Kasparov v Karpov, Seville 1987, game 24: the must-win game

The 1987 world championship match in Seville came down to its last game. Anatoly Karpov had won game 23 to lead 12–11, so Garry Kasparov, the champion, had to win game 24 to draw the match and keep his title. He played a quiet Réti Opening, not seen before between the two, and won. No champion had saved his title by winning the final game since Lasker against Schlechter in 1910. Karpov called the match "a tragedy of one move".

Black to move after 31.Ne5. Kasparov has left a pawn on a4, and Karpov has about three minutes left.

The whole game

Kasparov v Karpov, World Championship 1987, game 24. Step through all 64 moves; Black resigned.

The game was adjourned after move 42, with Kasparov a pawn up in an ending with queens on the board and all the pawns on one side; he sealed 42.Kg2. It finished the next day, 19 December 1987.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move. The game was level for a long time, and then, in time trouble, both players missed chances.

31...Nxa4: the poisoned pawn

31...Nxa4 32.Rxc8+ Nxc8 33.Qd1 Ne7 34.Qd8+ Kh7 35.Nxf7: Kasparov wins a pawn back, and more.

Karpov had left himself only about three minutes for his last eleven moves. With 31...Nxa4 he took a pawn that Zoran Petronijevic, writing for ChessBase, calls poisoned. Stockfish agrees: taking with the queen, 31...Qxa4, keeps the game level, while after 31...Nxa4 White is about four pawns better.

33.Qd1 and 33...Ne7: both miss it

Kasparov said afterwards that 33.Qb5 would have kept him well ahead, and Stockfish agrees: about four pawns better for White after 33.Qb5, against level after 33.Qd1. Karpov then missed his own chance: 33...Nc5 would have kept the game level, and the Washington Post's report says Karpov missed it. Mark Weeks went further and thought 33...Nc5 wins for Black; Stockfish calls it level, not winning. After 33...Ne7 White was better again, nearly two pawns. Petronijevic called 34.Qd8+ safer but weaker than 34.Bh5, and Stockfish agrees that 34.Bh5 was stronger.

The ending

After 35.Nxf7 Kasparov was a pawn up, and Stockfish rates White about a pawn better at the adjournment. Karpov defended for another 20 moves before going wrong: 56...Qd8 and 57...Qa5 made White's advantage decisive. Karpov resigned after 64.Kg2.

How we checked

The moves: we found only one full published score, in the ramachess.com database. Its key moves are confirmed by ChessBase (31...Nxa4, 33.Qd1, 33...Ne7, 34.Qd8+), Mark Weeks (33.Qd1 and the sealed move 42.Kg2), the Washington Post (35.Nxf7) and Wikipedia (adjourned at move 42, resigned at move 64). One small question remains: ChessBase quotes Kasparov's book on a move 42...g5, where the score has 42...g6. 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 sources, Wikipedia's page on the 1987 World Championship and Kasparov's own site (the comparison with Lasker and Schlechter).

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