Amateur beats world champion: Wolfram Hartmann beats Anatoly Karpov in Hannover (1983)

5/15/2026 – In 1983, 21 years after Wolfgang Uhlmann's victory over Mikhail Botvinnik at the 1962 Chess Olympiad in Varna, a German player once again managed to defeat a reigning world champion. In the first round of the International Mephisto Chess Tournament in Hanover, Wolfram Hartmann, then a 27-year-old law student from Bamberg, achieved one of the most astonishing underdog victories in German chess history against Anatoly Karpov (pictured). | Photo: V. Savostianov, Novosti Press (via Douglas Griffin)