Anatoly Karpov was born on May 23 1951, in Zlatoust, Russia.  He is a chess grandmaster and seven-time World Chess Champion. He is considered one of the greatest players in chess history, especially in tournament play. He is the most successful tournament player in history with over 140 first-places to his credit.

wow i wouldnt even get close to a player like that, so i guess hes really good then yeah?

I wonder if this record has been broken by Kasparov ?  Ok, Kaspy fans..... waiting for an answer....

No idea but i think this wil be a fascinating debate

Reb do you have a favorite Karpov game(s) ?  Could you post them with a few notes?  

I think Karpov is generally underappreciated as a player, having been typecast as a Soviet era villian and overshadowed by more theatrical personalities such as Korchnoi and Kasparov.  With neither a flashy pesonality nor a flashy chess style, it's easy to miss his positional genius. 

My favorite Karpov game. I love how sneaky he is! He finds ways to force White's King so far out of safety. It's brilliant.

If the game continued, what's Black's plan here ?

i believe karpov is one of the best. he is just under appreciated because he playing is described as "boring" think about it. His main defense is the Caro-Kann.

i also heard some where that as a hobby he collects stamps.

i think he is amazing. but dont go to his games and expect to be blown away unless you just love positional play

Black has a totally safe passed pawn, and he will Queen it.

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No doubt Karpov is a great chess player.

However, the events surrounding the 2 world chess champioships against Korchonoi are disgraceful. Karpov said nothing when Korchonois son was arrested immediately before the start of the second chamionship.

What Tal said at same time? And Geller, Balashov,...?

Karpov in his prime would have defeated Fischer...Back in '74

Fischer was scared that's why he wanted to change 200 rules of FIDE...

Karpov was up 5-0 vs Kasparov in their first tourney, but he got sick.... 

you're out of your mind!!!!!!!

But that is true. You may check it out in any database. And Kasparov also showed fabulous strenth - after losing 5:0 (6 wins = win of match) he started to play ideally and absolutely without mistakes, so there was about 20 draws in a row (because Karpov did the same ) and then Kasparov started winning games besides draws, that was unbelievable turn of all match, everybody was shocked, how can you believe that someone may successfully fight for win of all match after losing 5:0 to the best player in the world (one more win and it is over, but that was never happen). Look for those games, there is masterpieces.

Karpov probably would have lost in 74.  You have to remember Karpov was the kid at this time, being 8 years younger than Fischer.  Back then Karpov was stricly an e4 player.  After his first match with Kasparov he switched th 1.d4 because he could never find anything suitable against Kaparov's Najdorf.  Incidentally Kasparov switched from a predominately 1.d4 player to a 1.e4 players probably because he was unsatisfied playing against he Queen's Indian/Nimzo Indian complex that Karpove used so effectively.

Fischer played the Najdorf pretty much as well as anyone ever has, I think Karpov would have had a difficult time against it.

Fischer wanted to change a bunch of rules because he was already going off the deep end by this time. (my opinion)

Karpov has never been exceptionally healthy, he could no longer take the pressure and he had just lost 2 games in a row to Kasparov when Campones shut down the title game. 

As much as I admire him, Kasparov was the better champion.  He only has a +2 score over Karpov in world champion match play but everytime he needed it, he got the win or the draw he needed to keep the title.

It is unfortunate that Karpov won the World Championship by default twice, but that's hardly his fault, if it weren't for Kasparov, he would be known as the greatest chess player ever.  Similarly there are a lot of great NBA players of the 90's who don't have a championship because they kept running into Michael Jordan (Ewing, Stockton, Malone, Miller, Barkley etc...)

I believe he is right behind Kasparov as the second best player in history, and it is truly sad that the world never got a chance to see Fischer vs. Karpov, perhaps the greatest non match of all time.

i personally dont believe that Karpov is a close second to Kasparov.  personally i dont even put him in my top 5, Lasker, Kasparov, Fischer, Capa, Morphy, then maybe Botvinik and then Karpov, might as well finish with Steinitz and Alekhine.  he is however indisputably the most successful tournament player ever and undoubtedly one of the strongest playersof all time.  he was practically bullet proof until Kasparov matured.  Karpov would have been stronger had he gotten to play vs Fischer, but unfortunate for him and the chess world that never happened.  ive read that Karpov never had an original idea, he just improved on the ideas of his seconds and other russian players  but then again im just a patzer what do i know...

Karpov... The great one I emulate...

This is one of my favorite games of Karpov--where (3 points down late in the match, as I recall) he dispatches his illustrious opponent like it's a simul:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067298

One other thing--although Karpov was often described as too frail to be world champ and lacking stamina, he displayed a tremendous amount of grit and determination against Kasparov in those matches.  After all, he beat Garry 3 games in a row late in one to draw even (the first time in Kasparov's life that he had ever lost 3 in succession!).

As far as the following statement goes:  "ive read that Karpov never had an original idea, he just improved on the ideas of his seconds and other russian players"...well, I would say that "just improving" on the ideas of everybody else is itself a pretty original thing to do.  Certainly nobody else in the world could touch him for a very long, long time...and then, for an equally long period, there was only one other in his class.