The ultimate comeback kid

Barden on chess
Leonard Barden
Saturday December 22, 2007
The Guardian

He is the ultimate chess comeback kid. Gata Kamsky’s victory in the $2m World Cup, after an eight-year break from serious play, puts the 33-year-old New Yorker, a former Soviet prodigy, within one eliminator of competing for the world title.

Kamsky lost to Anatoly Karpov for the Fide world championship in 1996, then gave up serious chess and spent eight years in law school, playing only a handful of games. When he returned in 2004 he was handicapped by rust and poor openings, but he was right back to his best in Siberia last week and beat Alexey Shirov 2.5-1.5 in the final.

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