Anatoly Karpov's legendary endgame technique has always been something of an enigma. Karpov became World Champion in 1975, as the successor of Bobby Fischer. With his fine endgame technique Karpov managed to win positions which nearly everybody else assessed as a draw.

This book takes, for the first time, a close look at his endgame technique, explaining the finer points better than Karpov himself has ever cared to do. All existing analysis has been reworked and many spectacular findings have been added. Endgame Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov provides valuable insight into the qualities that made Karpov such a great endgame player, maybe the greatest of all time. A highly instructive and entertaining book.

Tibor Karolyi is an International Master and a former Hungarian Champion. He is an experienced chess coach (Judit Polgar and Peter Leko were among his pupils), who regularly contributes to various major chess magazines. He has written books about Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar.

Nick Aplin is an Associate Professor of Sport Studies at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Introduction

To become a World Champion one has to play at the highest level in all aspects of the game. The giants of chess history had their strong points and their chess was based on a juxtaposition of the elements in different ways. When it comes to the World Champions, all of them have been capable of playing marvellous endgames and some were exceptional in their level of application. Mikhail Botvinnik, for example, was outstanding, and yet he thrived especially in complicated middlegames. Vasily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer were both superb, creating a strong artistic impression in their endgames.

José Raul Capablanca and Anatoly Karpov have been the two champions who re­lied most on their exceptional endgame skills. As Karpov reigned much later than the Cuban, at a time when competitive standards were generally much higher, it is fair to assume that the Russian played endgames at the highest-ever level.

Changes in the tournament rules of chess have contributed to the preservation of his status. Karpov was the last World Champion to play the majority of his career games with the rule of adjournment in operation. The last World Championship fi­nal with adjournments was the 1996 Karpov-Kamsky match.

Garry Kasparov also played several matches under these conditions, yet a signifi­cant proportion of his reign had no adjournments. In addition, his style of play was more ferocious, which automatically meant fewer endgames.

Going deeply into the analysis of Karpov's endgames has highlighted certain aspects of his play to the author of this book. This collection of games reveals some interest­ing characteristics. Karpov is always concerned to improve the scope his pieces be­fore acting and he brings his king into play relatively late. He will fight for the open files and often manoeuvres his rooks to the seventh rank. It transpired that there was often a fine line between a strong king and a vulnerable one in the centre. Anatoly had a well-defined sense of timing such strategies with the king. One other notable char­acteristic which appears to contradict general rules was that quite a number of times, he placed his pawns on the same colour as his opponent's bishop in order to limit their movement. He was not afraid that the bishop would hunt down the pawns.

No player has ever produced as many magnificent over-the-board endgames as Karpov. Of course such a talent does not only come from the understanding of a chess genius. It has much to do with excellent concentration, fighting spirit and a strong determination to grind down your opponents.

In this book we have followed the plan of selecting and analysing some of Kar­pov's most breathtaking endgames, and then drawing some conclusions on his end­game style. As a rule, the analysis starts at the moment that the players went for simplification. These endgames will bring joy to all who study them, but my main objective is to help young players to learn from Karpov. Ever since Karpov played these games, the level of analysis has been raised dramatically. Our understanding of endgames has been deepened through the use of computer programs.

Karpov has analysed many of his games himself. Arguably, even though he is a gi­ant at the chessboard, his published analysis is not as impressive. In Russian chess culture there have even been some lighthearted comments about the depth of his analysis. Marin has suggested that certain sections are actually not his, the name at­tached being the only link. Like many players, Karpov tended to select games for analysis on the basis of their importance for his career rather than for their artistic value.

The idea to devote an entire book to Karpov's endgames was born when I had a short conversation with Jan Timman. I asked him whose playing style was closest to Kasparov's. The mere mention of Kasparov's style generated a smile of admiration from the Dutch grandmaster. Somehow our conversation turned to my best pupil, Peter Leko. The Dutch grandmaster told me that Karpov had praised Leko's tech­nique.

The idea stayed with me for quite a while, and once we had finished the second volume of Kasparov's games, I started to explore Karpov's endgames. Later grand­master Yury Razuvaev, who has worked with Karpov for many years and probably knows him best, told me that Peter Leko's endgame play is very similar to Karpov's. Like all great players, Peter becomes very shy when it comes to talking about the type of training that helped him become a world-class player. However, as I know, he never worked systematically on his endgames with anybody other than me. When I trained Leko as a junior, we went through many of Karpov's endgames. Today I be­lieve the quality of Peter's endgame play speaks for itself - those sessions have not damaged him in any way.

Karpov's career consists of almost 4 full decades. In the 1960s, as a talented junior, he reached an intermediate summit by becoming Junior World Champion. At this age he was already capable of playing exceptionally fine endgames. In the 1970s, he moved on from being a young grandmaster to becoming a World Champion who subsequently dominated the chess world. In the 1980s, the pattern changed. From being the very best player he had to settle for being the world number two. Subse­quently, his top-ten status signalled a decline. We have included games up until 1990, when Karpov lost his last match with his successor Garry Kasparov.

Some of Karpov's endgames have already become classics and excellent commen­tators have fashioned some beautiful analysis. These analysed games occupy extra space in the book. There are a dozen positions that motivated much deeper analysis. Sometimes the analysis became even further extended, but in view of the importance and the beauty of these lines, it seemed essential to retain them all.

Just when the major part of this book had been completed, out came Kasparov's study of Karpov in the My Great Predecessors series. Garry analyses 40 games from Anatoly's career, but there are few that we have both selected. Happily, a number of moves that I was proud to discover, were also introduced by Garry in his book.

The 'I' in this book refers to Tibor Karolyi, the chief author. I have been a professional player for a dozen years and have spent many years as a trainer; among others of Judit Polgar and Peter Leko in their junior years.

The co-author, Nick Aplin, has been an enthusiastic chess amateur for long and is periodically a manager of junior and senior chess teams travelling from Singapore.

January 2007

Tibor Karolyi

Content:
007 Introduction

011 Chapter 1 The Early Years

011 First Steps (1961-1965)

037 International Debut (1966-1968)

051 Chapter 2 Rise to the Top

051 World Class Results (1969-1972)

097 The Road to the World Title (1973-1974)

129 Chapter 3 World Champion

129 First Reign (1975-1977)

164 Second Reign (1978-1980)

225 Third Reign (1981-1983)

260 First Two Kasparov Matches (1984-1985)

287 Chapter 4 Later Years

287 Challenging Kasparov (1986-1987)

313 Fruitful Years (1988-1990)

351 Epilogue

353 Index of Opponents

357 Endgame Classification