garry kasparov (born 13 april 1963 in baku, azerbaijan) is a russian chess grandmaster and political activist. he was born with the name "garry weinstein", and is partly of jewish descent. he was the world chess champion from 1985 to 2000. in 1993 he broke away from fide to make a rival organisation (the pca), because he felt fide had failed to raise enough money for world title matches. there is controversy about that period. by any measure, he is one of the greatest chess players of all time, and was the highest-rated player even after his retirement, it was till much later when magnus carlsen took him over.