Born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR (now Azerbaijan), to an Armenian mother and Jewish father of Ukrainian origin, Garry Kasparov showed prodigious chess talent from childhood, becoming USSR under-18 champion at age 12 and world under-20 champion at 17. He rose to international fame by defeating Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest World Chess Champion in 1985 at age 22, holding the title until 2000 amid a split with FIDE in 1993. Kasparov achieved a peak FIDE rating of 2851 in 1999 (highest until 2013), held the world No. 1 ranking for a record 255 months from 1984 to 2005, won 15 consecutive professional tournaments, and earned 11 Chess Oscars. Famous for his 1996 and 1997 matches against IBM's Deep Blue computer, losing the latter rematch, he retired from regular competitive chess in 2005. As a grandmaster chess champion and Russian opposition leader, Kasparov became a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government, founding the United Civil Front in 2005 and the Solidarity opposition movement in 2008. He announced a presidential bid in 2007 but withdrew in 2008 due to government harassment, including arrests and denied rally permits. Facing increasing repression, he left Russia in 2013 for self-imposed exile, gaining Croatian citizenship in 2014. Kasparov serves as chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, writes books on chess, politics, and AI (e.g., 'Winter Is Coming' in 2015), and continues activism against authoritarianism worldwide.