Elista Diaries is the classic first-hand account of one of the most intensely fought World Chess Championship matches seen for decades. The World Champion and his chief trainer deeply annotate all of the games from the 1996 World Championship Match. In the first chapter, the authors pay tribute to all the World Champions (from Morphy to the present day) by analyzing their favorite games played by the great chess artists who have, each in turn, captured the Chess Crown. Karpov includes seven of his own favorite and brilliant games from the period 1992-1996. Subsequent chapters deal with Kamsky's 1993-1995 progress to the finals, previous Karpov-Kamsky encounters (dating from 1991) and the 1995 Karpov-Gelfand Candidates Match. Anatoly Karpov was World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, regained the title in 1993 and defended it successfully in 1996 and 1998. He has played more games and more matches for the World Chess Championship than anybody else. He has won 161 grandmaster tournaments, more than anybody else. He has won more games against grandmasters than anybody else. Grandmaster Ron Henley was Karpov's "second" or assistant during some of these matches. Henley kept notes of the analysis in preparing for and playing in these matches and these notes form the basis for much of this book.