Kasparov is a God.

You may know of Gary Kasparov, Chess Legend. But you might not know the magnitude of his genius. Many chess experts say that his type of genius occurs perhaps once every 2-3 generations....one in a billion. Here's a short run down of his career:

- Wins the Soviet Junior Championship, back to back, at 13.
- Ranked as Chess Master at 15.
- Youngest to qualify for the Soviet Championship at 15.
- At 16, he rose to number 3 in the world behind only Spassky and Karpov.
- That same year, he wins the World Junior Chess Championship, the youngest since Bobby Fischer, becoming a Grandmaster.
- Qualifies for the Candidates Match at 19 and dispatches several of the greatest chess players in the world at the time with relative ease.
- Blasted everyone in his path over the next year to become the youngest World Champion in 1985 defeating Anatoly Karpov, then considered one of the 10 greatest Chess players of all time. Kasparov was only 20.
- He holds records for most consecutive tournament victories, 15, from 1981 to 1990. Rated #1 continuously from 1986 til his retirement in 2005. Has the highest ranking of all time. Has won the Chess Oscar (Chess highest honor) a record 11 times. And has been the World Champion from 1985 to 2000.

It goes on and on, BTW. You can throw in him beating Deep Blue. Anywayz, I want to tell you about his first match against Anotoly Karpov, the greatest rivalry in Chess, if not all competitive endeavors.

In 1984, Kasparov competed against Karpov for the World Championship. Karpov started off in very good form, and after nine games Kasparov found himself 4-0 down in a "first to six wins" match. Fellow players predicted a 6-0 whitewash of Kasparov within 18 games.

Kasparov dug in, with inspiration from a Russian poet before each game, and battled with Karpov into SEVENTEEN successive draws. Karpov duly won the next decisive game before Kasparov fought back with another series of draws until game 32, Kasparov's first win against the World Champion.

At this point Karpov, twelve years older than Kasparov, was close to exhaustion, and not looking like the player who started the match. Kasparov won games 47 and 48 to bring the scores to 5-3 in Karpov's favour. Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of FIDE, and a new match was announced to start a few months later.

The termination of the match was a matter of some controversy. At the press conference at which he announced his decision, Campomanes cited the health of the two players, which had been put under strain by the length of the match, despite the fact that both Karpov and Kasparov stated that they would prefer the match to continue. Karpov had lost 22 POUNDS over the course of the match and had been hospitalized several times. Kasparov, however, was in excellent health and extremely resentful of Campomanes' decision, asking him why he was abandoning the match if both players wanted to continue. It would appear that Kasparov, who had won the last two games before the suspension, felt the same way as some commentators — that he was now the favourite to win the match despite his 5-3 deficit. He appeared to be physically stronger than his opponent, and in the later games seemed to have been playing the better chess.

The match became the first, and so far only, world championship match to be abandoned without result. The next year, 85, he wins the Championship outright and becomes the youngest World Champion ever.

His genius is unparalleled.

You goobs know I like to play myself. I'm really not very good at all. I still lose to my Dad all the time, though he acknowledges that I'm getting better. There was a time when he would read the paper and eat while we played....I would be hunched over taking 10 minutes to make a single move. After beating him ONCE, he realized he had to cut out the distractions and our games are quite serious now. He won't dare open with crazy sacrifices cause I simply don't fall for that shit anylonger.

I play at least a couple of games on-line everyday...and get beat all the time, BTW. But I've occasionally played to a DRAW against the DELORIE program, or against on-line chess maniacs. I've even played against street players on Market and beat a Russian player after 40+ moves....he was pissed and practically threw the one dollar purse at me.

So I'm taking it up a notch and swinging by our local Chess Club on Sunday. They welcome beginners and give talks about openings, defenses, and chess theory. I'm actually looking forward to getting my ass-kicked. I'll tell you how I do.

Later....