55th USSR Championship — Moscow 1988

World champion Garry Kasparov and his great rival Anatoly Karpov both came through the 55th Soviet Championship unbeaten, sharing first on 11½/17 a point and a half clear of the field, and — with a proposed play-off set aside — were jointly declared champions of the Soviet Union.

◇Two rivals, both unbeaten

By the summer of 1988 Kasparov and Karpov had already met in four world championship matches, and both entered the 55th Soviet Championship at the height of their rivalry. Each came through the seventeen-round event without a single loss — six wins and eleven draws apiece for 11½/17 — to finish a point and a half clear of Valery Salov and Artur Yusupov, who tied for third on 10.

The strong field included the nineteen-year-old Vasyl Ivanchuk, fifth on 9½ in one of his early appearances among the Soviet elite. Former world champion Mikhail Tal, taken ill, withdrew after the opening round and was replaced by Vyacheslav Eingorn.

◇A shared crown

A play-off between the two leaders had been planned to decide an outright champion, but it was never played: the Soviet Chess Federation set the match aside and awarded both men the gold medal, declaring Kasparov and Karpov joint champions of the Soviet Union.

For Kasparov it was a second national title, after the crown he had shared with Lev Psakhis at Frunze in 1981; for Karpov it was a third, following his victories in 1976 and 1983.