00:00it's hard to remember the very first experience playing chess I'm looking at
00:17this wooden board with some pieces trying to figure it out almost instantly falling
00:26in love with this mystery and I learned how to move the pieces simply watching my
00:34following my parents and then I even was brave enough to make suggestions and
00:41actually it you know one of the suggestions work I did play with a little
00:46bit was my father though he died very young age so 39 so I was seven I
00:55remember more playing with my uncle he was pretty decent player I was just in
01:01the beginning of my chess journey and I remember he gave me a rook
01:07handicap and he bit me I was so upset I couldn't meet him instantly took time so
01:14for me just to get stronger my first big experience was not a 72 I play the blitz
01:25championship I was in quarterfinal it's and it was a real one for adults and I was
01:33nine years old and I made nine out of nine in the quarterfinal and then I played in
01:41the semi-final and I qualified that was pretty good blitz player so I was a good
01:46player period but in blitz I was even stronger because I was very quick very sharp so I qualified
01:55for the final when I could face masters I'm the real tough guys and and and I played in the final
02:03of course I and I was I was very small kid you know just like it was hard for me just to sit in the chair to make the moves and
02:11and I I lost all the games except one I won one game lost five or six games in the row and I was
02:19not I was not ready my mother took me away so because it was it was too early but it was a good
02:25experience I was lucky because I found the game of chess this is something that perfectly fits my
02:33personality we all are good for for something but that was a nexus where my memory analytical skills
02:46determination by human star standards brute force of calculation everything worked perfectly and and I
02:56have been making progress um and it was more of limiting my uh uh eagerness to be involved so my mother
03:08tried to make sure that I don't have too much as I was I'm always hungry for more chess uh not to
03:16overload me not to throw me into the big competitions too early because she remembered this this is experience of
03:25of of this blitz championship in bakua it was too early and that's why later on when she was pushed by
03:30some of our friends relatives yes let's make sure gary plays the students no no no no just you know
03:36don't rush don't rush give him time to get stronger to uh uh uh get mature and to uh be ready to um have
03:48enough stamina for serious competitions because it's not just about playing you have to play
03:54and you have to win
03:55a lot of people around me believe that i could be a great player i could be even the world champion
04:09um i remember in 1972 yes 1972 when bobby fisher won his title beating boris baske
04:22um i was given a present from one of our relatives uh and it was a chess board and there was a chess board
04:36and uh it had squares surrounding the board with pictures of world champions there were 11
04:48and then there was one square left and uh i was told it would be for karpov because i really expected
05:02karpov to to challenge fisher and uh a relative who gave this presence and said there's no square but
05:12there's a room and uh i hope that that will be your your place your place in in in in chess history
05:21from the very beginning we believed in number 13 that's
05:26it's uh it's a prodigious uh i couldn't help myself thinking that karpov was number 12
05:33so i was born april 13 so maybe i'm i was destined to become number 13 as as a world champion i remember
05:41that in 1978 when korshner played karpov many just uh among my friends you know just uh rooted for
05:53korshner that's normal reaction of many uh people of the soviet union so with intelligence they just
06:00saw karpov as a symbol of the system and korshner as a defector so it was kind of kitchen protest
06:07against the system and i remember i talked to my mother and she said oh yeah it would be nice of
06:14course if korshner would win but then you would not become number 13 and it was definitely symbolic that
06:25in 1983 when i played victor korshner in the semi-final and i uh i won the match petra levery korshner's wife
06:36came to my mother and remember 1983 it's soviet union andropov is is general secretary kgb is in power
06:49and the korshner is a defector and and she was talking to my mother she said gary would never
06:54beat korshkarkov in the soviet union think about running away so uh my mother said no no we'll still
07:01we hope we can win by staying staying in our country and petra gave a present in number 13 made of gold and
07:10diamonds that little necklace that she uh um made for bagel in 1978 expecting korshner to win she gave
07:21it to my mother saying that's for your good luck so that's number 13. so was it a destiny probably
07:30i think we all have an intuition uh i always thought about intuition being kind of a muscle
07:44so you don't train your muscles they get weak um to make them strong to make them um dynamic you just
07:56have to trust your intuition you have to train maybe there are different kinds of intuition but
08:04mine was based very much an ability to evaluate different factors while playing chess and uh and
08:11uh uh thus being very comfortable with positions where you could hardly find a well-known pattern
08:18so with imbalanced positions uh with broken balance positions where you know it's each mistake
08:27even inaccuracy would be lethal i spent a lot of time at the chess board uh facing many opponents
08:40but it was not just playing in tournaments or in short matches i played anatoly karpov
08:49dozens and dozens and dozens of games actually 144 games only in the world championship matches
08:56not counting few dozens of games we played outside of the world championship and i know that if you
09:02spend this time with with someone who is just sitting opposite you uh you can feel something you can
09:13make certain predictions i'm sure it works other way it works other way around so it's it's not one way
09:21streets but i have to say that i could immediately feel when my move had an effect on my opponent
09:27i remember for instance game 24 of my match against karpov in 1985 decisive game
09:36karpov had to win they build a very strong attacking position but he was not comfortable with an immediate
09:44breakthrough which was the best chance not winning but it was the best chance because it could put me
09:48under tremendous pressure and i had to find only moves to survive but karpov being karpov didn't want to
09:54break through immediately he wanted to prepare it he made a quiet move because he didn't see what i
10:00can do to prevent it and i found a very unusual maneuver highly unusual by just doubling my rooks
10:07behind my own pawns just looked ridiculous but it stopped karpov from making this advance
10:13and i remember when i made this move from k7 and karpov looked at the board
10:18so i was in disbelief
10:22and he immediately realized still world champion great player that he missed this moment he missed the
10:29moment for uh for this breakthrough and uh that was not just a moment missed because the title was at
10:39stake uh the world championship title and uh i knew when i just looked at him that his confidence was
10:48shattered and uh i ended up winning this game and um uh winning the match and winning the title
10:59the title of the soviet union of the soviet union was um fully integrated in the political system
11:11it was a very important propaganda tool for the communist regime and and uh while praying karpov
11:18especially at the time of the of the great change in the soviet union uh uh uh made me
11:26part of this process and i um i wanted to help my country because it was all about making the
11:33difference changing the system turning russia soviet union and then russia into a democratic state
11:40since i left chess i believe what i've been doing was more of human rights activism fighting for
11:47democracy trying to restore democracy in russia without big success uh but also um promoting these
11:54these values around the world i for the last several years i have been um chairman of human rights
12:03foundation new york based human rights foundation i also engaged in in social media promoting values
12:10that i believe are important and now we could see that there are many challenges not only in russia not
12:14only in countries that are not typically considered to be democratic but also there are splits in in
12:25in the free world um where all of a sudden many people believe that the values the core values of the
12:36free world are not no longer as important as they used to be um and i i didn't see any discomfort moving
12:46from professional chess into what people mistakenly call political life because i've been engaged in political
12:53fights in the soviet union chess was always an important political tool the only relevant lesson
13:00from my chess career that i could take with me into my new life was that you had to be objective
13:06while assessing the position and i had this joke some say a very sad joke saying that the difference
13:15between chess and putin's russia was that in chess we always had fixed rules and unpredictable results
13:21while in putin's russia it was exactly the opposite um but uh i was not
13:30devastated by what people some people believed was a big loss because i failed to carry the changes that i
13:38believe were vital for my country i ended up living in new york in exile but it was another part of my
13:46journey an important part of my journey an important part of my journey i did many important things and i
13:50made made a difference not as substantial as i made in the world of chess but i didn't expect to have
14:00the same accomplishments elsewhere in other walks of life because i knew chess was unique so it's a full
14:06life i feel comfortable by wearing these new hats
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