Kasparov Becomes World Champion, 1985

Rather than the unlimited marathon that had just been abandoned, this match was fixed at 24 games, with the champion retaining the title on a 12-12 tie, a structure specifically designed to prevent the kind of open-ended grind that had ended in controversy months earlier. Kasparov started slowly and fell behind, but the fixed length meant there was no room left for either player to simply wait the other out.

Needing a win in the final game to take the title outright, Kasparov, playing Black, opened with the Sicilian Najdorf and transposed into a Scheveningen structure after Karpov's characteristic 6.Be2. Kasparov unleashed sharp, well-prepared play in a well-known theoretical position and converted the resulting advantage, sealing the title 13-11 on November 9, 1985.

13-11 is as narrow as a 24-game match can end while still producing a decisive winner, one fewer good day for Kasparov and this becomes a drawn match with Karpov retaining the title under the tie rule. That razor-thin margin is part of why this specific match, rather than the abandoned 1984 marathon, is remembered as the true birth of the Kasparov era.

Kasparov held the "youngest World Champion" record at 22 until Gukesh Dommaraju broke it in December 2024 at 18, beating Ding Liren in Singapore. Records like this rarely last forever, but nearly forty years is a long time for any chess milestone to stand unchallenged.

Play through the Najdorf-Scheveningen structure above and notice how much of Black's plan depends on timing, when to strike with ...d5 or ...b5 rather than whether to. Kasparov's entire generation built its reputation on exactly this kind of sharp, deeply prepared Sicilian theory; study a Najdorf or Scheveningen line yourself and you are studying the same battleground that decided a World Championship.