A question cropped up on the World Championship match we’d played against each other – that Karpov had won – in Lausanne just a week earlier. As a corollary to it, there came a query on my future prospects of being a World Champion. ‘Ah, well, Vishy’s a nice guy,’ Karpov remarked with a happy snort, ‘but he just doesn’t have the character for a big win.’
