AGE: 44
OCCUPATION: Chess Grandmaster
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 1
PRO: Since retiring from professional chess in 2005, one of the best players the game has ever seen — he still holds the record for being the youngest ever World Chess champion in 1985 — has since turned his energy into writing and politics. One of Russia's few outspoken critics of Vladimir Putin, the gamemaster even entered the Russian presidential race in 2007.
CON: Too bad the election was basically rigged by the old system, and Kasparov was effectively forced out.