Books by Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov gives his first public account of his landmark 1997 chess match with the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and explains why, twenty years later, he's become convinced that artificial intelligence is good for humans.

This book brings together the two greatest names in the history of chess. The author, Garry Kasparov, is the world number one and, by common consent, the greatest player ever. The subject of the book, Bobby Fischer, is the only American to have become world champion and is probably the greatest natural talent the world has ever seen.In the period between 1955 and 1972 Fischer, more or less single-handedly, took on the might of the Soviet Chess Empire, and won. During this time Fischer scored astonishing successes the like of which had not been seen before. These included 11/11 in the 1963/64 US Championship and match victories (en route to the World Championship) by the score of 6-0 against two of the strongest players in the world, Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen. The climax of Fischer's campaign was his unforgettable match win in Reykjavik in 1972 against Boris Spassky. Fischer is almost equally well-known for his temperamental behaviour away from the board, as his play on it. He made extreme demands of all those around him including tournament organisers. When these demands were not met he often refused to play. The 1972 match against Spassky required the intervention of no less than Henry Kissinger to smooth things over. In 1975 when he was due to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov, Fischer was completely unable to agree terms with FIDE (the World Chess Federation) and was defaulted. After this he more or less gave up chess, playing only once, a 'return' match against Spassky in 1992. In this book, a must for all serious chessplayers, Kasparov analyses deeply Fischer's greatest games and assesses the legacy of this great American genius.

The stunning story of Russia's slide back into a dictatorship - and how the West is now paying the price for allowing it to happen.

Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov are unquestionably the protagonists who featured in the greatest ever chess rivalry. Between 1984 and 1990 they contested five long matches for the World Championship. This 3rd volume of the,'Garry Kasparov on Modern Chess' series concentrates on the third and fourth matches in this sequence: London/Leningrad 1986 and Seville 1987. Both matches were tremendously exciting and hard fought and both produced chess of an extremely high level. The 1986 clash was groundbreaking in that it was the first World Championship match between two Soviets to take place outside Moscow. It was split between London and Leningrad with twelve games being played at both venues. The defending champion was now Kasparov (having won the 1985 match) and he leapt into an apparently decisive three point lead. However, this sensationally dissolved when a crisis broke out in the Kasparov camp. Karpov exploited this and pulled off the remarkable feat of winning three games in a row. Kasparov finally regained his composure and eventually clinched the match with a late victory. The 1987 match was notable for it's sensational finale. Kasparov approached the final game with a one point deficit, knowing that only a win would enable him to retain the title. When the game was adjourned overnight in a position where Kasparov had to win to stay champion, Spanish TV cleared its entire schedule so that the nail-biting conclusion could be watched live. A pre-internet global audience of millions was glued to their TV screens as Kasparov ground out his historic victory. In this volume Garry Kasparov (world champion between 1985 and 2000 and generally regarded as the greatest player ever) analyses in depth the clashes from 1986 and 1987, giving his opinion on the background to the matches as well as the games themselves.

Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov, Part 1 is the first book in a major new three-volume series. This series will be unique by the fact that it will record the greatest chess battles played by the greatest chessplayer of all-time. The series in itself is a continuation of Kasparov's mammoth history of chess, comprising My Great Predecessors and Modern Chess. Kasparov's historical volumes have received great critical and public acclaim for their rigorous analysis and comprehensive detail regarding the developments in chess that occurred both on and off the board.. This new volume and series continues in this vein with Kasparov scrutinising his most fascinating encounters from the period 1973-1985 whilst also charting his development away from the board. This period opens with the emergence of a major new chess star from Baku and ends with Kasparov's first clash with reigning world champion Anatoly Karpov - a mammoth encounter that stretched out over six months. It had been known in Russia for some time that Kasparov had an extraordinary talent but the first time that this talent was unleashed on the western world was in 1979. The Russian Chess Federation had received an invitation for a player to participate in a tournament at Banja Luka and, under the impression that this was a junior event, sent along the fifteen year old Kasparov (as yet without even an international rating!). Far from being a junior tournament, Banja Luka was actually a major international event featuring numerous world class grandmasters. Undeterred Kasparov stormed to first place, scoring 11¿/15 and finishing two points clear of the field. Over the next decade this 'broad daylight' between Kasparov and the rest of the field was to become a familiar sight in the world's leading tournaments.

The history of sport has seen many great gladiatorial clashes: Ali v Frazier in boxing, McEnroe v Borg in tennis, Prost v Senna in motor racing. None however can quite compare to the intensity of the rivalry between those two great world chess champions: Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. Between 1984 and 1990 they contested an astonishing five World Championship matches consisting of 144 individual encounters. This volume concentrates on the first two of those matches. The epic 1984/85 contest which was lasted six months before being controversially halted "without result" by the then President of FIDE Florencio Campomanes.The 1985 match when Kasparov brilliantly won the final game to take the title and become - at the age of 22 - the youngest ever world champion. Great chess contests have often had resonances extending beyond the 64 squares. The Fischer v Spassky match was played during the Cold War with both champions being perceived as the finest products of their respective ideologies. The Karpov v Korchnoi battles (three matches between 1974 and 1981) were lent an edge with Karpov being a Russian hero of the pre-Glasnost era whilst Korchnoi was the disaffected dissident. The Kasparov v Karpov encounters mirrored a battle between the new Russia and old Russia with Kasparov seen as a symbol of the new ideology emerging under Gorbachev whereas Karpov was seen to represent the old regime of die-hard Communists such as Brezhnev. In this volume Garry Kasparov (world champion between 1985 and 2000 and generally regarded as the greatest player ever) analyses in depth the clashes from 1984 and 1985, giving his opinions both on the political machinations surrounding the matches as well as the games themselves.

This magnificent compilation of play from the 1960s through to the 1970s forms the basis of the third part of Garry Kasparov's long-awaited definitive history of the World Chess Championship. This volume features the play of champions Tigran Petrosian (1963-1969) and Boris Spassky (1969-1972).

In this stimulating book for players of all ages, Garry Kasparov selects the best chess combinations from recent grandmaster play and presents them in a test-yourself format that everyone will enjoy.