Allsportspk | International Chess Day 2024: FIDA Turns 100 + Recognising The Chess Legends

The plan to celebrate a Chess Day originated in 1966, when FIDE-International Chess Federation suggested 20th July as International Chess Day. The day was selected to acknowledge the day FIDE was founded in Paris during 1924. Finally, after decades in 1969 the proposal was officially adopted during the 67th FIDE Congress.  

A contemporary player, Carlsen turned into a chess grand master at the young age of 13 years old, and gained the record of being the third youngest grand master ever.

In 2013, Carlsen vanquished the reigning World Champion, Viswanathan Anand and in the following year he rose to an all high chess rating of 2882. After these triumphs, Carlsen also won the World Blitz Championship and the World Rapid Championship, which means that he currently holds all three major titles in chess rankings.

As a youngster, Carlsen used to focus mainly on attacking his adversaries. But, as his skills as a chess player matured, only then did he start to use different strategies with a specific end goal to deal with elite players.

A unique ability that Carlsen possesses is that he does not depend on opening planning, as much as other best players. This makes it harder for adversaries to plan against him, particularly, as he tends to utilize an assortment of openings.

Carlsen’s Endgame

His endgame is fascinating, and has been adulated as one of the best in chess history. This is mainly, because the contemporary great has been portrayed to befuddle his adversaries into making erroneous conclusions, through his predominant aptitude.

Carlsen’s style of play is both systematic and courageous at the same time. This enables him to play without committing numerous errors and only making the absolute best moves during a game.

His popularity and positional dominance have welcomed correlations with players like Fischer, Capablanca and Karpov by his mentor Kasparov.

Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov holds the record of being positioned at World #1 for 225 months from 1986 to 2005. This is one of the reasons as to why the Russian national, stays a standout amongst the most fascinating figures in chess history.

Kasparov & The Computer

His mastery over the game allowed him to beat even a clever chess computer by the name of Deep Blue. Kasparov crushed Deep Blue in a two-diversion coordinate in 1989, and won another match by 4-2 in 1996. But, in 1997, a refreshed version of the computer finally overcame Kasparov; this was the first time that a computer dominated against a human chess player.

Although, Kasparov faced defeat, his popularity did not, as on the contrary, it skyrocketed after this endeavour. Another reason as to why this loss is still a highlight of Kasparov’s illustrious career is because of his bewildering winning streak.

However, just winning was never enough for the legendary chess player, as after he had won the World Championship in 1986, he began the GMA – Grandmasters Association.

The GMA was intended to enable proficient players, to be associated more actively with the activities of FIDE(World Chess Federation).

The legend retired in 2005, only after he realised that there was no room left for any more self-improvement.

Now he teaches a master class online. Have a look at one of his trailer.

Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer is another player whose exclusion from a legendary players list makes it deficient.

Title holder between 1972 to 1975, the American player played a significant role in creating a gigantic spark for chess in the United States.

Breaking records was somewhat of a hobby for Fischer. At only 15 years of age, he became a Grandmaster while also being the youngest to enter a World Championship. And it was only until 1971, that Fischer turned into the No. 1 appraised player.

For all his achievements, Fischer had irritability poor social abilities, and thus he was often perceived as being unfriendly and arrogant. However, none of these shortcomings influenced on his chess playing ability.

Like the chess great, Gary Kasparov, Fischer also had a hostile association with the World Chess Federation. He took a stand in opposition to the playing conditions and the cash associated with the titles. These disagreements grew so much that in 1975, Fischer declined to protect his title, thus passing it on, uncontested to Anatoly Karpov.

The Fischerandom

Another disagreement that Fischer had with the existing system was opening frameworks that included conferring opening moves to memory. According to Fischer, this was not fair as more talented players lost to individuals based only on their lack of memory skills.

To counter this problem and make chess a fair game, Fischer made a contrasting option to this framework. Known as Fischerandom or Chess960, the framework had 960 beginning positions. This framework had a positive affect, as the capacity of players who utilised repetition and got the hang of opening moves decreased drastically.

Bobby Fischer was a true chess legend, so much so that, some grandmasters have also contrasted his style to that of a computer, mainly because of the absence of detectable shortcomings.

Even to Gary Kasparov, Fischer was an amazing and progressive figure ever to play the sport on a professional level.

Judit Polgár

The only female chess player to find her place in this legendary list is none other than Judit Polgar. Considered by many as the best female player of all time, Judit broke the stereotype that women are not smart enough to play chess.

She broke Bobby Fisher’s record of accomplishing the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 also became the youngest chess player to break into the Top 100 chess rankings.

1989 to 2015 was the golden period for Judit Polgar as she remained the number one female chess player during this entire period. Her accomplishments include defeating the world champions of her time including the likes of Gary Kasparov.

Judit Polgar Vs Gary Kasparov

To this day, her association with Kasparov remains the highlight of her career. She lost a dubious diversion to him in 1994, where in the outcome of the match, video confirmed that Kasparov had in fact made an unjustifiable move. After this match both had a fallout for a period of three years.

However, in 2002 she finally crushed the chess legend and Kasparov was all praise of his opponent and even gave her due regard by praising her ‘relentless aggression’

Viswanathan Anand

Popularly known as ‘Vishy’, the Indian chess Grandmaster became only the 4th player in history to pass the 2800 rating mark in the chess rankings list.

The World Champion can truly be considered as the face of Asian chess in the entire world. Vishy remained at the number one position for a total of 21 months and during this period he won three Advanced Chess rivalries successively.

Anand is considered as being the principle player to have won the world chess title in four associations: match, knockout, tournament and rapid time controls. The Indian Grandmaster places himself among the best chess players including the likes of Gary Kasparov and Bobby Fischer.

This was Allsportpk list of the legendary players of chess. Do comment down below if you have any other names you think should be in the legendary List!

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