Kasparov’s Simul with National Teams
Grandmasters are… good at chess.
This is a modest description, of course. The title of Grandmaster is the highest one you can achieve in chess. If you’ve ever faced a Grandmaster on the chess board, you’ll know how extraordinarily good at the game they are. Even an “ordinary” Grandmaster is strong enough to pose challenges to Magnus Carlsen, and it’s not unheard of for him to draw or even lose to lower rated Grandmasters - for example, at the Qatar Masters in 2023, he lost to Alisher Suleymenov (2512) and Murali Karthikeyan (2611).
Garry Kasparov used to take them on four at a time.
Simultaneous exhibitions are a great part of chess tradition, with an experienced Master or Grandmaster often facing more than 20 amateurs at once. In general, the Master will prevail in most of the games - because the amateurs are, after all, amateurs. In the 80s and 90s, Kasparov took on the national teams of several nations in simultaneous displays - with incredible results.
His simuls against Germany and Argentina were highlights, but we’ll focus on the two simuls he held against only Grandmasters.
In this article, we’ll look at two of Kasparov’s “super simuls”, where he took on the powerful Israeli and Czech national teams. Both teams were stacked with strong Grandmasters and clocks were used - which put even more pressure on Kasparov!
Kasparov vs Israel, 1998
In an event Kasparov has called one of his greatest performances, he decimated the 2600+ Israeli team. Playing each opponent twice, he scored 6 wins and 2 draws.
The Israel team consisted of:
Boris Alterman, 2615, 28 years old
Alexander Huzman, 2610, 36 years old
Emil Sutovsky, 2600, 21 years old
Ilya Smirin, 2590, 30 years old
Both Sutovsky and Smirin soon went on to break the 2700 barrier.
Kasparov vs the Czech Republic, 2001
Although on paper, the Czech team were a little weaker than Israel, this proved to be a tougher match for Kasparov. Prior to the match, Kasparov commented “I think they are well prepared and they are a real team, instead of four separate players”.
He ended the first day with a narrow lead, despite losing a game to Tomas Oral.
The Czech team was made up of:
Sergei Movsesian, 2631, 23 years old
Zbynek Hracek, 2610, 31 years old
Vlastimil Babula 2565, 28 years old
Tomas Oral, 2546, 24 years old
The second day went smoother for Kasparov, as he collected 2 wins and 2 draws to seal the match victory. The final score was 5.5-2.5, with Kasparov winning $40,000 as the match winner.
These simultaneous displays demonstrated the sheer power of peak Kasparov - taking on teams of talented Grandmasters is a feat that few could even attempt today.
Could Magnus Carlsen or anyone else do the same today? Should we bring back the super simuls? Let us know in the comments below!
