Bugojno 1982

Bugojno's 1982 edition is remembered for one thing above all: it gave 19-year-old Garry Kasparov his first victory in a super-class international tournament. Unbeaten across thirteen rounds, he finished on 9½ — a point and a half clear of the field — and stepped onto the road that would take him to the Interzonal, the Candidates, and eventually the world title.

◇A field of veterans, one prodigy

The fourteen-player round-robin assembled a classic Bugojno cast: Lev Polugaevsky, Ljubomir Ljubojević, Robert Hübner, Boris Spassky, Bent Larsen, Ulf Andersson, Tigran Petrosian and the 71-year-old Miguel Najdorf among them, seasoned grandmasters spanning three generations of the game. Into that company came Garry Kasparov, already the world's most talked-about teenager but still to win a tournament of this class.

He answered the question emphatically. Kasparov went through all thirteen rounds without a loss, scoring +6 =7 for 9½ points and finishing clear of Polugaevsky and Ljubojević, who shared second on 8. His wins included a much-admired demolition of Najdorf and a sharp battle with Petrosian.

◇The road opens

Bugojno mattered far beyond its own crosstable. The result helped secure Kasparov a place in the 1982 Moscow Interzonal, which he duly won to reach the Candidates — becoming, at nineteen, the youngest Candidate since Bobby Fischer in 1958.

By the January 1983 rating list he was second in the world, behind only World Champion Anatoly Karpov, whom he would face in a title match three years later. His first big tournament win had come here, in the Bosnian town that hosted the world's best every other year.

“1982 was a big breakthrough year for the 19-year-old Kasparov. His first win in a super-class international tournament was scored at Bugojno, Yugoslavia, in 1982.”