Kasparov beats Karpov 6-2 in blitz match (UPDATE: video added)

History repeated itself in Valencia this week with Karpov and Kasparov meeting each other behind the chess board again, and the third day repeated what we had seen in the rapids: quite a sharp Garry Kasparov easily beating a slow Anatoli Karpov, who just couldn't handle the clock. The 6-2 in the blitz brought the final score on 9-3 for Kasparov. Last video now up.

Like the rapid games, the blitz match took place in the Auditorium of the Palau de las Artes, and just like on Tuesday and Wednesday, the media were banned to the upper four rows. The result of this was that although I wasn't able to get good close-ups with my camera, the high angle gave enough sight of the chess board so that I was able to reconstruct four of the eight games that were wrongly transmitted by the tournament website. (Well, only the first game was wrong, and three others were not complete.) The correct scores can be replayed below.

The blitz match started with a wonderful victory by Karpov in another Queen's Gambit Declined - the 12th World Champion replied to Kasparov's 1.d4 with this opening in all six games! Kasparov called it his worst game of the match but it was still a great performance by Karpov, converting the rook ending into a win with his flag about to fall during the last 15 moves or so (the rate of play was 5 minutes plus 2 seconds increment).



After calming down with an easy draw with Black, Kasparov went on to win a nice game with the white pieces to level the score. The fourth game turned out to be crucial for this blitz match: after another very strong performance, Karpov lost on time in a winning position. Between the games there was a ten-minute break three times, but at half time the pause was half an hour, but still not long enough for Karpov to fully recover.

In the next three games Kasparov completely dominated. Karpov was constantly down on the clock and simply played his worst chess of the whole match. A quick draw in the last game ended the torture, after which the players went to the press room - a five-minute walk from one side of the Palau to the other - for the last time.

Again, they addressed the media seperatately, and again first Karpov, then Kasparov. The former admitted that he had "lost motivation" after the terribly disappointing 4th game; the latter was quite pleased with his play.



On a question from a journo, which came down to "what's next", Kasparov said he'd simply go back to Moscow and return to his life as a political activist. "This was just an exhibition match to promote chess. I think we succeeded."

On my question what, in Kasparov's opinion, had to be the first thing to change in the chess world to bring that media attention to current top events, he repeated what he and Karpov had emphasized at the press conference on Monday: that "FIDE was responsible for everything that went wrong in the past 15 years". He added that as long as the top players would still be accepting the actions of the Kalmykian President, the situation wouldn't improve. "But I don't play a role in that anymore. I can offer them my help, some advice, but nothing more."



The Valencia match has merely confirmed what we already knew about Anatoli Karpov: he hasn't been spending much time on chess in recent years, and therefore his level of play is slowly getting worse, although he'll never loose his beautiful, classical style and occasional brilliance. Garry Kasparov, who is said to play online regularly, who is still busy writing about chess and who has started working with Magnus Carlsen, still plays at at a high level, and hasn't lost his attractive, dynamic style either. It does make you wonder how he'd do against today's elite players.

Blitz games

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Links

• Official website
• Games in PGN: rapid | blitz