多次世界冠军——俄罗斯 卡尔波夫

Name: Anatoly Karpov
Date of birth: 23-5-1951
Country: Russia
World ranking: 19
Rating: 2688
Strong points: Gifted with an outstanding natural talent for positional play, Karpov is probably the world’s most experienced active grandmaster. Against his arch-rival Garry Kasparov alone, he contested more than 150 match games and there is hardly a chess tournament worth the name anywhere in the world where he hasn’t won a first prize.
Career highlights: World Junior Champion 1969, winner of the Moscow Alekhine Memorial 1971, Soviet Champion 1976, 1982, 1988, winner at Wijk aan Zee 1988, at Tilburg 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983 and 1988, and at Linares 1994. FIDE World Champion 1975-1985 and 1993-1999. Recently: beating Garry Kasparov 2,5-1,5 in New York City, December 2002.
Expectations CCT 2003: Less active at the board of late, the 51-year-old former World Champion may be a bit rusty. But while he probably finds the latest developments in opening theory of less interest than those in Russian politics and while he may prefer beating the pinball-machine record to carefully preparing for his next game, Karpov remains one of the world’s strongest players. He was a convincing winner here in Wijk aan Zee some fifteen years ago; he may very well repeat the performance this year.