The World Chess Championship 1984–1985 was a match between challenger Garry Kasparov and defending champion Anatoly Karpov in Moscow from 10 September 1984 to 15 February 1985 for the World Chess Championship title. After 5 months and 48 games, the match was abandoned, with Karpov leading 5 to 3, and 40 draws. The match was replayed in the World Chess Championship 1985.
Three Interzonal tournaments were held. The top two finishers in each qualified. Zoltán Ribli won the Las Palmas Interzonal ahead of 61-year-old former World Champion Vasily Smyslov.[1] Kasparov, 19 years old, won the Moscow Interzonal by a 1½ point margin ahead of Alexander Beliavsky.[2] The Toluca Interzonal was won jointly by Lajos Portisch and Eugenio Torre.[3]
Tal and Andersson contested a playoff in Malmö for a reserve spot for the Candidates Tournament. The match ended 3–3; Tal became first reserve because of his better tie break score, but no reserves were needed.
The six Interzonal qualifiers were joined by Viktor Korchnoi and Robert Hübner, the Candidates finalists from the previous cycle (World Chess Championship 1981). The eight players participated in a series of knockout matches. The winner was Garry Kasparov.[4]
The Smyslov–Hübner match was tied at 5–5. After playing four extra games without breaking the tie, the match was resolved by a spin of the roulette wheel. The ball went into the zero on the first spin, before deciding in favor of Smyslov.[5]
Politics threatened Kasparov's semi-final match against Viktor Korchnoi, which was scheduled to be played in Pasadena, California. Korchnoi had defected from the Soviet Union in 1976, and was at that time the strongest active non-Soviet player. Various political manoeuvres prevented Kasparov from playing Korchnoi in the United States, and Kasparov forfeited the match. This was resolved when Korchnoi agreed for the match to be replayed in London, along with the Vasily Smyslov vs. Zoltán Ribli match. The Korchnoi–Kasparov match was put together on short notice by Raymond Keene. Kasparov won 7–4.[citation needed]
The previous record length for a world title match had been 34 games, the 1927 match between José Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, which also followed the "first to 6 wins" format.
The match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of the World Chess Federation, 5–3 in favor of Karpov, and a new match was announced to start a few months later. The termination was controversial, as both players stated that they preferred the match to continue. Announcing his decision at a press conference, Campomanes cited the health of the players, which had been strained by the length of the match (5 months: 10 September 1984 to 8 February 1985).[citation needed] This match is the first and only world championship match to be abandoned without result.
The restarted match (the World Chess Championship 1985) was best of 24. Kasparov won 13–11.
In 2020, Karpov said that if he had won this match 6–0, Kasparov would never have become world champion, because he was too emotional.[6][7]