The 1985 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in Moscow, Soviet Union from September 3 to November 9, 1985.

[4] Karpov also showed that he was still in good form when he won the 1985 OHRA tournament in Amsterdam with 7/10, not losing a game[5] and winning four.

Kasparov's seconds were Grandmaster Josif Dorfman and Alexander Nikitin with Gennadi Timoshchenko and Evgeny Vladimirov also helping.

Due to the extreme duration of the previous match, FIDE agreed at a meeting in Tunisia in July 1985 that the re-arranged championship would be of fixed length, played as the best of 24 games.

[8] Kasparov's preferred venue was Leningrad and bids for the match had been received from London and Marseille.

In the end, with the backing of the Soviet Chess Federation, FIDE selected Moscow's Tchaikovsky Concert Hall as the venue for the match.

[4] The opening ceremony was held on 2 September, at which the draw for colours was made and won by Kasparov.

Kasparov noted that "the entire plan [after Black's 21st move] was put into practice by Karpov extremely strongly and consistently.

"[12] In game 5, Kasparov played with the white pieces and made a number of mistakes and Karpov won in 41 moves.

[13] Kasparov resolved at this stage "to play as resolutely as possible" and "to go in for a complicated struggle in order to regain the match initiative and if possible wear out my opponent".

Karpov was the first to deviate, but Kasparov had analysed the position deeply in his preparation before the match, and was able to take the initiative, despite playing with the black pieces.

The knight remained in place until move 34, when Karpov was forced to sacrifice his queen to remove it.

Kasparov commented that he thought that Karpov felt obliged to play for the win in this position.

White scattered his minor pieces about on either flank and are quite unable to coordinate, the placement of the knights being particularly depressing.

But Black has the wonderful duo of Bf5 and Nd3 which completely paralyzes all three White major pieces—a very rare occurrence in a practical game!

[27] In game 19, Karpov, with the black pieces, adopted an unusual opening strategy[28] which eventually backfired on him.

Everything was to be decided in the final game, where Karpov needed a win to even the match and retain the title.