World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov is considered a fighter and a maximalist known for his tough character. Despite the opponent's advantages and the seeming disadvantage of the situation, he is able to achieve victory - this is what they say about the grandmaster.
Childhood and early years
Anatoly Evgenievich Karpov was born on May 23, 1951 in the family of an engineer who then lived in the small South Ural town of Zlatoust. Later, the parents of the future grandmaster moved from the Chelyabinsk region to Tula, where their son brilliantly graduated from school. Young Karpov's certificate contained only "excellent" marks, and the graduate of the mathematical class received a well-deserved gold medal.
Little Anatoly got acquainted with chess at the age of five. He demonstrated his first successes in this art in a section in the Sports Pavilion of the Zlatoust Metallurgical Plant. The mentor of the talented boy was then engineer Dmitry Artemyevich Zyulyarkin.
At the age of nine, Karpov was able to get the first category, two years later he easily fulfilled the norm of a candidate for master of sports. He became a master of sports of the USSR at the age of fourteen. As a teenager, Anatoly began to travel to the capital to study at the Moscow Botvinnik School. It is interesting that Mikhail Botvinnik, who is the first Soviet world chess champion, did not see the young man's talent at first. However, very soon Karpov managed to become the twelfth world champion.
The path to the chess crown
In 1968, when Karpov did not pass the competition at Moscow State University and was about to apply to the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute (Voenmekh), Botvinnik turned to the head of the country's Ministry of Higher Education, Vyacheslav Elyutin. Then it was already clear that Karpov had great prospects in sports and he should not leave Moscow, where he would be able to achieve significant success. As a result, the chess player was admitted to the best university in the country out of competition.
During his studies, Anatoly Karpov had a free schedule of visits. Soon he decided, despite Botvinnik's disapproval, to transfer to the Faculty of Economics at Leningrad University. In the northern capital, Semyon Furman began to work with him, who turned the young talent into a real grandmaster of the highest class, capable of winning the chess crown.
Karpov received his university diploma only ten years later - due to regularly held tournaments and training camps, constant training. Time was demanded by the active social activities, which the chess player was engaged in those years. It is worth noting that the topic of his thesis, which he defended in 1978, having already become the world champion, was the rational use of free time under socialism.
Twelfth World Chess Champion
In the period from 1969 to 1974, Karpov became more and more successful, winning victories at tournaments of various levels. Having won the titles of world champion among youths and champion of the RSFSR, he became a grandmaster, and then brilliantly performed in interzonal competitions and matches of the world championship candidates.
The twelfth world champion Karpov was officially declared on April 3, 1975, this was preceded by the refusal of the American chess player Robert Fischer to defend his title. Having become the best chess player on the planet, Karpov retained his title for ten years. Only in the fall of 1985, he lost the chess crown to Garry Kasparov.
Personal life
The grandmaster's first marriage did not survive his busy schedule, when Karpov was constantly absent from home. Son Anatoly, born in 1979, was often ill at an early age. The pediatrician more and more often came to the calls to the chess player's son Anatoly, and after a while Karpov's wife fell in love with the pediatrician.
The second wife of the grandmaster was Natalya Vladimirovna Bulanova, who in the past worked as a medical statistician. She later started working as a gallery owner. In the second marriage, Karpov had another child - daughter Sophia, who is twenty years younger than her brother.
