Andrei Sokolov - Meteoric Rise and A Setback

Meteoric Rise and A Setback

By 1982, the groundwork was really paying off as he went on to win the Junior World Chess Championship, held in Copenhagen. A strong entry had included Joel Benjamin, Ivan Morovic, Nigel Short and Niaz Murshed. At this time Sokolov was an International Master with an Elo rating of 2450. At that time FIDE automatically awarded the International Master title to the winner of the Junior Championship. (Later the rule would be changed to make the Junior Champion a grandmaster.) His Grandmaster status was achieved in 1984, a year of outstanding achievement for the 21-year-old as he rocked the chess world by winning the Championship of the Soviet Union at his first attempt. Impressive was his penultimate round effort against ex-champion Beliavsky who, playing white, quickly mounted a ferocious attack against Black's king position. It was however already a quality of Sokolov that he remain ice-cool under pressure. He not only repelled the attack, but launched a counter-offensive of his own and won a crucial game. It was also a year that saw him finish a creditable second at the strong Novi Sad tournament and advance his Elo rating up to 2550.

Representing the Soviet Union at the Thessaloniki 1984 and Dubai 1986 Chess Olympiads, his performances were assured, scoring close to 67% on each occasion and contributing to two team gold medals.

Sokolov qualified through the Biel Interzonal for the final stages of the World Championship cycle in 1985, playing his Candidates Tournament quarter-final against Rafael Vaganian in Minsk in 1986 and winning it by a comfortable score of 6–2. Next was the semifinal in Riga in 1987, where he defeated Artur Yusupov 7½–6½. In the final however, he was heavily outgunned by an in-form Anatoly Karpov, losing out 3½–7½. Having beaten Karpov at Bugojno 1986, he felt his pre-match mood had been overly optimistic and described his defeat as "very severe". Nevertheless, in 1987/88 his rating peaked at 2645 and he was listed as the third strongest player in the world behind Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. He even went on to defeat Karpov again at Belfort 1988, a World Cup event.

Such elevated standing was short-lived however. He suffered a major setback with an unexpected loss to the Canadian grandmaster Kevin Spraggett in their Candidates' first-round match at Saint John, 1988. Already, he was finding it difficult to repeat his form and successes of a few years earlier. Exceptionally, in 1990, he scored a resurgent win at the Moscow Open (finishing ahead of Mikhail Tal, Rafael Vaganian, Alexey Vyzmanavin and Mikhail Krasenkov, among others). This preceded a period of lesser chess activity.