1986 Candidates Matches (FIDE)

The four qualifiers from Montpellier played knockout matches for the right to challenge for the world title. The 22-year-old Andrei Sokolov beat Rafael Vaganian and then Artur Yusupov to emerge as challenger — one of the swiftest rises of the era.

◇A four-player ladder

Montpellier had sent four players forward: Yusupov, Vaganian, Sokolov and Timman. They played matches rather than a round robin, so the standings table here only shows how far each player got. In the semifinals Andrei Sokolov beat Rafael Vaganian 6–2 at Minsk, while Artur Yusupov beat Jan Timman 6–3 at Tilburg.

That set up an all-Soviet final between two of the brightest young talents in the country, Sokolov and Yusupov, both barely into their twenties.

◇Riga and beyond

The final, played in Riga in the autumn of 1986, was desperately close; Sokolov edged it 7½–6½ to become the official challenger. His prize was a match against Anatoly Karpov — the former champion, then chasing a rematch with Kasparov — in the 1987 Superfinal.

There the fairytale ended: Karpov won convincingly, 7½–3½, and went on to face Kasparov again for the world title in Seville. Sokolov's meteoric ascent, from Montpellier to a title eliminator in barely a year, remains one of the sharpest of the 1980s.