By Danny King

It was a remarkable struggle. Let's go from the beginning.

By playing 3 Bb5+ against The World's Sicilian, Garry Kasparov was hoping for a small but persistent advantage. That strategy was blown out of the window by the outrageous and courageous 10....Qe6.

Black's queen embarked on a daring guerilla raid, swiping a couple of crucial pawns, but giving up a rook in the corner. From that moment, Garry later admitted, "I was fighting for the draw." Although there was a dynamic balance in forces, Black's pieces were far more active than White's, in particular that fantastic bishop slicing across the entire board. To make things worse for The World Champion, the wall of pawns in front of Black's king made it impossible for him to start a meaningful attack.

The pawn move 18.....f5 threw more fuel on the fire. It was by far the most aggressive of a complex set of options. Nevertheless, Garry Kasparov knuckled down to his task, found counterplay with his queen, and by move 28 could have forced a repetition of the position and a draw (28 Qb3). But by this stage his competitive hackles had been raised. He wanted to fight, and we can all be grateful that he did.

The World Champion went in for a double-edged endgame where both sides had passed pawns screaming down to the queening square. My feeling at the time was that the tide had turned in Garry's favour, but Black was still doing fine with his active pieces. 34....Bh8 followed by 35....Nd4 was good enough to draw, for instance.

Then came 35 Kh1. From nowhere. The World had not anticipated this devious king move, avoiding a potential knight check and so winning a move to force the pawns home. For a few days Black's position rocked. Inaccuracies were made (according to GK 35.....Ne5 36 Bxe5 dxe5! should be a draw) and Garry was convinced he was going to win -- as he announced to a press conference in London at the end of August. He was wrong. He had overlooked a resource in one crucial variation.

Even so, The World's position was on the edge -- but the recovery was brilliant. Instead of pushing one of the passed pawns immediately, by deft play the knight was brought round to the kingside to block White's passed pawns.

There then followed a nervous couple of weeks while a pawn race took place to get to the queening square first. It was clear it was going to be a dead heat, but The World had to choose between transposing into several different queen and pawn endings: which one offered the best drawing chances? After much discussion, the correct ending was found.

Garry had just queen and pawn against The World's queen and two pawns -- but those two pawns were actually a hindrance, preventing Black's queen from delivering a barrage of checks. The key to the ending was to give away those pawns in order to get a perpetual check.

A draw was possible (51......Ka1 was the clearest) but just when it seemed within reach it gradually slipped away from The World's hand. Perhaps a little complacency set in. The World still had to play with great accuracy to split the point as Garry Kasparov's pawn was so far advanced.

There were certainly mixed messages coming from the different analysts (I think I might have unwittingly added to the confusion at one point) and step by step The World slipped past the point of no return. By the time Garry had centralised his queen with 57 Qd4+ the game was already over.

When The World resigned, Garry was just a couple of moves away from forcing his pawn home to get another queen, with a simple win. Just to put the icing on the cake, Garry announced "forced mate in 25 moves," having fed the position to one of the world's strongest chess computers "Deep Junior."

It couldn't have been closer. Next time, next time....