Anand-Karpov, Las Palmas 1996
The frequently cited as the strongest tournament of all time Supertorneo Las Palmas 1996 was the first ever category 21 tournament. The event had an Elo rating average of 2756 and included six of the top seven rated players competing in a double round robin format. The victor was Garry Kasparov, with Vishy Anand finishing in second place.
In the presented game Anand-Karpov, the Indian player started the game quietly with 1.Nf3, not willing to face Karpov's beloved Caro-Kann. The game transposed into a rare variation of the Queen's Gambit Accepted with an isolated queen's pawn (IQP) for White. Karpov, who at that time was still the second-best player in the world after Kasparov, has always been known to be a master of playing against IQP. However, in the resulting position Anand's pawn on b5 hindered the normal development of Black's queenside and Karpov decided to change the pawn structure. In the newly created situation, "the Tiger of Madras", as the Indian Grandmaster is sometimes called, found a far from obvious deep idea of transferring his bishop to a better diagonal. Anand already had in mind a standard sacrifice rarely seen in top modern practice, which happened five moves later. Karpov spent all his time trying to find a defence, but in vain, as after the sacrifice White was winning in all variations. On move 28 Karpov lost on time in a hopeless position.