October 7, 2007

Iran Plans to Checkmate America

By Mark S. Hanna
Moscow, 1985. The world is riveted as the 24th and final game of the World Chess Championship begins with young Kasparov leading the contest 4 - 3. The chess prodigy needs only a draw against his older and more experienced opponent Anatoly Karpov to win his first world title and be crowned the youngest world champion in history.Karpov begins by executing an aggressive attack against Kasparov’s king.  “No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King,” fellow Russian chess master Koblentz once commented. A win for Karpov would tie the match and foil the boy wonder’s title aspirations. Kasparov observes his opponent’s assault, reasons, calculates, tabulates and then in an amazing turn of play, sacrifices a pawn to block Karpov’s surge. The decade-long champion’s incursion fails; Kasparov wins, stunning the world with his ingenuity and boldness.  His sacrificial calculation proved unbeatable and earned him the prize on which he had...(Read Full Article)