The Art of Positional Chess ♗ ASMR ♗ Karpov vs. Unzicker, 1974


ASMR Chess
Published 2 years ago

The absolute genius of Anatoly Karpov... Like playing against the tide.
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See the game below

Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov, known as Tolya to his friends, (born May 23, 1951) is a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, a three-time FIDE World Champion (1993, 1996, 1998), twice World Chess champion as a member of the USSR team (1985, 1989), and a six-time winner of Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team (1972, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1988). The International Association of Chess Press awarded him nine Chess "Oscars" (1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984).

In other words he was pretty good at chess.

Karpov's tournament successes include over 160 first-place finishes. He had a peak Elo rating of 2780, and his 102 total months at world number one is the third-longest of all time, behind Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov, since the inception of the FIDE ranking list in 1970.

In 1974 he played the Olympiad in Nice for the Soviet team (who won the event) and played an absolute masterpiece of positional chess against the german grandmaster Wolfgang Unzicker.
Even by modern standards the game is near perfect.

[Event "Olympiad Final-A"]
[Site "Nice FRA"]
[Date "1974.06.18"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "4"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Anatoly Karpov"]
[Black "Wolfgang Unzicker"]
[ECO "C98"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "87"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5
7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2
Nc6 13. d5 Nd8 14. a4 Rb8 15. axb5 axb5 16. b4 Nb7 17. Nf1 Bd7
18. Be3 Ra8 19. Qd2 Rfc8 20. Bd3 g6 21. Ng3 Bf8 22. Ra2 c4
23. Bb1 Qd8 24. Ba7 Ne8 25. Bc2 Nc7 26. Rea1 Qe7 27. Bb1 Be8
28. Ne2 Nd8 29. Nh2 Bg7 30. f4 f6 31. f5 g5 32. Bc2 Bf7
33. Ng3 Nb7 34. Bd1 h6 35. Bh5 Qe8 36. Qd1 Nd8 37. Ra3 Kf8
38. R1a2 Kg8 39. Ng4 Kf8 40. Ne3 Kg8 41. Bxf7+ Nxf7 42. Qh5
Nd8 43. Qg6 Kf8 44. Nh5 1-0

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