Kasparov vs Karpov live in Valencia
Game 3. Photo © http://www.europe-echecs.com/
Game 4. Photo © http://www.europe-echecs.com/
See all the Games
May take a little while to start first time you use this as it downloads images and the javascript file.
Silverlight Board by Martin Bennedik (bennedik@gmx.net), all rights reserved.
Download Games
You can download the games in the computer readable PGN format. Programs such as ChessBase (a basic version of their windows game viewer is here ChessBase Light). Scid (http://scid.sourceforge.net/) is available for many different computers. The London Chess Centre sells the full ChessBase which will allow you to make the most of the world of chess games on the internet.
All Blitz Games in PGN (corrected from the video footage by Peter Doggers - http://www.chessvibes.com/)
Kasparov and Karpov play a 12 game (4 Rapid and 8 blitz) match in Valencia 21st-24th September 2009. The match is on the 25th Anniversary of the start of their infamous first aborted match in Moscow in 1984-5, this was followed by an epic series of close World title matches which ended in Lyon 1990.
Time controls: 25 minutes + 5 seconds a move for the rapid games. 5 minutes + 2 seconds a move for the blitz.
Official site: http://www.matchkarpovkasparov.com/
Time Table
| Kasparov - Karpov Match Valencia (ESP), 21-24 ix 2009 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Schedule | ||
| 21.09.2009 | Simul by Kasparov and Karpov | 19:00pm local time |
| 22.09.2009 | Games 1 and 2 Rapid | 19:00pm local time |
| 23.09.2009 | Games 3 and 4 Rapid | 19:00pm local time |
| 24.09.2009 | 8 Blitz Games | 19:00pm local time |
A Brief overview of their Head to Head record
Their World Championship record summarises as: Kasparov 21 wins - Karpov 19 wins and 104 games were drawn.
Moscow 1984-5 Karpov-Kasparov (+5 -3 =40) (aborted match)
Moscow 1985 Kasparov-Karpov (+5 -3 =16)
London - Leningrad 1986 Kasparov-Karpov (+5 -4 =15)
Seville 1987 Kasparov-Karpov (+4 -4 =16)
New York - Lyon 1990 Kasparov-Karpov (+4 -3 =17)
They also had a battle for the GMA World Cup series (1988-9) which was won by a small margin by Kasparov over 6 tournaments. They were unrivalled as the top two players for about a decade. Even after this, even though Karpov clearly wasn't world number two he held the governing body FIDE's World Championship 1993-1999 after Kasparov organised his own world title events. He also won the Linares 1994 by a big margin over Kasparov which he used to suggest he was the real champion. I've always thought Karpov was a little lucky in this tournament, there was some appalling play from some of his opponents (I remember particularly that Bareev's play in the ending of his game against Karpov, even at this number of years after, was spectacularly bad) which explains much of the margin of victory.
Apparently there were long negotiations over the match and offers from two other European cities and one in South America. Kasparov has been retired since 2005, devoting his time to opposing the Russian goverment and especially Vladimir Putin. He has always been open to playing exhibition events and I don't expect this will mark a return to top level chess. Karpov has just fallen out of the world's top 100 and doesn't seem to have worked on his game for a long time. In spite of all this the match should get a lot of publicity in the mainstream press. I believe Kasparov is the favourite, not least on the grounds of age, Kasparov is 46, Karpov 58. I wonder if at least in part Kasparov has in mind his only match loss to Karpov, the x3dworld rapid match in New York in 2002 which Karpov won 2.5-1.5. Since then they have played just three blitz tournament games, (one in Reykjavik 2004 and two in Zurich 2006) all drawn.