This is the one you've been waiting for. Actually, the three you've been waiting for. Our epic post-retirement interview with Garry Kasparov covers his best games, the future of chess, retirement plans, Kramnik, Karpov, Deep Blue, computers, and much, much more. And of course there are plenty of fantastic photos.

 

The Garry Kasparov Interview, Part 1

Mig Greengard spent the week with Garry Kasparov and kept his new digital recorder handy. After that came the typing up 20 pages of transcript! (Yes, twenty.) Some of the questions were posed by New York Times writer Dylan Loeb McClain, who also happens to be a strong chessplayer. His NY Times article on Kasparov appeared on March 26. This first part includes retirement, computers and Deep Blue, and a look at Kasparov's own chess and other chessplayers. Part 2 includes Kasparov's picks for his best games and career achievements, a look back, and the future of professional chess. Part 3 focuses on his political ideas and aspirations.

Kasparov with a print-out we gave him of comments from fans.

RETIREMENT:

Why retire now? Many players have continued to have success later in life. What is success?

Winning occasionally isn’t the thing, it’s about being on top for twenty years. It’s about my nature, making a difference. I’ve done enough, more than I could have imagined, in the world of chess. Now I want to do other things. I want to have a target, to do things that excite me. I want to be able to employ my talents and experience.

Could you face the thought of declining in the chess world?

I don’t think it’s too arrogant to say I could have stayed on top for three or four more years. I think that’s fair to say, but there are other important things and the time is right. There is a crisis in Russia, there are books I want to write and promote. It’s important for me to tell people that chess can be a tool for improving the decision-making process with my book. It’s important to help the Russian people reclaim democracy. These things are more important. Unless I feel that my presence makes a big difference, I can’t excite myself enough to continue giving 100% to chess anymore.

If the situation were different, if there were a possibility to play for the world championship, would you have stayed?

IF the situation were different, IF the Putin regime were more stable, IF How Life Imitates Chess could be postponed for another year... There are too many “ifs” and all of these things are happening at the same time. It’s like as strange coincidence, all of them happening at once. It’s not a decision you make overnight. You don’t wake up in the morning and think “Ah, bingo, it’s over!” No, the frustration builds, opportunities come up. You analyze all the factors. They all pointed for me to change my life. It started with the frustration about the general situation around the world of chess, that’s number one. Also I’m playing a more active role in Russian politics. To my surprise I was elected chairman of the Committee 2008 Free Choice in January last year. It keeps adding up. Then the work with the books. I’m extending My Great Predecessors from six volumes to ten. All these things add up.

How will things be different day to day now that you aren’t playing professional chess?

In some ways it will be tougher to plan my life, so in a way I’m busier. Russian political life is hectic, mostly without a fixed schedule.

Where would you rank yourself all-time?

I don’t like this question in general, it's too subjective. By most standards, number one because of the length of my high performance and the strength of the opposition. The greatest gap between the number one and the rest was Bobby Fischer in 1972, but that was just one or two years and then came Karpov. I was able to keep up with the new generation and beat them. I was able to stay on the cutting edge, stay on top of the ranking for twenty years. I would say that entitles me to be number one.

Who replaces you?

I don’t know, it’s not my problem anymore! I have the t-shirt Mig gave me that says, “I’m retired, do it yourself!”

What about Kramnik? He has your title, but...

I don’t know if you can say it’s my title. In 2000 my title had value because I was the best in the world. In my book, Kramnik’s title expired no later than 2002. He had to defend his title and did not. More importantly, I won a few tournaments in a row in 2001 and he failed to perform at the highest level, to prove he was the best in the world. This meant expiration by higher standards. He didn’t beat an official world champion, the match wasn’t sanctioned by FIDE or anyone. He won a match against the strongest player in the world, and that gave him an opportunity to continue to prove he was the best. Without doing this, he needed to win a rematch or a number of victories that could prove his dominance. He failed to do this.

Isn’t that unfair to Kramnik? It was your doing it wasn’t under FIDE, not his?

I don’t think “unfair” is the correct word regarding Kramnik. It was unfair to Shirov that he didn’t play the match, that’s important. Kramnik didn’t qualify at all, he lost to Shirov [in 1998]. He was lucky Anand refused to play and then I made a choice, under some pressure from the British organizers, to pick Kramnik. They knew a match with Shirov would be a massacre. So Kramnik was selected because he was next on the list and had a good score against me, with real chances of winning. It’s amazing to remember Kramnik’s comments when he was selected and Shirov was complaining. Kramnik said, “How can you judge the strength of the players based on a match between them two years ago?” Which is what I’m saying now! I never said my loss to Kramnik was an accident, and won’t. If you look at our results before and after the match it looks that way, but he won fair and square. He was better prepared and he did something good for chess. He moved the game forward; he had some great ideas that enriched our understanding of chess. The problem is that from a wider perspective, looking at our later results, it was an anomaly. So either he needed to play a rematch, and if he beats me again then that’s it, he’s made the point and shown it wasn’t a fluke. Or he can win tournaments, take the #1 rating spot, something to establish his dominance. He failed to win tournaments and he avoided the rematch. So his title lost value because if you’re fighting FIDE you have to present yourself as the best player in the world. Unless you are best player in the world, it doesn’t work without a system. The rationale of the 2000 match was simple: number one versus number two in the world. Kramnik was arguably number two then, but anyway Anand didn’t want to play and Kramnik had a better score against me and had good results in 2000. It was number one versus number two, that’s the only real rationale to play a match outside of FIDE, without a system. But later you had number two doing absolutely everything to avoid playing number one. After Astana in 2001, where I beat Kramnik in the last round to win the tournament, I got a phone call from a friend who is a big chess supporter. He asked, “so when is the rematch? I would like to make a donation. It’s very clear now, you’ve won three tournaments in a row after losing in London and you’ve beaten him now. He has to give you a rematch.”

New York Times writer Dylan Loeb McClain

Did you actually call Kramnik, talk to him about a rematch?

Not directly, but through our representatives. He made it very clear in public interviews that he was interested in “fair qualification,” which is quite amazing coming from someone who lost every qualification match in his life and got to play in 2000 anyway! His statements were weak, and then he did everything to make sure there wasn’t a fair qualification. The tournament in Dortmund didn’t have the status as qualifier. They had no guarantees for the final match at all. They sent me an note asking if I’d like to play. My manager wrote back asking, “where is the two million dollars for the final match, what are the rules for the final match if he wins, etc. Send us a formal invitation.” Nothing, no formal offer. So it was “would you like to play in a tournament that, IF you win, you MAY play Kramnik, IF money is available.” Very nice?

Do you still speak to Kramnik?

Sure, why not? But I said it after the match in London that he would make it his goal in life never to play Garry Kasparov again. He wants to go down as the only player to have beaten me in a match, period. He has no other interests.

How about Anand?

He’ll be the number one on the list after I retire. After him, it will belong to the younger players. You have the teenagers, Karjakin, Carlsen, Nakamura. The new generation is growing up fast. Anand is 36! When we were at the closing ceremony in Linares, I told him, “I’m out, now you’re the oldest! You’re the dinosaur now!”

You can come back, you can play again. Michael Jordan famously came back twice.

Anand asked me if I was sure, if I wasn’t going to come back in six months. I said that I’m not going to quit completely. I’m following the games, doing some analysis, renewing my database, keeping my mind fresh. And also I’m writing books, so I have to work with the computer. I can play exhibition games, rapid games, just not competitive chess. Can I imagine that in six months, twelve months, I wake up and go, “oh my God, I can’t live without it”? I don’t think so, but I can’t guess. I made a serious statement and it’s not a game. I’m not going to sit and wait on the sidelines until people come up with millions of dollars to lure me back into chess, that’s not the plan. I made a serious decision to change the direction of my life and it’s a transition. I have no intention whatsoever to play any more competitive chess. Seriously. I don’t know about how Jordan felt. He probably meant it at the time. I have other things to do now. I have a huge program, with My Great Predecessors, How Life Imitates Chess, promoting the books, Russian politics, family, it will consume all my time. I also have these DVDs to work on. [Points at the box, which is the American version. They have a lot of general teaching, plus a lot of games attached. All the relevant games, and why they are the most relevant. It’s like a guide, so you can get through this jungle of variations. For average players, even for advanced players, the number of variations are overwhelming now, it’s depressing. But you can help yourself by going over the most relevant and instructive lines. They’ve already been quite successful, at least for chess software, and they haven’t started selling them in stores in America yet. I didn’t work on it before for reasons of both time and technology. All the factors came together. I don’t think I’m giving away too many secrets, but my state of mind has changed. I’m working on My Great Predecessors, I’m making lessons, thinking more about sharing my experiences and knowledge. How Life Imitates Chess is similar, but with a much wider audience, on a broader level. I’m trying to share my ideas, to analyze the nature of the decision-making process, to help people find their strengths and weaknesses, to find their own formula for success. One prefers intuition, another more hard data, to analyze how these formulas work and how they can be customized.

Even those things might not take so long. You’re only 41.

I don’t know! I still think I’ll feel more comfortable sharing my ideas. I don’t know how I can help, how I can make a difference, but I’ll find a way. Writing books, playing a role in Russia, those are the first steps in this transition. But I’llstill be in chess. I’ll be delighted to help promote the game, work with chess in schools and achieve goals there.

What about the Kasparov Chess Foundation?

The original goal was to design a curriculum for chess in schools, a unified program. That’s still our top priority. I always thought it would be important to have a system to teach teachers to teach chess. Manuals to help teachers present the game of chess. Not to just teach the game, but to do it in a way that will help kids improve their performance in every aspect. The quality of the teaching is the biggest concern. How chess gets there, I don’t mind. If someone else has a program, great. If someone takes ours and uses it, fine. As long as it happens. Our school project is still the number one priority. There are other things, such as our experiment working with the US women’s team last year. We don’t want to continue because we think it’s not exactly our turf, but we can help finding sponsorship. We got money from one of our sponsors, and it was all financed by us, but at the end of the day we decided our foundation is not here to finance professional chess or professional teams. But at the same time we’ll help them find sponsorship. Oh, and we also established an all-girls championship in Chicago, the next will be the second one. The project we are going to start this year is to make a version of what we called the Botvinnik/Kasparov school in the USSR. To have sessions with talented kids, to nurse them along and improve their chessplaying qualities. It’s something we are tentatively calling Team 2010. To help talented kids, and there are many here in America now who could use our assistance.

Do you know anything about Karpov’s activities in Lindsborg, Kansas?

I don’t know much about it, but I’m delighted. I’m not here to compete with him or anyone else. If he is supporting chess there, great.

How would you like to be remembered?

Well, my usual reply to this is that I would like to be remembered! Everyone will have different memories. I was quite thrilled to read the different letters to me from chess fans around the world. It makes me happy, because if anything goes wrong at least I’ll be remembered as a very good chessplayer who did a great deal for chess. In 20 or 30 years, I don’t know. I just hope I’ll have made a difference. I don’t know if my views will help people see the big picture. But if I’m any help, I’ll be very happy I achieved something outside of chess.

COMPUTERS, THE GARRYBASE, AND DEEP YOU-KNOW-WHAT

[Now we’re checking the Melody Amber games and results online. Later he looks up the opening of Kramnik-Shirov in a ChessBase file with exactly 16,729 variations. More on the Garrybase here.]

Ah, Anand beat Topalov today. 2-0! He’s inspired now! Topalov can’t recover from Linares, it seems. He used up all his luck in Linares! Against Adams he got a point and a half from two lost games. Adams played quite well in Linares, he tried hard. He beat Anand with black and was winning against Topalov with black and white. If we played the tournament again I think I would score +4 again, but Topalov, I’m not so sure. But he deserved it, because he had plenty of energy and pushed to the last pawn and made his own luck. Now we see chess is compensating him for it in Monaco.If you look at the tendencies in chess today, you see the positions that are being played. Slow Spanish games, lines where the machine can’t make such a difference. Either you have to work very hard like I did with the Najdorf, or you have to find safer lines. Very sharp lines are slipping out of the mainstream because people are getting scared. That’s due to computers and the limits of human memory. Nobody wants to be surprised at an early stage and lose a game to the superior analysis of their opponent. So the machines have a direct effect on our analysis, but also on the psychological choices of the players.

How will how you play in the future be different? What does it mean not to be aprofessional?

Competitive means to work hard, updating your repertoire, preparing for each game. You’re a professional, you play to win and can’t miss anything. Rapid chess for entertainment doesn’t require the same determination and involvement. Playing blitz on the internet doesn’t require any!

Did the match with Deep Blue change the perception of chess?

It was a sad day for chess. Scientifically speaking, the match was a fake. IBM produced no evidence that it wasn’t and the burden of evidence was with them. If I say there was human intervention they needed to prove with printouts or reproducing the moves to show that there wasn’t. Okay, I’m not asking for damages or anything, it’s about providing information. Without full printouts of all the games you can’t operate on a scientific basis. Can I prove it? No. What I can prove is that Deep Junior and Deep Fritz do better in analyzing those games. I don’t have anything more than those six games against Deep Blue. But I can put those games into modern software. For instance, in game four against Deep Blue, according to them it didn’t see any danger of losing. Deep Junior shows I was winning. This is one of the examples that show today’s machines are much better. They are more sophisticated and offer better moves. Deep Junior and Deep Fritz do better than Deep Blue at every instance except where I suspected there was human intervention. At the end of the day it’s not about me losing. I did what I could and I’m retiring as a happy man. Back in 1997 there was no interest in the media in pursuing the possibility of IBM cheating. Nowadays, after Enron and Worldcom, the perception of big corporations is different and things would probably have been different in the media. IBM had a powerful PR machine, they bought a lot of advertising. Maybe I’m paranoid, but there were some good claims about how IBM failed to provide evidence. You beat the best human player, fine, but now show the evidence. Show the process, the printouts, show the entire process, play a few more games. They failed to answer all the questions and at the final press conference they said they would release everything in due course and they never did it. I say it’s a tragedy for chess because the game was marred by this image of the computer beating the best human player. While maybe it was a computer and maybe it wasn’t, nobody knows. “I say, they say” has no place in science. They had to provide evidence, not just PR. I’m still angry about it because chess suffered dramatically. No more corporations wanted to invest money into research. Three or four years later we have the small programs doing a good job. The irony is that the matches with me and the computers, and Kramnik against Deep Fritz, those were real matches. You can trace those programs from the day of their birth. They have played thousands of games against other computers hundreds against humans, and you can see the changes from version one to version nine. With Deep Blue you have no information. It was like being in court and the prosecution says, “you are too stupid to understand the evidence.” I feel I was beaten by IBM, not by Deep Blue. They dismantled the machine, the program, everything. If you have something outstanding your share it, you don’t hide it. You apply for a Nobel Prize. Why didn’t they?

Did you ever talk to Joel Benjamin about it?.

No, why? I think he lied on a number of occasions. But it’s not about talking to anyone, it’s about showing evidence. Show me the printouts of all the games, don’t tell me we can’t understand them or they are too complicated. We have enough scientists to figure it out. I don’t want to debate anyone. I don’t feel that computers are better than the top humans today. I drew those two matches [against Deep Fritz and Deep Junior], I failed to deliver, but I was very close. I feel we are still capable of beating the machines. But as I’ve often said, the experiment is whether or not the best human player can beat the machine on his best day, that’s it. We don’t have to play a long match. You can’t guarantee best performance on every day. Under those conditions, the man versus machine experiment can continue for a long time. The day when that can’t happen is a long way away. Machines that are demonstrably better than Deep Blue are not yet superior to human players.

Did you ever talk to Joel Benjamin about it?

No, why? I think he lied on a number of occasions. But it’s not about talking to anyone, it’s about showing evidence. Show me the printouts of all the games, don’t tell me we can’t understand them or they are too complicated. We have enough scientists to figure it out. I don’t want to debate anyone. I don’t feel that computers are better than the top humans today. I drew those two matches [against Deep Fritz and Deep Junior], I failed to deliver, but I was very close. I feel we are still capable of beating the machines. But as I’ve often said, the experiment is whether or not the best human player can beat the machine on his best day, that’s it. We don’t have to play a long match. You can’t guarantee best performance on every day. Under those conditions, the man versus machine experiment can continue for a long time. The day when that can’t happen is a long way away. Machines that are demonstrably better than Deep Blue are not yet superior to human players.

HIM AND THEM, THEN AND NOW

Will anyone else do what you have done in chess?

Ratings and even rating systems can change. It’s about staying at the top, being ahead of the rest. Chess is changing fast. I don’t know if anyone will be able to keep the top spot for more than five years. That would already be a great accomplishment.

How’s your physical condition at the end of your chess career?

My lowest weight in the past 20 years was probably 82 kg [180 lbs.] and the heaviest was maybe 87 kg. Now I’m about in the middle, so it really hasn’t changed much. I’m a little thicker in the shoulders because I started working out more in the 90’s. But overall in the last ten years there hasn’t been much fluctuation. I’m getting back to my training regimen now, I’m going to spend more time on that. My best period was 99- 2000, when I had phenomenal results in training. My personal best was 102 push-ups. Then it slipped, I didn’t spend the same amount of time. In the next six months I’m really going to improve dramatically, if not reach the same level as then.

Did you notice a difference in the way you played over the past 20 years?

You can’t stay on top unless you change. You have to adjust. It’s a natural process. You work a lot and you change. It’s not about concentration, it’s more that your head is being overloaded with other pieces of information and responsibilities. You have kids, you have businesses, you can’t fix your mind in one direction. There are always bits and pieces that are taking your mind from the target.

Would the Kasparov of today beat the Kasparov of ‘86?

Hard to tell! I would say my best year was ‘99-2000. “Kasparov ‘99” was probably the best player I have ever been. ‘99 was the highest quality I ever played. It’s not frustrating to me to leave this behind, not being the best anymore now that I’m not in chess. I’m not naïve, I know there is little chance I can achieve anything elsewhere at the level of what I achieved in chess.

Kasimdzhanov played great in Libya last year, but looked outclassed in Linares. What is the difference and how can a player like Bologan, rated around the same as Kasimdzhanov, suddenly win Dortmund ahead of Leko, Kramnik, and Anand?

I don’t know, but it’s interesting that prior to Dortmund Bologan spent two months working with me analyzing and playing blitz games as part of my preparation for my match with Ponomariov. Perhaps that had something to do with his confidence in Dortmund! I called him up, asked if he would be comfortable with that, because he used to work with Ponomariov. I told him he should call Ponomariov first to inform him. This was before the match that was scheduled for Argentina, in the spring of 2003. It couldn’t have hurt his performance in Dortmund. But Bologan is more solid than Kasimdzhanov. He’s well grounded, had good coaches like Chebanenko, later Lanka and Dvoretsky. In fact, I wrote an introduction to Bologan’s book, which is coming out. It’s a nice, impressive book because this guy is a hard worker, he likes to analyze games. Many players don’t like to analyze, to work, these days. He’s searching for the truth and has a lot of positive qualities.

How does a player like him not become a top-10 player?

They have great qualities, but if there is something missing it doesn’t work. Maybe confidence, maybe stability or character issues. There are always gaps that prevent people from going further. But these guys are good for making a big show sometimes. Look at Kasimdzhanov, winning Libya and not by accident. Surviving against Ivanchuk, Topalov, Grischuk, Adams, incredible! Bologan is different perhaps because he knows the strength of the top players, he has worked with a lot of the top guys like Kramnik and me.

Will there ever be another “total” player of the type produced by the USSR systems?

All the components still exist and they can be reconstructed easily. Look at the success of the US women’s team last year. Michael Khodarkovsky reconstructed the conditions of the USSR training. He built up a Soviet system, and look who worked with the team: Kaidanov, Gulko, Novikov, Stripunsky, Chernin... old school. If money is available to support these conditions it can be done. If the money is there to support Carlsen, for example, it could happen.

Mig Greengard gets some cake with the interview

Have we seen the best chess we will ever see already? Forget adjournments, which artificially inflated the quality of endgames, but with the faster controls and less emphasis on quality, is it all downhill from here?

Well, I’m probably biased, but I think we have seen the best already. The time controls and emphasis on the sporting element are lowering the quality. The sport element now dominates the art and science elements of chess. I think we saw the best quality of chess in the 80’s and 90’s. In terms of matches, I think my matches with Karpov had the highest quality, or not exactly quality… the biggest impact on the game of chess. Quality you can argue, but there were amazing games played by both of us. By impact I mean pushing the game ahead. The Kasparov-Karpov matches, and I will argue this in My Great Predecessors Volume VI, were the foundations of modern chess. All these players grew up on these matches, that’s how the framework of modern chess was created. The word “karkas” in Russian makes a good joke about this. It means something like the internal structure of a building, the frame. Once Roshal said that “Karpov and Kasparov are the “karkas” of the Russian team. “Kar-pov” and “Kas-parov,” “Kar-Kas.” I think that these matches were the “karkas” of modern chess. It pushed it up a level, to many new levels. Today, the conditions for training can be reproduced. There are may players and trainers from that school still around. One of the projects of the Kasparov Chess Foundation is to work with young American player in this way. If we have the finances we can ignite this process here, restoring a Botvinnik/Kasparov school. It can be done anywhere in the world. The talent is there, and computers can help. But it’s about someone showing an interest.

But in the US you don’t have much of a career path for a chess professional. You have to go to school and get a job unless you’re good enough to make a living at it very young.

You have to look even beyond Nakamura for this, it’s a new era. I don’t want to upset my colleagues, my older colleagues, but I think the future of chess comes with these teenagers, not the players currently at the top. Nakamura, Carlsen, Karjakin. It’s not just changing politics or changing FIDE. It’s changing the philosophy of the chess elite. It was dominated for too long by Soviet thoughts. “Oh, we are professionals but we aren’t really. We just move the pieces and don’t worry about any obligations.” There was no solidarity or shared responsibility for the game. Now I’m in a good position. They criticized me for being an activist, now I can criticize them without being part of the debate! There is a general apathy of the top players for the game. They were all busy watching me, what I was doing, and their horizon was covered up by this, this rock. Now it’s gone, the sky is clear, so let’s see what they can do. Do it yourself! They’ve been talking big, now we’ll see. Look at the ACP, what have they done? The PCA was money first and successful by any standard until it was killed by brutal attacks from all sides. Now they have this ACP tour with no conditions, no nothing. I believe we need sweeping changes, young players and new faces with new attitudes, players who are real professionals. Take those three names: Nakamura, Carlsen, Karjakin. I hope those three can start a new era. They have energy and passion and come from different, important areas of the chess world.

You mentioned before that you might be working on setting up training for Carlsen.

Yeah, we might work with him. This is part of the Kasparov Chess Academy that we have here and in Russia. I’m happy to work and to share my experience because I want to promote chess. I’m ready to mobilize people here and in Russia if there is support for them. If the Norwegians support Carlsen I’m happy to work with him. We have a lot of experience, and a good database! And I want to invest all this into the future of chess. You need a combined change, on the players’ side and the organization side. FIDE in its current form is definitely not capable of solving the problem. And the leading players have a long record of abandoning the game of chess. You need different people in FIDE and a different type of professional organization, not just a bunch of Kramnik’s friends. And you need some new faces, like the three we already discussed. I see my job as trying to promote this and make sure interest in chess doesn’t disappear.

The Garry Kasparov Interview, Part 2
BEST OF THE BEST

If you could pick five of your games for the only chess book that is going to be preserved...

It’s actually going to be quite a problem for me to collect my best games. Even by my judgment there are many that qualify at the highest standards. Let’s see, games 16 and 24 from Moscow, game 24 from Seville, Korchnoi ‘82 in Lucerne, and the Topalov game. But then you’re missing game 22 St. Petersburg with Nd7, the sealed move. Okay, so those would five good and memorable ones. But really game 24 from the Seville match wasn’t a great game. So maybe cut that one and I’d take Anand, game ten of the [1995] New York world championship match.

What criteria are you using?

The Seville game would be just as a sort of heroic accomplishment. Korchnoi was sort of a world recognition game. Games 16 and 24 from Moscow were great ideas and important games. Also, the decisive game of the match and a great novelty. Topalov, probably best combination ever. By pure chess standards it would be the two with Karpov, 16 and 24. The Anand and Topalov games, and... hmm... I would add to this list, the Astana game against Kramnik, the Berlin Wall with e6. Runner-ups would be the Seville and Korchnoi games. But I had a problem making a list of thirteen best games! I had modest aspirations of having thirteen “best of the best” games. But in volumes nine and ten of my works [that include My Great Predecessors], I think will include over 250 of my best games. I don’t think it will be too hard to collect that many, honestly.

Game 16 vs Karpov in 1986 and vs Topalov at Corus, 1999

Do you distinguish between games with great preparation and games with great over-theboard inspiration?

I know many fans are quick almost dismiss games with brilliant novelties because they were prepared at home. This is a sort of myth, really. I don’t have that many of these, although of course I prepared a lot. I don’t think in my matches with Karpov that I outplayed him in the openings. Karpov probably had more openings that influenced the course of the matches than I did.

How about the Anand game 10 novelty?

It was a great idea to sacrifice the rook; it came to me while I was walking in Battery Park [NYC]. It’s part of history, an amazing game that influenced chess. In the Anand game, nowadays the machine would go through it in a second. Computers were too weak back then. But what the machine showed then was 19.Bh6!

At the World Trade Center in 1995

Doesn’t it cheapen things nowadays that computers are so strong and contribute so many novelties? When a game ends the first thing everyone wants to know is how much of it was preparation.

Anand told me a funny story that in 1982 they were studying the game Kasparov-Korchnoi from Lucerne, 1982. He said they were amazed, Anand’s word. (Maybe he was more relaxed after my retirement!) He said someone said, “maybe it was all preparation!” But come on, this is part of the myth.

Well, there is some truth to this myth, no? How about your game with black against Kramnik at Linares, 1999? All the computers were at +3 for Kramnik, he’s crashing through the center, it looks doomed. Then you play the king lift, the rook comes down, sacrifices itself and it’s a draw. You’d both looked at it in preparation, but you’d gone further, despite the computer’s evaluation. That was 35 moves of preparation.

Well, at +3 sometimes the game is over, but there are situations... It’s about your nose, you think you need to wait a bit, look a little deeper.

Game 10 vs Anand in 1995 and the draw vs Kramnik at Linares, 1999

What will you do with all the analysis you accumulated?

I won’t sell it, I may share it with some players if it’s appropriate. It won’t be wasted, for sure. But I’ll keep renewing it, I have to keep my brain fresh. I’ve been watching the Melody Amber tournament and it was quite funny, the game Anand-Shirov, in the Petroff. Anand beat him in the blindfold. It was this idea, taking with the rook on e5. When we played in Linares, I played 22.Ne5 and offered him a draw. That gave me the trophy, so it was hard to play on. After the game I said to Vishy that if I take with the rook instead of the bishop it could be interesting. The knight goes to g6, not f5, and then I exchange the rooks, you control the e-file but the bishop on g3 is well located and you have some problems locating your pieces. Anand played Shirov and used it and it worked perfectly!

LOOKING BACK

Okay, time to look back, although maybe it’s still a little early. What regrets do you have?

1993, definitely. That was a mistake. Even though FIDE was corrupt, the best way to proceed was to negotiate with them. What we tried to do in 1995 from a position of weakness was different. There were enemies who didn’t want me back by then. In 1993 I could have negotiated from the position of undisputed world champion. It was complicated by the fact that Nigel was very suspicious and Ray Keene wanted to do anything to destroy relations with FIDE. I was also pressed by the crisis in the Russian chess federation. So it was a difficult moment. I was so frustrated with FIDE, and my mistake was thinking that Nigel could carry the support of the western players. I still had images of [the GMA meeting in] Murcia, when there was a split between East and West. I thought we could build something, opposing FIDE and having corporate sponsors. In fact we had corporate sponsors, that’s the irony. We had sponsors but no western players supported us! Everybody just played to make money but without supporting us.

How different is the game now from when you found it?

It’s a brand new game, a new world. When I started out, the Informant was the greatest collection of games, the most valuable thing, especially in the USSR where there were few books available. Today, PING!, one mouse click and it’s all there. And we had adjournments, so much analysis. We analyzed games and had to learn so much on our own. Now it’s all there for you. Now information doesn’t belong to anyone, not for long. You don’t have to collect bits of information on note cards. Unfortunately, moving from place to place I lost all my old stuff in my own hand from the early and mid-70’s. We had a few books and we had to pick out the valuable games by our own evaluation. Now you have Garry Kasparov on DVD, telling you how to play the Queen’s Gambit Declined, can you imagine? Back then when Botvinnik told us any little thing we would contemplate it for ten minutes! Now everything is on the computer. Your analysis, your research. And you can play on the computer now, go right over there and play on the internet.

How about the politics back then?

Chess was not just corrupt, it was a game that belonged to the domain of the Soviet Union. It was a Communist-controlled game. The best players all came from that part of the world and the Soviet influence was so strong that it reproduced its cronyism. FIDE politics was rotten, always rotten. It didn’t work on normal professional terms, with commercial sponsorship, advertising, events in big cities. It all stayed within this political domain. That’s why the biggest events in chess were political events. Fischer-Spassky, political. Karpov-Fischer, well, it didn’t happen, but was also political. Karpov-Korchnoi, political. Why were my matches with Karpov successful? Because they were political. February, 1985 made these events highly political. Selling only politics one day had to backfire on us. When there were no more politics to sell, there was nothing. The last one was Nigel against me in London, but it was more contrived. And what do we have now? No business. My attempts to change the rules failed, and I didn't have much support. I spoke to many leading players at the time and no one wanted to come on board. I explained that we’d be in trouble, that we needed commercial sponsors and that they need a total package, a calendar, conditions. Ten years after Intel left chess we’re still at square one. Not even there, we’re off the board! I was bankable because I was a professional. People could see I was a professional and I promoted the game of chess. I was not part of this political system. I was ready to communicate and I was the best for a long time so I could establish a brand.

Then are we going to see a negative impact from your exit? Will prize funds drop?

Where? They can’t drop any further! Look at the Linares Open. It was a very strong event five years ago. We had many Grandmaster of the category of Beliavsky. Now, nobody, barely any 2600 players.

A winning team. Analyst Yuri Dokhoian and Garry's mother, Klara Kasparova

IN PERSPECTIVE

Tiger Woods recently said he would retire when his best wasn’t good enough.

My problem was that my best was always enough to be the best! Maybe now that I’m gone the rest will be inspired to a new level. I was part of the debate and now maybe they can concentrate on the game and do something different. They always complained that I was there, and now Peter Svidler even said in public, “The big ego was among us, now without him we can negotiate.” Okay, fine, now it’s your turn to do something. I made money from chess but I brought money into chess, much more than I made myself. Now it's up to them.

In My Great Predecessors you write about the evolution of chess over the decades. As with evolution in nature it’s hard to see up close. When you look at the top few players, the top five or ten, do they play at the level you and Karpov were playing at in the early 1980’s? Has there been an increase in sophistication and quality?

There is increasing sophistication, but as for quality... When I played Karpov there were two of us well ahead of the rest. Today, can you say Anand is so much better than Leko? You have Anand, Kramnik, Leko, Mickey, Topalov...

Okay, but are they better than you and Karpov were in 1983?

Technically speaking, better because every new generation is better than the previous generation.

Kasprov-Karpov in 1983

But is the quality of the chess in the middlegame now better than 20 years ago? Openings are another matter. Any GM today could, technically, play better in the opening than you did then because of databases.

I think the quality of the chess we played in Leningrad in 1986 was phenomenally high. I don’t think today’s players could beat that. In my view that was the best match we played and I don’t think they will ever reach it. Today’s players know more even in the middlegame positions because they learned from us, but in terms of the decision-making processing in ’86, no way. I think of the great events I played in ’89, Tilburg, Belgrade, the first half of Linares 1990, before I lost to Gulko. That was very high quality. And of course 1999. I think that was probably my best year. The quality of my decision-making and energy, I think it was the highest ever in the history of chess. Wijk aan Zee, Linares... I was well ahead of the rest with new ideas, and with more determination. I think my all-time peak was in Frankfurt, 1999, winning the rapid chess. That was the peak. I don’t think I ever reached that again. Even descending I won quite a ew more tournaments in a row, maybe seven, not including the Kramnik match. Another peak period was Las Palmas ’96 and Linares ’97, right before the Deep Blue match. That was also a period of very high quality, those are my feelings. There were moments in which I played amazing chess, by my evaluation. Linares ’92 and ’93 were two more great events. That's another peak, Linares ’93. I played a good tournament, but five rounds before the end I was tied for 1-3 with Karpov and Anand. Then I scored 4.5/5! I beat Anand, Karpov, Gelfand, Kamsky, and drew with Shirov. That was a good finish! All the wins were in style. These were other moments, but in intensity 1999 was different and special. Why? I think because in ’99 I faced younger opponents. Since ’97, when Karpov left, I was always the oldest. In ’93 there were few young players, it was mixed opposition. Players like Anand, Shirov, Kramnik, were all just growing. I was still facing Timman, Speelman, Karpov, Ljubojevic, Jussupow... While in 1999 I was the clearly the oldest. I was 36 and the average age of my opposition was maybe 26. that’s why I value ’99 much higher.

Do you value it more because 1999 was a sort of comeback year? You hadn’t won Linares in ’98 and didn’t play very much.

This is something that people will argue, but I’ve been thinking about it because it will be in the book [How Life Imitates Chess]. I believe there were two days when I played the best chess in my life. I doubt people can even remember it. I personally believe the two days I played the best if you add up all the components, was against the Israeli national team in Tel Aviv in 1998. If you look at the combined performance I don’t think anything even comes close to that. I manage to play in two matches in a row, four games by 2800 standards at the same time. The level of concentration and precision and the power of the games were outstanding. Maybe I’m wrong, but I consider this event as probably my greatest accomplishment in my professional chess career. Competitively and creatively, probably the best. And this was 1998, a “bad year” people say. I also played rapid chess with Topalov, remember the score? 4- 0. Not such a bad year! Even the only game I won in Linares in 1998 was a good one. How many times in your memory did Vishy Anand lose on time!?

Another Kasparov simul, against the Czech national team in 2001

THE FUTURE OF CHESS

Where does the chess world go from here? Was the system in place before 1993 the ideal? Is it feasible today? FIDE brought you in in Prague, but still couldn’t get it to work.

No, probably not. But you don’t need Kasparov or any one player. You need a structure. You can’t sell one player who will cover up the entire corrupt and inefficient system. You need a system that is plausible. You have to sell a package where no player is more important than the system. That’s why I think that without me they have a chance. Maybe not a big one, but a chance. We have to give some credit for all the changes. Not that I’m in favor of the knock-out or the rapid time controls, but the game does need to be modernized. Any modifications need to be done in accordance with the demands of the time. For instance, I’m in favor of at least investigating doing one position per year from Chess960. I know the reaction is “Aahhh, horrible!” Most players think it’s terrible, saying the purpose is to start each game from scratch. I don’t think so, I think the point is to create more space for creativity. If you have a position for a year you can’t go too far in analysis. You can reach move maybe four or five, that’s a lot of room for creativity. That doesn’t mean classical chess must die. I think it should stay, and the title should stay. But things have to be different now. Every system has to be adjusted to the demands and judged by its financial viability. That’s what other players don’t understand. A system is good if it attracts the public, television, and money. Otherwise the system is not good, at least for professional chess. Kramnik said he wants to “paint.” Okay, paint, but don’t ask money for it. Ilyumzhinov’s system, is it good or bad? I think bad because there’s no money, except Libya or other exotic locations that do little to build a commercial model, or from Ilyumzhinov himself. Unless the system is commercially attractive it just doesn’t work. You have to have something attractive, manageable, with a calendar, and a professional package that can bring in sponsors. If you have in mind a simple goal of establishing professional chess and bringing commercial sponsorship you have to play by the rules. But Ilyumzhinov had no interest, or no capability, in playing by the rules of the “civilized world.” Other players were more concerned about me than about professionalizing the sport. There has to be a calendar in which everyone plays without exception. My reading is that as long as you have Ilyumzhinov on one side and Kramnik on the other, nothing is going to happen. Yasser Seirawan had some fine ideas, but they were sort of projected to the past. If it worked in the past doesn’t mean it’s going to work in the future. A whole professional structure is needed.

The champagne days are over. With Ilyumzhinov in Prague, 2002. (It's actually water.)

Any comments on the Fischer mess?

Not really. If he goes to Iceland, fine. [This hadn't happened yet.] It concerns me that every time Fischer opens his mouth it harms chess, badly. If he ends up being put on trial [in the US] chess will be dead the world over it would be so high profile. So I hope he can stay in Iceland.

The Garry Kasparov Interview, Part 3
POLITICS - The great game

To a certain degree, political involvement will be part of this big picture, using my experience to help play a role in helping Russia resurrect democracy. Right now it just doesn’t exist. First you need free elections, actually any election! Putin is pushing us to the stage at which the election will just be a coronation ceremony. The next parliamentary election is supposed to be in 2007, but the rules are so draconian already any party can be virtually denied participation if the Kremlin doesn’t like them. Presidential elections are in 2008, but they are already testing the water to change the constitution to make the president appointed by the parliament, which would be quite convenient. It’s all about looking at Putin’s record, which is unmistakable. At every turn he has moved to erase the democratic procedures from the political map in Russia.

Exchanging business cards after the famous Charlie Rose interview show

There’s nothing wrong with being “the chess guy” in politics. How is being a chessplayer worse than being a general? As I’ve said before, we have too many generals and colonels in Russian politics and very little intellect. Russia is heading in the wrong direction and someone of my celebrity status can communicate the message. The opposition has no access to television, you can’t campaign. It’s not like politics in the civilized world. You don’t have a fixed environment where you can go on talk shows, raise money, campaign normally. There’s no healthy debate. Here you can hear both Bush’s view and Kerry’s view. Not just one, dominating the country.

Or both of Kerry’s views?

Yes! But in Russia today all of television is under control, the print media is mostly under state control, and there are very few media outlets that can afford to criticize Putin and promote out views. So my status can be an important entry. We’re not fighting for positions of high office, we’re just fighting to make sure we have campaigns, election, a chance for people to vote for or against us. We’re at a very early stage of a political fight. It’s about making sure democracy survives. Then we could consider the next steps. By technical standards, Russia right now doesn’t even qualify to join the European Union, let alone the G7. I thought that stood for the seven great industrial democracies, but I don’t know in which part of that definition Russia fits into right now. “Great” you can argue, but as for “industrial” and “democracy,” it just doesn’t qualify. No free elections, no independent judiciary, no free media. Some people say, and we know their names, Berlusconi, Blair, Chirac, Schroeder, to a lesser extent Bush, who at least has said a few things, they say that this is a special kind of “Russian democracy.” They didn’t buy this story from other people, from Pinochet, for instance. The West won the Cold War because of a strong moral stand. It stood on the pillars that guarantee its moral superiority. Today, it’s nice to talk about democracy in Iraq, but not at the expense of democracy in Russia. Making the world safe for democracy should have universal standards and application. If it’s split into regions, fighting for democracy here, but over here no, that’s not going to work.

Do you see yourself running for office?

That’s an open issue still. As a professional chessplayer I’m used to making projections in stages. If we don’t succeed I don’t see Russia having a real election in the foreseeable future. So it’s about raising protests to protect the mechanism of the elections. Everything else is just irrelevant right now. In the process of this fight we’ll find out from the people whether or not they want to listen to me and my associates, or anyone. If yes, then we might be able to mount enough support for a campaign. Many things will be decided and clarified during the process.

Soho photo shoot for his book. (Larger versions of similar pic here)

Where do you start?

The first thing is to create what is the first, in my view, the first real opposition political force in Russia. We hope to combine support from different political groups. Putin’s regime is threatening the livelihoods of millions of people. They are realizing that democracy is not an alien invention. It’s something that can help them resolve conflicts, to be heard, to make life better for themselves. We’re not starting from scratch, a certain amount of work has been done already. I’d made my decision to retire before Linares, and I didn’t do any real preparation for Linares at all. I was in St. Petersburg at an anti- Putin rally in February. We have very little money available. It’s difficult for people to contribute because it can be dangerous for them. There are people who don’t want to give their names, but if you’re fighting Putin, here’s some cash and good luck. We’re relying on different businesses in Russia that are willing to channel some money without confessing to it. My own goals were clearly stated in the WSJ article, I want my son to live in a free country. Whether or not I eventually run for office is not my main concern right now. I don’t want it to distract from our main course of having real elections. Right now, for me, it’s about making a difference, not ambition. When Wife-to-be Dasha TarasovaYeltsin took up power we thought we had what we needed, but he failed to clean up the bureaucracy and we slid back. It was too hard. He couldn’t dismantle the nomenklatura state. For me it’s about being on the front lines. You can say I’m not a coalition builder or a charming politician, but Russia needs people to stand up, to be in the front line. Isn’t this a dangerous game? It is, definitely. Of course of I’m concerned about my personal safety, but so what? That’s part of the game today. Complaining about it won’t help the problem. I hired security and I do what I can for my family and myself. What more can I do? I could move to New York or London and enjoy life, but I don’t want the KGB to rule my country. It’s as if you asked me to play chess and gave me a bad position. I can’t complain, it’s not a good position, a few pawns down with our king under attack, but you have to play. There are no guarantees I won’t end up in jail next to Khodorkhovsky. I can only rely on my reputation, which is very different from any of the guys involved in Russian politics right now. I made money, but not by stealing or privatizing or any of he business scams or political scandals. I always stood certain values and defended them over the last fifteen years. I have an intact record. If they want to go after me, they will have to break another barrier to do it. Khodorkhovsky is in prison for doing things that other oligarchs are still doing in Russia, it’s quite amazing. It’s still being practiced by those who are loyal to the Kremlin. He’s not being punished for not paying taxes, but for wanting to pay taxes. He wanted transparency and wanted to pay taxes to the treasury while Putin and his cronies wanted the money to be delivered to the Kremlin in suitcases. Khodorkhovsky’s plan to make Yukos transparent was a deadly threat to Putin’s entire corrupt regime. I don’t expect President Bush to protect me, I’m not stupid. They’ll be “seriously concerned” again, at most. But I believe there are limits to Putin’s power in Russia. He’s part of the bureaucracy and it only goes as far as it believes it can go and still maintain the status quo. Putin has to be a strong dictator for them. Right now the ground under him is very shaky. He’s not losing control, thanks to very high oil prices, but the general social unrest is there. The incompetence and corruption of the government is quite obvious for the majority of people in Russia. The question is whether they feel any big change is appropriate or if it should take more time. If the Putin regime continues to go downhill, stability will be shown to be just an illusion that the western leaders would like to believe in. This supposedly stable Russia is supplying Iran with nuclear technology! The problem is that Putin’s Russia is doing everything to disrupt global stability. He’s trading Russian influence in areas of instability for gains at home. I’m not appealing to the government, I’m talking to the Russian people. We are going to the regions, from town to town. There is the internet, a few media outlets. But in many regions people are ready to hear our case. People and businesses everywhere are being starved by the centralized Kremlin structure. All the money goes to Moscow.

Computer fun with daughter Polina

Have you ever met Putin?

No, but unlike Bush, I don’t need to look into his soul, I look at his record!

How will you be organizing your time?

Politics are the top priority now, and will be for at least the next few months and maybe even for the next three years. But right now we have to move very quickly.

How will you define success in your political activities?

In Russia it’s very simple: if we have democracy reinstalled in Russia, we’ve been successful. If we have anelection, and Putin’s policy of appointing officials is cancelled, that’s success.

New York City, the week of March 20, 2005.
The interview was published in the ChessBase

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