Kasparov-Karpov Greatest Rivalry
What Is The Greatest Rivalry In The History Of Chess?
The most recent poll has closed and the chess rivalry between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov was convincingly voted the best. There were 55 votes in all and the winner received 44% of the votes. Our choices must have been very thorough, as there were no other rivalries mentioned outside of what we had listed. The final voting was as follows:
Kasparov-Karpov – 24 votes, Fischer-Spassky – 12 votes
Steinitz-Zukertort – 6 votes, Karpov-Korchnoi – 6 votes
Botvinnik-Smyslov – 4 votes, Bourdonnais-McDonnell – 2 votes
Lasker-Steinitz – 1 vote, Spassky-Petrosian – 0 votes
Kramnik-Topalov – 0 votes, Other – 0 votes
There will be a new poll posted over the weekend. Feel free to contribute further conversation on this topic right here. As a bonus, we give you the 24th and final game from their 1987 match in Seville, Spain. Kasparov needed an outright win to force a match tie and retain his world championship title. We hope you enjoy it.
It’s got to be Karpov-Kasparov for me. In terms of the sheer number of games they played, how closely they were matched and how different their styles and characters were.
I’d go with Lasker-Steinitz for my number 2 followed by Karpov-Korchnoi at 3.
SonofPearl — July 18, 2008 @ 2:14 pmI voted for Steinitz-Zukertort. There was a lot of bad blood there and many previous games between the two. The fact that they had a match to crown the 1st official world champion also adds to the greatness of the rivalry.
e4e5 — July 18, 2008 @ 3:07 pmYou both make very good points and you really can’t go wrong with either of your choices. I have a feeling that Kasparov-Karpov will win based on that being a more current day rivalry.
My personal choice is going to be Botvinnik-Smyslov. I am not really a fan or expert on either player, but I shall attempt to state my case anyway:
They tied (12.0-12.0) in 1954, Smyslov won (12.5-9.5) in 1957, and Botvinnik regained the crown (12.5-10.5) in 1958. The total combined scores were 35-34 in favor of Smyslov.
Similarities to the Kapsparov-Karpov rivalry were that they were both of Russian nationality and Botvinnik had an equally impressive title reign (15 years) as Kasparov, although he temporarily dropped the title twice along the way.
It is also my personal feeling that the field of potential challengers was stronger during Botvinnik’s reign. Lastly, Smyslov was able to prevail once over Botvinnik, but Karpov never actually beat Kasparov in match play.
Well, that’s my pick and my logic behind it. I hope that this stirs up some fun debate.
Rook House — July 18, 2008 @ 7:18 pmI think Karpov-Kasparov deserves to win, but my personal favorites are Alekhine-Capablanka and Spassky-Petrosian.
shah — August 4, 2008 @ 5:20 amYes, it is very evident that Kasparov-Karpov will win this poll by a landslide. As I mentioned earlier, I voted for Botvinnik-Smyslov as the greatest rivalry, but I will say that my favorite was Steinitz-Zukertort in terms of build-up to the first official world title match and all of the animosity between the two players.
Rook House — August 5, 2008 @ 7:04 am