He was the "monster with 100 eyes, who sees all" whose painful defeat against IBM's Deep Blue computer heralded the end of human dominance over artificial intelligence.
Yet 20 years on Garry Kasparov is still considered the greatest chess player in history, a genius so special he became world champion at 22 and was then almost invincible for two decades.
Now, 12 years after he turned his back on the professional game, the king is back.
To the delight of fans, the 54-year-old Russian exile has announced he will return to competition next month.
Kasparov will appear at the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament as one of four wildcard picks playing for a total prize fund of $150,000.
The event is part of the prestigious Grand Chess Tour, a "grand slam" set of tournaments that is bankrolled by UK billionaire Rex Sinquefield and seen as a rival to the events organised by Fide, the official world governing body.
Kasparov, whose nickname of "The Beast" was earned by his bullish behaviour, has previous form at challenging Fide.
In 1993, he led a split after an acrimonious dispute to form the Professional Chess Championship.
The PCA subsequently collapsed when computer chip maker Intel withdrew its sponsorship, although the parallel world championship limped on until 2006.
In 2014 Kasparov, with the backing of Sinquefield, launched an attempt to unseat eccentric Fide president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov which ended in failure.
But what matters most to fans is the series of mouth-watering old versus new clashes Kasparov's return sets up over the board.
Kasparov has had outings in minor exhibition matches since retiring, but this time he is entering pa one of chess's elite level "grand slams".
"Ready to see if I remember how to move the pieces! Will I be able to announce my re-retirement afterward if not?!", he tweeted.
Held in America's official chess capital of Saint Louis, Missouri, the tournament pits the world's best against each other at tournaments in London, Paris and most recently in Leuven, Belgium.
Kasparov's epic duels with his predecessor, the 12th world champion Anatoly Karpov, made him a household name in the 80s, a decade when chess made headlines and the England team were number two in the world.
In 1993 he beat the Leigh-born Grandmaster Nigel Short in a breakaway world title match that was broadcast live on Channel 4.
It remains the only time an English Grandmaster has challenged for the title. But Kasparov is perhaps better known outside chess for the epic 1997 battle with an IBM computer that ended an era of human dominance, which is the subject of his recent book Deep Thinking.
Three years later Kasparov lost his world crown to the well-prepared Russian Vladimir Kramnik, who appeared to nullify Kasparov's attacking flair with a solid opening called the Berlin Defence.
In 2005, Kasparov retired from professional chess in tears after losing a game in Linares. It brought to an end a record 20 years as the world's top-ranked player.
At the time he said: "It is very difficult to quote one reason. But if I try I could tell you that, as you know, I am a man of big goals.
"I have to achieve something, I have to prove something, I have to be determined. But I no longer see any real goal in the world of chess."
Since then he has become a prolific author, human rights campaigner and a fierce critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, himself a fan of the game.
Speaking yesterday, Kasparov said: "It's a thrill to officially be returning to the game, and certainly not something I would have anticipated more than a decade after my retirement.
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