Modern Classics

Kasparov-Anand, 1995

Kasparov-Anand, PCA-World Chess Championship, New York 1995, game 10

Following the disagreements with FIDE in 1993 the reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov and his challenger Nigel Short created a new organization: the Professional Chess Association (PCA). In the same year they played the first World Championship match organized under the auspices of the PCA, which Kasparov won convincingly. In .1995 a second PCA-World Championship match took place between Kasparov and Anand. In 1996 the PCA lost its main sponsor and ended its existence.

The match in 1995 started well for the challenger: after nine games Anand was leading with the score 5-4. In the presented 10th game of the match Kasparov implemented a powerful novelty with the white pieces in the Open Variation of the Spanish. First, he sacrificed a pawn, and then a whole rook. White's fantastic idea to invest so much material only for preventing the opponent's king from castling took Anand by complete surprise. Kasparov developed a strong initiative and launched a spectacular attack against the black monarch stuck in the centre. Anand avoided a quick loss in the middlegame and ended up in an endgame with a pawn down. The position still required precise play from White and Kasparov was up to the task, managing to level the score in the match.

This game played a crucial role for the outcome of the match. Anand couldn't recover, Kasparov took the initiative and scored 3,5 points out of the next four games. The match finished 10,5-7,5 in Kasparov's favour.