Gata Rustemovich Kamsky (Tatar: Гата Камский; Russian: Гата Камский; born June 2, 1974) is an American-French chess grandmaster and a five-time U.S. champion.
Kamsky reached the final of the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 at the age of 22, and reached a ranking of fourth in the world rankings in 1995. He played almost no FIDE-rated games between 1997 and late 2004.
Kamsky won the Chess World Cup 2007. This earned him a Candidates Match against Veselin Topalov, which he lost. Kamsky also competed in the Candidates Tournament in 2011, losing to Boris Gelfand.
Kamsky was born in Novokuznetsk in Russia, in a Tatar family. Gata's last name, Kamsky, is derived from the stage nickname of his grandfather Gataullah "Kamsky" Sabirov, the founder of the Tatar Drama Theater in Kazan.
At age 12, he defeated veteran Grandmaster Mark Taimanov in a tournament game. He also earned his National Master title in that year. He won the Soviet under-20 championship in 1987 and 1988.
In 1989, he moved to the United States with his father Röstäm (also spelled Rustam), a former boxer who dominated Gata, made him study chess almost exclusively, and acted as his coach and manager. Allen Kaufman, then Executive Director of the American Chess Foundation, helped arrange for their support after their move. Businessman James Cayne provided financial support to the Kamskys.
In 1989, Gata Kamsky won a tournament in New York to earn the right to challenge Garry Kasparov to a two-game match; he lost that match later that year 0–2. In 1990, while aged 16 and still untitled, he played in the 64-player Interzonal tournament in Manila, the first step toward the World Chess Championship. He finished with 5½ / 13.
In 1990, FIDE awarded Kamsky the grandmaster title. In 1991, he won the U.S. Championship. Kamsky also did well at other prestigious chess tournaments, winning the Las Palmas tournament in 1994.
World Championship Candidate (1993–96)
In 1993, the rival organisations FIDE and PCA each held Interzonal tournaments. Kamsky played in both, and in both cases qualified for the respective Candidates Tournaments. The Candidates tournaments were largely dominated by Kamsky and Viswanathan Anand.
In the first round of the 1994–95 FIDE Candidates matches, Kamsky beat Paul van der Sterren (+3=3−1). Kamsky's second round (Candidates semifinal) match against Anand, held in July and August 1994 in Sanghi Nagar, India, was more dramatic. After draws in the first two games, Anand won the next two games to take an imposing 3–1 lead. Game 5 was drawn. Kamsky then scored 2½–½ in the remaining three games to tie the match 4–4 (+2=4−2), then won the two rapid chess playoff games to win the match. In the third round (Candidates final), held in Sanghi Nagar in February 1995, Kamsky routed Valery Salov 5½–1½ (+4=3−0).
In the 1994–95 PCA Candidates matches, Kamsky beat Vladimir Kramnik in the quarter-finals in New York in June, 1994. In September, 1994 Kamsky beat Nigel Short in the semifinals in Linares, Spain. In the March 1995 final against Anand in Las Palmas, the FIDE result was reversed, with Kamsky losing (+1=7−3).
In the September 1994 match against Short, there was a highly publicized confrontation between Kamsky's father, Rustam Kamsky, and Short.
In 1996, Kamsky played a 20-game match against Anatoly Karpov for the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 title at Elista in Kalmykia, losing 7½–10½ (+3=9−6).
After losing the match to Karpov, Kamsky gave up professional chess. He graduated from Brooklyn College with a B.A. in 1999. He then attended and graduated from law school at Touro Law Center in New York.
Kamsky's next rated games after his loss to Karpov were in 1999, when he returned to play in the FIDE Knockout World Championship event in Las Vegas, where he played a first-round, two-game match against the eventual tournament winner, Alexander Khalifman. Kamsky won the first game, lost the second game, and then lost the rapid play-off games.
Kamsky then again retired from the world of chess, this time for five years. In March 2004 ChessBase reported that according to Sam Sloan
Kamsky was seeking to become President of FIDE.