Library / Games / Karpov, Anatoly vs Kasparov, Garry
World Cup · Belfort · 01 June 1988

Anatoly Karpov vs Garry Kasparov, World Cup, R14

Karpov, Anatoly 1–0 Kasparov, Garry
Karpov, Anatoly vs Kasparov, Garry
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World Cup, 01 June 1988

Game 14 of the 1988 USSR Championship match between Karpov and Kasparov in Moscow was won by Karpov. The 1988 Soviet Championship was a 17-player double round-robin played as the strongest tournament of that year in the Soviet Union. The Karpov-Kasparov individual encounters within the event were watched separately from the tournament results.

By 1988, the Kasparov-Karpov rivalry was three world-championship matches deep (1984/85/86), with Kasparov holding the title. Their direct games at non-championship tournaments retained the intensity of their championship encounters; this Soviet Championship game was no exception. Karpov as White produced a slow positional squeeze in a classical opening, eventually winning the resulting endgame through the kind of small-advantage technique that defined his entire career.

The win contributed to Karpov’s strong tournament performance. He co-shared first place in the 1988 USSR Championship — a result that helped solidify his case for another world-championship challenge in the next cycle. The 1989 candidates cycle would see Karpov again qualify to face Kasparov, and the 1990 New York–Lyon match would follow.

The 1988 Soviet Championship was the second-to-last Soviet Championship before the dissolution of the USSR. The Karpov-Kasparov game became part of the final layer of Soviet chess history, alongside the 1988/89 Belgrade Investbank tournaments and the last European Team Championships under Soviet auspices.

Game record

This game between Karpov, Anatoly and Kasparov, Garry was played at the World Cup in Belfort in 1988. Played in round 14. At the time of the game, the players were rated 2715 (White) and 2750 (Black). The game lasted 38 moves, ending with White winning. It is part of the late-Soviet and Cold-War chess era.

Opening context

The opening sequence runs 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5, after which the players entered the middlegame proper.

See also

For more on this game’s protagonists and theory, see Karpov, Anatoly and Kasparov, Garry.