Garri Kimowitsch Kasparov (1963 - *)
Garri
Kasparov, FIDE world master 1985 through 1993 and PCA world master since 1993,
was born in Baku (Aserbaitschan) on April 13, 1963. His original name was
Harry Weinstein. After the death of his father he overtook the maiden name
(Kasparjan) of his mother. The whole name was still "russified" and because
the Russians do not have the letter "H" in their alphabet his name turned
into Garri Kasparov.
Kasparov learned to play chess by watching it. At the age of ten he was admitted to the chess school of Botvinnik. There he early showed his talent; he became school- and youth master. At age 13, he participated in the junior world championship. He reserved the third place. In 1978 he had his start in the seniors at a tournament in Minsk (Russia) where he could qualify for the USSR-mastership without an ELO-rating!
After the victory at a tournament in Banja Luka he became internationally known: Kasparov, at the age of 16, finished ahead of 14 grand masters with a 10 point lead. In 1980 he became youth world master in Dortmund. In 1984, there was the first world champion fight between Kasparov and Karpov. Kasparov's start was catastrophic-0:4 after 9 games! After that shock Kasparov had to change his style and played without risks. The competition was stopped after 22 weeks and 48 played games. The second duel started one year later; it was fixed on 24 games. This time Kasparov won the competition with 13:11 points. He defended his title for three times, always against Karpov.
In 1993, Kasparov, together with Nigel Short (GB) founded the "Professional Chess Association" (PCA). They fought for their own world master title that Kasparov clearly won. But his FIDE world master title had to be disallowed. After this, Karpov and the Dutch Jan Timman fought for the FIDE world master title, which was won by Karpov. Since then there have been two world masters: one of the FIDE and one of the PCA.