Which Is The Greatest match Ever ?

The standard answer would be Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky, Reykjavik, 1972.

In terms of excitement, drama, controversy, popularity, strength of the winning player and pop culture relevance, nothing comes close. This match had it all.

That answer is not very interesting though, because that’s the one everyone would pick.

Let me add a slightly different answer. The greatest series of chess matches and the greatest rivalry in the history of chess was that of Garry Kasparov vs. Anatoly Karpov, 1984–1990.

These were arguably the two greatest players in the history of the game at the peak of their powers going at it in five incredibly hard-fought and very close matches. They played a total of 144 games! Kasparov emerged the winner every time (except the aborted match of ‘84), but the total score in the matches was only 73–71 in his favor.

There was no one else in the 1980s that could even come close to challenging either of these two, but they had each other, and they just made each other stronger. The matches produced some of the most brilliant and epic games in the history of chess.

Who can forget Kasparov’s “octopus knight” on d3 in this game:  http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175

…or Karpov’s incredible endgame wizardry in this game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067121 

These two are living legends of the game.