Karpov v Kasparov, 1985, game 16: the octopus on d3

Garry Kasparov played this game against the world champion, Anatoly Karpov, on 15 October 1985, in game 16 of their world championship match in Moscow. The score was 7½–7½, and this win put Kasparov ahead for the first time; he won the match 13–11 and became world champion. Readers of Chess Informant later voted it the best game of the first 64 volumes.

White to move after 33...Ne4. Karpov's next move gives up his queen for the knight on d3.

The whole game

Karpov v Kasparov, World Championship 1985, game 16. Step through all 40 moves; White resigned.

The first ten moves repeated game 12 of the match: a Sicilian in which Black gives up a pawn with 8...d5. Kasparov had analysed the line deeply before the match.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move.

8...d5: the gambit

Later analysis showed that the pawn sacrifice wasn't quite correct, though its effect at the board was large. Stockfish agrees it was a small concession: White is about half a pawn better after 8...d5. Wikipedia's account adds that 12.Be3 was soon found to keep the extra pawn without the problems that followed; Stockfish rates 12.Be3 and the game's 12.O-O about the same.

13.Bf3 and 16...Nd3

White to move after 16...Nd3. Kasparov's knight lands on d3.

Arthur Bisguier called 13.Bf3 greedy, and Kasparov's second Iosif Dorfman said White could not draw after it. Stockfish doesn't agree: it rates 13.Bf3 as White's best move, and Black only slightly better after 16...Nd3. Kasparov called the knight on d3 an octopus. It stayed there, pressing on White's position, until Karpov gave up his queen for it on move 34.

17.Nab1: the real mistake

17.Nab1 h6 18.Bh4 b4 19.Na4 Bd6: the position Kasparov had aimed for.

Kasparov's own analysis gives 17.d6 as more active. Stockfish agrees, and by a clear margin: Black only slightly better after 17.d6, against one and a half pawns better after 17.Nab1. After 19...Bd6 Kasparov had the position he wanted: his bishop on f5 and knight on d3 tie down White's rooks and queen. Raymond Keene gave 21...g5 and 23...Nd7 two exclamation marks each. White kept losing ground: 24.Nb2 was better than 24.Bg2.

The end: three pieces for the queen

34.Qxd3 Nf2+ 35.Rxf2 Bxd3 36.Rfd2 Qe3 37.Rxd3 Rc1 38.Nb2 Qf2 39.Nd2 Rxd1+ 40.Nxd1 Re1+: White resigned.

Karpov finally took the knight with 34.Qxd3, giving up his queen. He had three minor pieces for it, but they couldn't hold off the attack on his king. 34...Nf2+ and 35...Bxd3 were each the only move that kept Black's winning advantage. Bisguier called 36...Qe3 the cleanest of several winning moves. After 40...Re1+ it is mate: 41.Nf1 Rxf1+ 42.Bxf1 Qxf1#. Karpov resigned.

How we checked

The moves are from Wikipedia's page on the 1985 World Championship, Arthur Bisguier's column in the Christian Science Monitor and Raymond Keene's column in The Spectator, which agree. We replayed every move with python-chess: all are legal.
The engine: Stockfish 16.1 checked every move at depth 22, and the key moments again at depth 26. "A pawn better" is Stockfish's measure of the position, not a count of material.
The history and the named opinions are from those three sources and ChessBase.

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