Associated Press

Moscow, March 11:

Garry Kasparov, the world’s No 1 ranked chess player since 1984, considered by some the best in the history of the game, announced that he was retiring from professional play. The Russian grandmaster’s stunning announcement came shortly after he won the 14-match Linares tournament in Spain on Thursday, despite losing the final game. “Before this tournament I made a conscious decision that Linares 2005 will be my last professional tournament, and today I played my last professional game,” Kasparov said at a news conference in Linares, according to a video posted on the online chess magazine chessbase.com. He said his last games were “very difficult for me to play under such pressure, because I knew it was the end of the career which I could be proud of.” Kasparov, 41, became the youngest world champion ever at age 22, and quickly cut a swath through the chess world with an aggressive style that shunned settling for a draw. He said part of the reason he was retiring was because he saw no real goals left to accomplish in professional chess.

Kasparov has expressed increasing exasperation over the professional chess world, which has been bitterly divided since 1993 into two rival federations with rival champions. Kasparov reiterated on Thursday that he was disappointed with a failed campaign to reunify the title.

He said he would continue to play chess, write books about it and take part in tournaments, such as so-called knockout events in which he plays many opponents at once, or in speed-chess games. But he is saying goodbye to lucrative, top-level professional play.