Kasparov's IQ is reported as about 190, from a battery of tests Stern magazine commissioned in 1987. It was published — but it was a magazine exercise, not a clinical assessment, and the instruments were never disclosed in detail.
A newspaper chess problem at five
Garry Kasparov was born in Baku to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father, who died of leukaemia when Garry was seven. At 12 he took his mother's surname, a Russified form of Kasparyan.
His parents noticed him solving a chess problem printed in the newspaper at five; within a few years chess had become the centre of his life.
Education: a Soviet coaching tree
Soviet chess was a state education system. His branch of it ran from a Baku youth club to the most famous school in chess history — plus a university degree on the side.
Trained at the city's youth chess club under coach Oleg Privorotsky.
Began a partnership with the trainer who would guide him through his rise to the title.
Selected for former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik's school: homework, deep opening preparation and psychology.
Also won the World Junior title that year and became a grandmaster at 17.
Long-time second and opening analyst, building the preparation files that became his trademark.
Completed a degree in English while already world champion.
Five title matches against one rival
The Kasparov–Karpov rivalry ran to more than 140 games and remains one of the most-studied in chess. In 1993 Kasparov broke with FIDE to found the Professional Chess Association, splitting the title for years.
For a cover story, the German weekly Stern had a panel of psychologists test Kasparov across spatial reasoning, working memory and verbal abstraction. The aggregate was reported as about 190, and every later citation traces back to it.
The specific instruments weren't published in detail, and the panel lacked the controls of a clinical study. Kasparov neither defends the number nor dismisses it; he says competitive chess is its own kind of test.
Game by game
After the 1997 loss he accused IBM of human intervention; IBM denied it and retired the machine. His 2017 book Deep Thinking moves from that bitterness to seeing AI as a tool that extends human work rather than replacing it.
He retired while still world number one to co-found the opposition coalition The Other Russia, and attempted a presidential run in 2008.
Under growing pressure he left Russia for New York, taking Croatian citizenship in 2014. He has chaired the Human Rights Foundation since 2012 and wrote Winter Is Coming (2015).
Games, books and projects
Beyond the title matches and Deep Blue: the games still studied, the books he wrote and what he built afterwards.
A sacrificial attack often called “Kasparov's Immortal”.
An online game against 50,000 players voting on moves; he won after four months.
Chess-in-schools programmes in the US, Europe, Africa and Latin America.
Five volumes analysing every world champion before him.
Lessons on decision-making from the board.
Annotated collections of his own career.
An online course on strategy and his favourite games.
“Chess is mental torture.”
“I have always tried to win in the most beautiful way possible. But in chess, the beauty is what works.”
Timeline
Reading the 190
One ad-hoc 1987 battery, published but not standardised. Read it as the result of a single magazine exercise. His FIDE rating history is the far better-documented measure of what he could do.
Sources
- Stern magazine cover feature (1987)
- FIDE rating archives, 1975–2005
- Kasparov, G. (2007). How Life Imitates Chess. Bloomsbury
- Kasparov, G. (2015). Winter Is Coming. PublicAffairs
- Kasparov, G. (2017). Deep Thinking. PublicAffairs
- Human Rights Foundation records
- IBM Deep Blue match records (1996, 1997)