KARPOV, ANATOLY YEVGENYEVICH

born May 23, 1951, Zlatoust, Russia, U.S.S.R. Russian chess master who dominated world competition from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Karpov moved to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) with his family early in life. A child prodigy, he learned to play chess at the age of four and was rated a first-category player by the time he was nine. In 1969 he won the World Junior championship at Stockholm, and a year later, at age 19, he became the world's youngest grandmaster. An almost uninterrupted series of successes in tournaments during 197174 made him the official challenger to Bobby Fischer of the United States for the 1975 world chess championship. Karpov became world champion that year when Fischer refused to play a match with him under conditions set by the official world chess organization, the Fdration Internationale des checs (FIDE). Karpov narrowly retained his title against the Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi in 1978 and beat Korchnoi again handily in 1981. Karpov defended his title against his fellow countryman Gary Kasparov in 198485. Karpov gained a commanding lead early in the series, but Kasparov eventually rallied. The match became a grueling endurance contest that stretched to 48 games before it was halted on the grounds that both players were exhausted. In their rematch during 1985 Karpov lost his title to Kasparov after 24 games had been played. Karpov regained the title in 1993, after Kasparov left FIDE to form a rival organization. In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, which Karpov regained by defeating the Dutch player Jan Timman in a FIDE championship match. Though slim and of small stature, Karpov had notable powers of endurance. His style of play was without noticeable weaknesses; he tended to prefer positional play to tactical play, inexorably building up minute advantages through flawless but colourless maneuvers to eventually achieve victory.