Karpov-Kasparov King's Indian at Linares 1993

The long competition between the world champions Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov reached game number 162 in round ten at Linares in 1993. Karpov as White opposed Kasparov’s King’s Indian Defense with the Saemisch Variation. In order to not face an attack on his king on the queenside, Karpov did not want to castle on that side. Instead of 9.0-0-0 or 9.d5, Karpov played the move 9.Rd1 which is not better and is actually worse than those choices. On move ten, Kasparov played a theoretical novelty. Karpov’s king never got to castle and he faced an attack with his king in the center and many of his pieces at or near home. The result was a striking win for Kasparov who won the tournament with 10/13, 1.5 points ahead of Karpov and Anand. They were followed by eleven of the world’s best players.

This game has been subjected to analysis for years. First there were commentators at the event making suggestions during the game. Then there was a post mortem by the players. Numerous writers have contributed annotations over the years. Kasparov has published the game with notes that have shown his changing opinions over the years. I have made use of some of what has gone before and tried to add something myself.

As a study method I suggest that players who have a partner to practice with set up key positions and play them out without the notes over the board with a clock. Timed practice, even after playing over the game, is a way to test understanding. It is not important which partner wins. It is a good idea to switch sides and repeat the test. I first used this method with the queen sac game Bobotsov-Tal with White to make move 13 (See http://www.chess.com/article/view/tal-attacks-or-did-i-repeat-myself )