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Garry Kasparov

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Garry Kasparov is one of the most famous chess players in history.

Kasparov-1
Kasparov-1

He was the World Chess Champion from 1985 until 2000. People admire him for his incredible skill and his many records. He held the number one ranking for 255 months. This is a record that shows how long he stayed at the top. He also won 11 Chess Oscars during his career.

Kasparov-11
Kasparov-11

Kasparov's life shows how one person can move from sports to big ideas about the world.

Becoming a champion takes a lot of hard work and practice.

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Kasparov-2

Kasparov began studying chess seriously as a young boy. At age ten, he trained at a special chess school. He learned many ways to play, like the Caro-Kann Defence. He won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1980 in West Germany.

Garry Kasparov 1980 Dortmund
Garry Kasparov 1980 Dortmund

By age 22, he became the youngest undisputed world champion. He won this title by defeating the champion Anatoly Karpov. He even defended his title against Karpov three more times.

Kasparov's career had many famous and difficult moments. In 1997, he played a very public match against a computer.

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Kasparov-18

The IBM supercomputer, named Deep Blue, defeated him. This was the first time a world champion lost to a computer under these rules. He also had a long and controversial match against Karpov in 1984. That match was stopped by the FIDE president before anyone won. It remains the only world championship match ever ended without a result. Kasparov later held the "Classical" title until Vladimir Kramnik defeated him in 2000.

Kasparov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1963.

Kasparov-34
Kasparov-34

His father was Jewish and his mother was Armenian. He was named after U.S. President Harry S. Truman. At age 12, he took his mother's surname, Kasparov. In 1990, his family had to leave Baku due to unrest. He later lived in New York City and Croatia.

He also coached the player Magnus Carlsen in 2009 and 2010. This helped Carlsen become the world number one player.

Today, Kasparov uses his voice to talk about politics and human rights. He is a writer and a political activist. He wrote a book series called My Great Predecessors about past champions.

Garry Kasparov (23954609358)
Garry Kasparov (23954609358)

He also started the Renew Democracy Initiative to help democracy in many places. He has faced many hard jobs while trying to help people in Russia. He even served as the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. Kasparov shows that being a champion can mean fighting for many different things.

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Autografo Garri Kasparov.jpg
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