Over the years, some chess players have made an impact and stand out among the rest, shaping the evolution of the chess world and inspiring so many other players across the generations.
Garry Kasparov (Russia 🇷🇺/Croatia 🇭🇷): famous for his deep strategic thinking and legendary confrontations with AI (such as his match against Deep Blue), the former world champion is certainly to be considered as one of the greatest players of all time.
Kasparov was born in 1963 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Early in his life, he already excelled in playing chess. At the age of 12 he became the under-18 chess champion of the USSR, and later on he became the world under-20 champion at the age of 17. He learned his chess knowledge at the prestigious chess school of Mikhail Botvinnik, a well-known Russian chess world champion. At the age of 22, Kasparov had his international breakthrough by being the youngest chess world champion of all time, a title he defended 5 times. His dominance was characterised by blending his unique aggressive playing style and innovative moves.
After a record-breaking 20 years as the top player in the world, he retired to join the Russian pro-democracy movement, which is against the policies of Vladimir Putin. This clear opposing view of the Kremlin caused an imminent arrest, which forced him to move to New York in 2013. In the Big Apple he became the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. Next to his political activism, he wrote numerous books, such as “Deep Thinking” and “Winter is Coming”. Kasparov is still a prominent figure in the chess world and beyond, mainly due to his commentaries on global affairs.
References:
Kasparov.com
Chess.com
MasterClass