Niksic 1983

◈An elite field in Montenegro

Held in August 1983 in Nikšić, then in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, the tournament was a fifteen-player round-robin rated Category XIV — among the strongest events of its day. The field was extraordinary: three former world champions in Boris Spassky, Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian; the elite grandmasters Bent Larsen, Lajos Portisch, Jan Timman, Ulf Andersson, Anthony Miles, Yasser Seirawan, Ljubomir Ljubojević and Svetozar Gligorić; and, rated highest of all, the twenty-year-old Kasparov.

◈Kasparov runs away with it

Kasparov arrived on a steep rise. Earlier that year he had won his Candidates quarter-final against Alexander Beliavsky, and he was the only participant from the world-championship cycle in the field. Across the fortnight he was all but untouchable, marred by a single stumble — nine wins, four draws and one loss, to Spassky in the eighth round — for 11 from 14. Larsen took clear second on 9, with Portisch and Spassky sharing third and fourth on 8, and Andersson and Miles next on 7½.

The two-point margin over a field of former champions and established elite grandmasters made the result one of the most emphatic of Kasparov's early career. His win over Portisch is widely admired as one of his finest positional games.

◈On the road to the crown

Nikšić was a statement to the chess world that a new era was near. A little over a year later, Kasparov had won the Candidates final and sat down across the board from Anatoly Karpov for the world championship — the first act of a rivalry that would define the decade.