The first game of the PCA World Chess Championship 1995, pitting incumbent champion Garry Kasparov against challenger Viswanathan Anand, takes place on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower in New York City.
Classical World Chess Championship 1995
The Classical World Chess Championship 1995, known at the time as the PCA World Chess Championship 1995, was held from September 10, 1995, to October 16, 1995, on the 107th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Viswanathan Anand, the challenger, in a twenty-game match. Kasparov won the match after eighteen games with four wins, one loss, and thirteen draws.
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by Magnus Carlsen in 2013. From 1984 until his retirement from regular competitive chess in 2005, Kasparov was ranked the world's No. 1 player for a record 255 months overall. Kasparov also holds records for the most consecutive professional tournament victories (15) and Chess Oscars (11).
Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster. Anand is a five-time World Chess Champion, a two-time World Rapid Chess Champion, a two-time Chess World Cup Champion, a World Blitz Chess Cup Champion and six-time Chess Oscar Winner. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and he has the eighth-highest peak FIDE rating of all time. In 2022, he was the elected Deputy President of FIDE. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential players in the history of the game and has had an important role in popularizing it in India.
World Trade Center (1973–2001)
The original World Trade Center (WTC) was a complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Built primarily between 1966 and 1975, it was dedicated on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed during the September 11 attacks in 2001. At the time of their completion, the 110-story-tall Twin Towers, including the original 1 World Trade Center at 1,368 feet (417 m), and 2 World Trade Center at 1,362 feet (415.1 m), were the tallest buildings in the world; they were also the tallest twin skyscrapers in the world until 1996, when the Petronas Towers opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC. The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m2) of office space and, prior to its completion, was projected to accommodate an estimated 130,000 people.