Early career[edit]

Kasparov at age 11, Vilnius, 1974

Kasparov was born Garik Kimovich Weinstein (Russian: ) in Baku, Azerbaijan

SSR (now Azerbaijan), Soviet Union. His father, Kim Moiseyevich Weinstein, was Russian
Jewish, and his mother, Klara Gasparian, was Armenian.[10][11][12][13] Kasparov has described
himself as a "self-appointed Christian", although "very indifferent".[14]
Kasparov first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by
his parents and proposed a solution.[15] His father died of leukemia when Garry was seven years
old.[16] At the age of twelve, Garry adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Gasparyan,
modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov.[17]
From age 7, Kasparov attended the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku and, at 10 began training
at Mikhail Botvinnik's chess school under noted coach Vladimir Makogonov. Makogonov helped
develop Kasparov's positional skills and taught him to play the Caro-Kann Defence and the
Tartakower System of the Queen's Gambit Declined.[18] Kasparov won the Soviet Junior
Championship inTbilisi in 1976, scoring 7 points of 9, at age 13. He repeated the feat the
following year, winning with a score of 8 of 9. He was being trained by Alexander
Shakarov during this time.
In 1978, Kasparov participated in the Sokolsky Memorial tournament in Minsk. He had been
invited as an exception but took first place and became a chess master. Kasparov has
repeatedly said that this event was a turning point in his life, and that it convinced him to choose
chess as his career. "I will remember the Sokolsky Memorial as long as I live", he wrote. He has
also said that after the victory, he thought he had a very good shot at the World Championship.[19]
He first qualified for the Soviet Chess Championship at age 15 in 1978, the youngest ever player
at that level. He won the 64-player Swiss system tournament atDaugavpils on tiebreak over Igor
V. Ivanov to capture the sole qualifying place.
Kasparov rose quickly through the World Chess Federation rankings. Starting with an oversight
by the Russian Chess Federation, he participated in a grandmaster tournament in Banja

Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then part of Yugoslavia), in 1979 while still unrated (he was a
replacement for Viktor Korchnoi who was originally invited but withdrew due to threat of boycott
from the Soviets). Kasparov won this high-class tournament, emerging with a provisional rating of
2595, enough to catapult him to the top group of chess players (at the time, number 15 in the
world)[20]). The next year, 1980, he won the World Junior Chess Championship inDortmund, West
Germany. Later that year, he made his debut as second reserve for the Soviet Union at
the Chess Olympiad at Valletta, Malta, and became a Grandmaster.

Toward the top[edit]

Kasparov becomes World Junior Champion at Dortmund in 1980

As a teenager, Kasparov tied for first place in the USSR Chess Championship in 198182. His
first win in a superclass-level international tournament was scored at Bugojno, Bosnia and
Herzegovina in 1982. He earned a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonaltournament, which he
won, to qualify for the Candidates Tournament.[21] At age 19, he was the youngest Candidate
since Bobby Fischer, who was 15 when he qualified in 1958. At this stage, he was already the
No. 2-rated player in the world, trailing only World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov on the
January 1983 list.
Kasparov's first (quarter-final) Candidates match was against Alexander Beliavsky, whom he
defeated 63 (four wins, one loss).[22]Politics threatened Kasparov's semi-final against Viktor
Korchnoi, which was scheduled to be played in Pasadena, California. Korchnoi had defected
from the Soviet Union in 1976, and was at that time the strongest active non-Soviet player.
Various political maneuvers prevented Kasparov from playing Korchnoi, and Kasparov forfeited
the match. This was resolved by Korchnoi allowing the match to be replayed in London, along
with the previously scheduled match between Vasily Smyslov and Zoltn Ribli. The Kasparov-

Korchnoi match was put together on short notice by Raymond Keene. Kasparov lost the first
game but won the match 74 (four wins, one loss).
In January 1984, Kasparov became the No. 1 ranked player in the world, with a FIDE rating of
2710. He became the youngest ever world No. 1, a record that lasted 12 years until being broken
by Vladimir Kramnik in January 1996; the record is currently held byMagnus Carlsen, a former
pupil of Kasparov.
Later in 1984, he won the Candidates' final 84 (four wins, no losses) against the resurgent
former world champion Vasily Smyslov, at Vilnius, thus qualifying to play Anatoly Karpov for the
World Championship. That year he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), as a
member of which he was elected to the Central Committee of Komsomol in 1987.