses strike, the score becomes hopeless"

"Kramnik, I heard, was part of Kasparov's team...it had never occurred to to me that he would work in a team against me."

"Frankly, I was not ready for a match of that magnitude."

And on the exchange sacrifice in game 9:

"I didn't really see a way forward if Kasparov didn't take it. Had he waited and not taken my rook, my advantage would have been very small."

Garry Kasparov also writes about this match in the "Human plus Machine" chapter of his book "Deep Thinking".

He reveals the opening novelty he prepared for Game 10 was prepared with the help of Fritz 4 and says it was the first use of computer engines in World Championship preparation.