Gata Kamsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**Gata Kamsky**

Full name	Gata Rustemovich Kamsky
Country	United States
Born	June 2, 1974 (age 32) Novokuznetsk, Russia

Title	Grandmaster


Rating	2705 (No. 19 on the April 2007 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating	2745 (July 1996)

Gata Kamsky (Tatar:Ğataulla Kamski) (born June 2, 1974) is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster. At one point he was the third highest-rated player in the world, but he played no FIDE-rated games between 1999 and late 2004. He is rated 2705 in the April 2007 FIDE list, ranking him nineteenth in the world. As of the October 2006 rating supplement Kamsky had a United States Chess Federation rating of 2753, ranking him 1st among American chess players.

Kamsky is a Crimean Tatar, born in Siberia. He won the Soviet under-20 championship twice before 1989. In 1989 he moved to the United States with his father Röstäm (also spelled Rustam).

In 1990, FIDE awarded Kamsky the grandmaster title. In 1991, he won the U.S. Championship. He also did well at other prestigious chess tournaments, placing second at the SKA Biel Interzonal in 1993, and winning the Las Palmas tournament in 1994. For a time in the early 1990s he was widely regarded as Judit Polgár's main rival as the most promising chess prodigy.

In 1993-96, Kamsky competed simultaneously in both the PCA and FIDE Candidates matches leading to the world championship. In the PCA matches, he beat Vladimir Kramnik in the quarter-finals in New York in June, 1994. In September, 1994 Kamsky beat Nigel Short in the semi-finals in Linares, Spain. In March, 1995, Kamsky lost to Viswanathan Anand (+1–3=7) in the finals in Las Palmas. Anand would lose the PCA Championship, held at the World Trade Center, to the reigning champion Garry Kasparov. (In 2000, both Kramnik and Anand would become world champions, with Kramnik wresting the PCA title from Kasparov, while Anand beat Alexei Shirov for the FIDE title.)

In the FIDE Candidates Matches in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands in January 1994, Kamsky beat Paul Van der Sterren (+3=3-1) in the quarter-finals. Kamsky's semi-finals match against Anand, held in July and August 1994 in Sanghi Nagar, India, was more dramatic. After draws in the first two games, Anand won the next two games to take an imposing 3-1 lead. Game 5 was drawn. Remarkably, Kamsky then scored 4.5-.5 in the remaining five games to win the match 6-4 (+4=5-2). In the finals, held in Sanghi Nagar in February 1995, Kamsky routed Valery Salov 6-2 (+4–0=4). In 1996, Kamsky played a 20-game match against Anatoly Karpov for the FIDE World Chess Championship title at Elista in Kalmykia. Kamsky lost 7.5-10.5 (+3-6=9), the last two games being mathematically irrelevant to the outcome of the match.

After losing the match to Karpov, Kamsky gave up chess. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1999. He then attended medical school, but left after one year. He then attended and graduated from law school.

Kamsky's next rated games after his loss to Karpov were in 1999, when he returned to play in the FIDE Knockout World Championship event in Las Vegas, where he played a two-game match against Alexander Khalifman. Kamsky won the first game, lost the second game, and then lost the rapid play-off games.

Kamsky did not play another game in public until June 15, 2004, when he participated in the 106th New York Masters, playing four games in a day with a time control of 30 minutes for all his moves. His two wins and two draws were enough for him to be one of five players tied for first place. He subsequently played in several other editions of the weekly event with mixed success, before returning to regular chess in the 2005 U.S. Championship held in November-December 2004 where he scored a respectable but unspectacular 5.5-3.5. He was rated number 19 in the world on the April 2005 FIDE Elo rating list, at 2700; he retained this rating on the July 2005 list but moved up to number 18. He has since returned to international chess, most notably finishing second behind Veselin Topalov at the M-tel Masters event. Soon after, Kamsky led the US team to the bronze medal at the International Chess Olympiad at Turin. On July 4, 2006, he tied for first place with nine others at the World Open, winning about $7000.

Here Kamsky, as Black, crushes future World Champion Kramnik en route to winning their 1994 Candidates match:

Kramnik-Kamsky, World Championship Quarter-Finals Match, New York 1994 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.g3 O-O 5.Bg2 c5 6.O-O Nc6 7.d4 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qe7 9.Nc2 (White allows Black to ruin his pawn structure, and soon sacrifices one of his weak c-pawns. He hopes that his two bishops will give him sufficient compensation, but will find that he is unable to use them effectively.) Bxc3 10.bxc3 Rd8 11.Ba3 d6 12.Rb1 Qc7 13.Nd4 Nxd4 14.cxd4 Qxc4 15.Qd2 Qa6 16.Rb3 Rb8 17.e4 Bd7 18.Rf3 (trying to get play on the king-side, but Kamsky's pieces now overrun the queen-side) Ba4! (disdaining 18...Nxe4 19.Qf4 f5 20.g4 opening lines for White's pieces) 19.Re1 Rbc8 20.Bf1 Bb5 21.Bh3 Qa4 22.d5 Rc2 23.Qe3? exd5 (White is in deep trouble. If now 24.exd5? Re8 wins) 24.e5 d4! 25.Qg5 Re2! (Exploiting White's weak back rank. Now White sacrifices material for a fearsome-looking attack against g7, but Kamsky has calculated exactly.) 26.exf6 Rxe1+ 27.Bf1 (27.Kg2? Bf1+ 28.Kg1 Bxh3#) Rxf1+ 28.Kg2 Rg1+! 29.Kh3 (29.Kxg1? Qd1+ 30.Kg2 Qf1#) Bd7+ 30.Kh4 g6 31.Qh6 d3+ 32.Rf4 (32.Kg5? Qg4#) Qxf4+! 33.Qxf4 (33.gxf4 Rg4+ 34.Kh3 Rg5+! 35.Kh4 Rh5+ wins the queen) Rh1! 34.g4 h6! (Now White's attack is over and Black's pawns join in attacking White's king, threatening ...g5+.) 35.Kh3 (35.Qxh6? Rxh2+) g5! 36.Qd4 Rg1 37.f3 d2! 38.Qxd2 (38.Qxg1 Ba4 and Black queens) Bb5! 0-1 (39...Bf1+ will win White's queen)