After Kasparov and Short split in 1993, the signs of reconciliation between the Classical World Champion Garry Kasparov and FIDE were nowhere to be seen. The chess world continued to have two simultaneous World Champions; both FIDE and newly formed PCA organized their own World Championship Cycle.

The cycles were of a similar format. PCA organized a qualifying tournament in December 1993. In this Open tournament, eight best players gained the right to participate in the Candidate matches, the winner of which was to gain the right to challenge Kasparov for the title of the Classical (or PCA) World Champion. After a tough final match, played in Las Palmas in March 1995  the Indian superstar Viswanathan Anand managed to beat Gata Kamsky 6.5 – 4.5.

The stage was set for the Kasparov – Anand World Championship match. The match took place from 10th September 1995, to 16th October 1995, on the 107th floor of the WTC in New York City. The format was best of 20 games.

The first phase of a match turned out to be a very close encounter. The first eight games of the match ended in a hard-fought draws (a record for a World Championship match). Kasparov was unable to set Vishy serious problems in the opening.

In the 9th game – a shock followed. Playing the White pieces, Anand managed to open his account by breaching Kasparov’s patent Najdorf Sicilian in a splendid positional style. Garry later commented his loss partly happened because he was focusing on the novelty that appeared in the 10th game.

However, the very next game completely turned the match in Kasparov’s favour. Anand repeated the Open Ruy Lopez that already appeared in the match, and run into a magnificent piece of opening preparation by Kasparov. After blitzing his first 22 moves and sacrificing a full rook, Kasparov obtained a winning endgame which he was careful not to spoil.

The initiative shifted into Kasparov’s favour. In the 11th game, he uncorked another match novelty – he played the Sicilian Dragon for the first time in his life. Anand obtained a reasonable position, but the shadow of the previous game apparently still haunted him. At move 28, he naively tried to grab the exchange and allowed Kasparov to win with the help of a beautiful tactical stroke.

After scoring two further wins in the 13th game (yet another Dragon) and 14th game, Kasparov acquired a dominating lead. He maintained the 3 point margin until the end of the match, which ended before the schedule – after just 18 games. Thus, Kasparov defended his title – as it turned out, it would be the last World Championship match he would ever win.

This is what Kasparov had to say after the match:

„He was very well prepared personally against me. His trainers took into account all my habits, passions and characteristics, the openings that I play, and so on, but they did not take account of the individual characteristics of Anand himself. They imposed on Vishy a manner of play which was uncharacteristic of him, they squeezed him into a framework where a priori he was unable to demonstrate what he was capable of through his talent. Anand as though forgot about his rich intuition, he completely excluded risk, he aimed to calculate excluded risk, he aimed to calculate everything to the end, and those variations in which this was not possible he simply rejected. This was not in accordance with his style, talent and vision of the game.

[…]

This was a really difficult duel, and for me especially from the third to the tenth game. For the first time I sensed an ambiguous attitude towards myself: whereas most chess fans were rooting for me, most professionals were openly wanting me to lose, so that the chess world should finally acquire a ‘correct’ champion and rid itself of the PCA diktat’“

(Source: Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov – Part III: 1993-2005, page 115)

After the match, Kasparov remained a troubling opponent for Anand until his retirement. Over the next decade, Vishy didn’t win a single game against the beat from Baku.