World Chess

Championship

Current World Champion, Magnus Carlsen of Norway

The World Chess Championship
(sometimes abbreviated as WCC) is
played to determine the world champion in
chess. Since 2014, the schedule has
settled on a two-year cycle with a
championship held in every even year.
Magnus Carlsen has been world champion
since he dethroned Viswanathan Anand in
2013. He then went on to successfully
defend his title against Anand in 2014,
against Sergey Karjakin in 2016[1] and
against Fabiano Caruana in 2018.

The official world championship is

generally regarded to have begun in 1886,
when the two leading players in Europe
and the United States, Johann Zukertort
and Wilhelm Steinitz respectively, played a
match. From 1886 to 1946, the champion
set the terms, requiring any challenger to
raise a sizable stake and defeat the
champion in a match in order to become
the new world champion. From 1948 to
1993, the championship was administered
by FIDE, the World Chess Federation. In
1993, the reigning champion (Garry
Kasparov) broke away from FIDE, which
led to the creation of the rival PCA
championship. The titles were unified at
the World Chess Championship 2006.
Though the world championship is open to
all players, there are separate events and
titles for the Women's World Chess
Championship, the World Junior Chess
Championship (for players under 20 years
of age, though there are younger age
events also), and the World Senior Chess
Championship (for men above 60 years of
age, and women above 50). There are also
faster time limit events, the World Rapid
Chess Championship and the World Blitz
Chess Championship. The World
Computer Chess Championship is open to
computer chess programs and hardware.

History
The concept of a world chess champion
started to emerge in the first half of the
19th century, and the phrase "world
champion" appeared in 1845. From this
time onwards various players were
acclaimed as world champions, but the
first contest that was defined in advance
as being for the world championship was
the match between Steinitz and Zukertort
in 1886. Until 1948 world championship
contests were matches arranged privately
between the players. As a result, the
players also had to arrange the funding, in
the form of stakes provided by enthusiasts
who wished to bet on one of the players. In
the early 20th century this was sometimes
a barrier that prevented or delayed
challenges for the title.

Between 1888 and 1948 various

difficulties that arose in match
negotiations led players to try to define
agreed rules for matches, including the
frequency of matches, how much or how
little say the champion had in the
conditions for a title match and what the
stakes and division of the purse should be.
However these attempts were
unsuccessful in practice, as the same
issues continued to delay or prevent
challenges.
The first attempt by an external
organization to manage the world
championship was in 1887–89, but this
experiment was not repeated. A system
for managing regular contests for the title
went into operation in 1948, under the
control of FIDE, and functioned quite
smoothly until 1993. However, in that year
reigning champion Kasparov and
challenger Short were so dissatisfied with
FIDE's arrangements for their match that
they set up a break-away organization. The
split in the world championship continued
until the reunification match in 2006;
however, the compromises required in
order to achieve reunification had effects
that lasted until the 2010 match. After
reunification, FIDE retains the right to
organize the world championship match,
stabilizing to a two-year cycle.

Unofficial champions (pre-

1886)

De La Bourdonnais, the world's strongest player from

1821 to his death in 1840
A depiction of the chess match between Howard
Staunton and Pierre Saint-Amant, on 16 December
1843. This match was regarded as an unofficial world
championship.

Paul Morphy (left) dominated all opposition in his

brief chess career (1857–58).
The first match proclaimed by the players
as for the world championship was the
match that Wilhelm Steinitz won against
Johannes Zukertort in 1886. However, a
line of players regarded as the strongest
(or at least the most famous) in the world
extends back hundreds of years beyond
them, and these players are sometimes
considered the world champions of their
time. They include Ruy López de Segura
around 1560, Paolo Boi and Leonardo da
Cutri around 1575, Alessandro Salvio
around 1600, and Gioachino Greco around
1623.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries,
French players dominated, with Legall de
Kermeur (1730–55), François-André
Danican Philidor (1755–95), Alexandre
Deschapelles (around 1800–21) and
Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais
(1821–40) all widely regarded as the
strongest players of their time. Something
resembling a world championship match
was the La Bourdonnais - McDonnell
chess matches in 1834, in which La
Bourdonnais played a series of six
matches – and 85 games – against the
Irishman Alexander McDonnell.
The idea of a world champion goes back
at least to 1840, when a columnist in
Fraser's Magazine wrote, "To whom is
destined the marshal's baton when La
Bourdonnais throws it down, and what
country will furnish his successor? ... At
present de La Bourdonnais, like Alexander
the Great, is without heir, and there is room
to fear the empire may be divided
eventually under a number of petty
kings."[2][3]

After La Bourdonnais' death in December

1840,[4] Englishman Howard Staunton's
match victory over another Frenchman,
Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, in
1843 is considered to have established
Staunton as the world's strongest player.[5]
A letter quoted in The Times on 16
November 1843, but probably written
before that, described the second
Staunton vs Saint-Amant match, played in
Paris in November–December 1843, as
being for "the golden sceptre of Philidor."[2]
The earliest recorded use of the term
"World Champion" was in 1845, when
Howard Staunton was described as "the
Chess Champion of England, or ... the
Champion of the World".[6]

The first known proposal that a contest

should be defined in advance as being for
recognition as the world's best player was
by Ludwig Bledow in a letter to von der
Lasa, written in 1846 and published in the
Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1848: "... the
winner of the battle in Paris should not be
overly proud of his special position, since
it is in Trier that the crown will first be
awarded" (Bledow died in 1846 and the
proposed tournament did not take
place).[2] In 1850 to 1851 the forthcoming
1851 London International Tournament
was explicitly described as being for the
world championship by three
commentators: a letter from "a member of
the Calcutta Chess Club" (dated 1 August
1850) and another from Captain Hugh
Alexander Kennedy (dated October 1850)
in the 1850 volume of the Chess Player's
Chronicle; and the Liberty Weekly Tribune
in Missouri (20 June 1851).[7] Although
Kennedy was a member of the organizing
committee for the tournament, there is no
evidence that crowning a world champion
was an official aim of the tournament.[8]

Adolf Anderssen
The 1851 London tournament was won by
the German Adolf Anderssen, establishing
Anderssen as the leading player in the
world.[9] Anderssen has been described as
the first modern chess master.[10]
However, there is no evidence that this
victory led to his being widely acclaimed at
the time as the world champion, although
in 1893 Henry Bird retrospectively
awarded the title to Anderssen for his
victory.[11]
Paul Morphy

Anderssen was himself decisively

defeated in an 1858 match against the
American Paul Morphy, after which
Morphy was toasted across the chess-
playing world as the world chess
champion. Morphy played matches
against several leading players, crushing
them all.[12][13] Harper's Weekly (25
September 1858) and The American Union
(9 October 1858) hailed him as the world
champion, but another article in Harper's
Weekly (9 October 1858; by C.H. Stanley)
was uncertain about whether to describe
the Morphy–Harrwitz match as being for
the world championship.[7] Soon after,
Morphy offered pawn and move odds to
anyone who played him. Finding no takers,
he abruptly retired from chess the
following year, but many considered him
the world champion until his death in
1884. His sudden withdrawal from chess
at his peak led to his being known as "the
pride and sorrow of chess".
This left Anderssen again as possibly the
world's strongest active player, a
reputation he reinforced by winning the
strong London 1862 chess tournament.

Wilhelm Steinitz narrowly defeated

Anderssen in an 1866 match, which some
commentators consider the first "official"
world championship match.[14] The match
was not declared to be a world
championship at the time, and it was only
after Morphy's death in 1884 that such a
match was declared, a testament to
Morphy's dominance of the game (even
though he had not played publicly for 25
years).[15] The use of the term "World
Chess Champion" in this era is varied, but
it appears that Steinitz, at least in later life,
dated his reign from this 1866 match.[16]

In 1878, Johannes Zukertort won the Paris

1878 chess tournament (though Steinitz
did not play), and later won the London
1883 chess tournament by a convincing 3
point margin, ahead of nearly every leading
player in the world, including Steinitz.[17][18]
This tournament established Steinitz and
Zukertort as the best two players in the
world, and led to the inaugural World
Championship match between these two,
the World Chess Championship
1886.[19][20][21] This match, won by Steinitz,
though not held under the aegis of any
official body, is generally recognized as the
first official World Chess Championship
match, with Steinitz the game's first
official World Champion.

Graham Burgess lists Philidor, de la

Bourdonnais, Staunton, and Morphy as
players who were acclaimed as the
greatest players of their time (Burgess
2000:495).

Official champions before FIDE

(1886–1946)

The championship was conducted on a

fairly informal basis through the remainder
of the 19th century and in the first half of
the 20th: if a player thought he was strong
enough, he (or his friends) would find
financial backing for a match purse and
challenge the reigning world champion. If
he won, he would become the new
champion. There was no formal system of
qualification. However, it is generally
considered that the system did on the
whole produce champions who were the
strongest players of their day. The players
who held the title up until World War II
were Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl
Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, and Max
Euwe, each of them defeating the previous
incumbent in a match.
The reign of Wilhelm Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz dominated chess from 1866 to 1894,

and his reign raised most of the issues that have
since affected the world championship.

Wilhelm Steinitz' reign is notable for: the

first recorded suggestion that a world
champion could forfeit the title by
declining a credible challenge or by
prolonged absence from competition; the
first recorded instance of a disputed world
championship; the first actual contest that
was defined in advance as being for the
world championship (Bledow's 1846
proposal came to nothing); the first
attempt to regulate contests for the world
championship; debates about whether the
championship should be decided by a
match or a tournament; and differences
between commentators about when his
reign began, which persist to the present
day.[7][22]

There is no evidence that Steinitz claimed

the title for himself immediately after
winning a match against Adolf Anderssen
in 1866, although in his International Chess
Magazine (September 1887 and April
1888) he claimed to have been the
champion since 1866.[7] It has been
suggested that Steinitz could not make
such a claim while Paul Morphy was
alive.[23] Morphy had defeated Anderssen
by a far wider margin in 1858, but retired
from chess competition soon after he
returned to the United States in 1859, and
died in 1884.[24] The earliest known
reference to Steinitz as world champion
was in the Chess Player's Chronicle
(October 1872), after he beat Johannes
Zukertort in their first match.[7] But the
New York Times (11 March 1894),[25]
British Chess Magazine (April 1894) and
Emanuel Lasker (Lasker's Chess Magazine,
May 1908) dated his reign from 1866,[7]
and in the early 1950s Reuben Fine
followed their example.[24] On the other
hand, many recent commentators divide
Steinitz' reign into an "unofficial" one
before he beat Zukertort again in 1886 and
the first "official" world championship from
that time onwards;[26][27][28][29] Steinitz had
insisted that the contract for the 1886
match must specify that the match was
"for the Championship of the World"
(Chess Monthly, January 1886).[7]
The Irish Times (6 March 1879) argued
that Steinitz had forfeited the title by
prolonged absence from competitive
chess and therefore Zukertort should be
regarded as champion. The Chess Player's
Chronicle (18 July 1883) made a more
complex argument: other commentators
had suggested that Zukertort should be
regarded as champion because he had
won a major tournament (London 1883, 3
points ahead of Steinitz[30]); the Chronicle
thought tournaments were an unreliable
way of deciding the championship and
Steinitz' victories in matches gave him the
better claim; but, if Zukertort were the
champion, he should forfeit the title if he
declined a challenge, especially from a
challenger with Steinitz' credentials, and in
that case the title should revert to
Steinitz.[7]

In 1887 the American Chess Congress

started work on drawing up regulations for
the future conduct of world championship
contests. Steinitz supported this endeavor,
as he thought he was becoming too old to
remain world champion. The proposal
evolved through many forms (as Steinitz
pointed out, such a project had never been
undertaken before), and resulted in the
New York 1889 tournament to select a
challenger for Steinitz, rather like the more
recent Candidates Tournaments. The
tournament was duly played, but the
outcome was not quite as planned: Mikhail
Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first place;
their play-off resulted in four draws; and
neither wanted to play a match against
Steinitz – Chigorin had just lost to him,
and Weiss wanted to get back to his work
for the Rothschild Bank. The third
prizewinner Isidore Gunsberg was
prepared to play Steinitz for the title in
New York, and Steinitz won their match in
1890–91.[22][31][32] This experiment was
not repeated and the 1894 match in which
Steinitz lost his title was a private
arrangement between the players.[25]
Lasker (1894–1921)

Lasker was the first champion after

Steinitz; although he did not defend his
title in 1897–1906 or 1911–20, he did
string together an impressive run of
tournament victories and dominated his
opponents. His success was largely due to
the fact that he was an excellent practical
player. In difficult or objectively lost
positions he would complicate matters
and use his extraordinary tactical abilities
to save the game. He held the title from
1894 to 1921, the longest reign (27 years)
of any champion. In that period he
defended the title successfully in one-
sided matches against Steinitz, Frank
Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch and Dawid
Janowski, and was only seriously
threatened in a tied 1910 match against
Carl Schlechter.

Lasker's negotiations for title matches

from 1911 onwards were extremely
controversial. In 1911 he received a
challenge for a world title match against
José Raúl Capablanca and, in addition to
making severe financial demands,
proposed some novel conditions: the
match should be considered drawn if
neither player finished with a two-game
lead; and it should have a maximum of 30
games, but finish if either player won six
games and had a two-game lead (previous
matches had been won by the first to win a
certain number of games, usually 10; in
theory such a match might go on for ever).
Capablanca objected to the two-game lead
clause; Lasker took offence at the terms in
which Capablanca criticized the two-game
lead condition and broke off
negotiations.[33]

Further controversy arose when, in 1912,

Lasker's terms for a proposed match with
Akiba Rubinstein included a clause that, if
Lasker should resign the title after a date
had been set for the match, Rubinstein
should become world champion
(American Chess Bulletin, October
1913).[34] When he resumed negotiations
with Capablanca after World War I, Lasker
insisted on a similar clause that if Lasker
should resign the title after a date had
been set for the match, Capablanca should
become world champion.[33] On 27 June
1920 Lasker abdicated in favor of
Capablanca because of public criticisms
of the terms for the match, naming
Capablanca as his successor (American
Chess Bulletin, July August 1920). Some
commentators questioned Lasker's right
to name his successor (British Chess
Magazine, August 1920; Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle); Amos Burn
raised the same objection but welcomed
Lasker's resignation of the title (The Field,
3 July 1920). Capablanca argued that, if
the champion abdicated, the title must go
to the challenger as any other
arrangement would be unfair to the
challenger (British Chess Magazine,
October 1922). Nonetheless Lasker agreed
to play a match against Capablanca in
1921, announcing that, if he won, he would
resign the title so that younger masters
could compete for it ("Dr Lasker and the
Championship" in American Chess Bulletin,
September–October 1920).[34] Capablanca
won their 1921 match easily.[24]
Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe
(1921–1946)

Alexander Alekhine

After the breakdown of his first attempt to

negotiate a title match against Lasker
(1911), Capablanca drafted rules for the
conduct of future challenges, which were
agreed by the other top players at the 1914
Saint Petersburg tournament, including
Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim
Congress later that year. The main points
were: the champion must be prepared to
defend his title once a year; the match
should be won by whichever player first
won six or eight games (the champion had
the right to choose); and the stake should
be at least £1,000 (worth about £347,000
or $700,000 in 2006 terms[35]).[33]

Following the controversies surrounding

his 1921 match against Lasker, in 1922
world champion Capablanca proposed the
"London Rules": the first player to win six
games would win the match; playing
sessions would be limited to 5 hours; the
time limit would be 40 moves in 2½ hours;
the champion must defend his title within
one year of receiving a challenge from a
recognized master; the champion would
decide the date of the match; the
champion was not obliged to accept a
challenge for a purse of less than US
$10,000 (worth about $349,000 in 2006
terms[36]); 20% of the purse was to be paid
to the title holder, and the remainder being
divided, 60% going to the winner of the
match, and 40% to the loser; the highest
purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine,
Bogoljubov, Maróczy, Réti, Rubinstein,
Tartakower and Vidmar promptly signed
them.[37]

The only match played under those rules

was Capablanca vs Alekhine in 1927,
although there has been speculation that
the actual contract might have included a
"two-game lead" clause.[38] Alekhine,
Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch had all
challenged Capablanca in the early 1920s
but only Alekhine could raise the US
$10,000 Capablanca demanded and only
in 1927.[39] Capablanca was shockingly
upset by the new challenger. Before the
match, almost nobody gave Alekhine a
chance against the dominant Cuban, but
Alekhine overcame Capablanca's natural
skill with his unmatched drive and
extensive preparation (especially deep
opening analysis, which became a
hallmark of most future grandmasters).
The aggressive Alekhine was helped by his
tactical skill, which complicated the game.

Immediately after winning, Alekhine

announced that he was willing to grant
Capablanca a return match provided
Capablanca met the requirements of the
"London Rules".[38] Negotiations dragged
on for several years, often breaking down
when agreement seemed in sight.[24]
Alekhine easily won two title matches
against Efim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934.

In 1935, Alekhine was unexpectedly

defeated by the Dutch Max Euwe, an
amateur player who worked as a
mathematics teacher. Alekhine
convincingly won a rematch in 1937.
World War II temporarily prevented any
further world title matches, and Alekhine
remained world champion until his death
in 1946.

FIDE title (1948-1993)

FIDE, Euwe and AVRO

Attempts to form an international chess
federation were made at the time of the
1914 St. Petersburg, 1914 Mannheim and
1920 Gothenburg Tournaments.[40] On 20
July 1924 the participants at the Paris
tournament founded FIDE as a kind of
players' union.[40][41][42]

FIDE's congresses in 1925 and 1926

expressed a desire to become involved in
managing the world championship. FIDE
was largely happy with the "London Rules",
but claimed that the requirement for a
purse of $10,000 was impracticable and
called upon Capablanca to come to an
agreement with the leading masters to
revise the Rules. In 1926 FIDE decided in
principle to create a parallel title of
"Champion of FIDE" and, in 1928, adopted
the forthcoming 1928 Bogoljubow–Euwe
match (won by Bogoljubow) as being for
the "FIDE championship". Alekhine agreed
to place future matches for the world title
under the auspices of FIDE, except that he
would only play Capablanca under the
same conditions that governed their
match in 1927. Although FIDE wished to
set up a "unification" match between
Alekhine and Bogoljubow, it made little
progress and the title "Champion of FIDE"
quietly vanished after Alekhine won the
1929 world championship match that he
and Bogoljubow themselves arranged.[43]

While negotiating his 1937 World

Championship rematch with Alekhine,
Euwe proposed that if he retained the title
FIDE should manage the nomination of
future challengers and the conduct of
championship matches. FIDE had been
trying since 1935 to introduce rules on
how to select challengers, and its various
proposals favored selection by some sort
of committee. While they were debating
procedures in 1937 and Alekhine and
Euwe were preparing for their rematch
later that year, the Royal Dutch Chess
Federation proposed that a super-
tournament (AVRO) of ex-champions and
rising stars should be held to select the
next challenger. FIDE rejected this
proposal and at their second attempt
nominated Salo Flohr as the official
challenger. Euwe then declared that: if he
retained his title against Alekhine he was
prepared to meet Flohr in 1940 but he
reserved the right to arrange a title match
either in 1938 or 1939 with José Raúl
Capablanca, who had lost the title to
Alekhine in 1927; if Euwe lost his title to
Capablanca then FIDE's decision should
be followed and Capablanca would have
to play Flohr in 1940. Most chess writers
and players strongly supported the Dutch
super-tournament proposal and opposed
the committee processes favored by FIDE.
While this confusion went unresolved:
Euwe lost his title to Alekhine; the AVRO
tournament in 1938 was won by Paul
Keres under a tie-breaking rule, with
Reuben Fine placed second and
Capablanca and Flohr in the bottom
places; and the outbreak of World War II in
1939 cut short the controversy.[44][45]

Birth of FIDE's World

Championship cycle (1946–1948)

Before 1946 a new World Champion had

won the title by defeating the former
champion in a match. Alexander
Alekhine's death created an interregnum
that made the normal procedure
impossible. The situation was very
confused, with many respected players
and commentators offering different
solutions. FIDE found it very difficult to
organize the early discussions on how to
resolve the interregnum because problems
with money and travel so soon after the
end of World War II prevented many
countries from sending representatives.
The shortage of clear information resulted
in otherwise responsible magazines
publishing rumors and speculation, which
only made the situation more confused.[46]
It did not help that the Soviet Union had
long refused to join FIDE, and by this time
it was clear that about half the credible
contenders were Soviet citizens. But the
Soviet Union realized it could not afford to
be left out of the discussions about the
vacant world championship, and in 1947
sent a telegram apologizing for the
absence of Soviet representatives and
requesting that the USSR be represented
in future FIDE Committees.[46]

The eventual solution was very similar to

FIDE's initial proposal and to a proposal
put forward by the Soviet Union (authored
by Mikhail Botvinnik). The 1938 AVRO
tournament was used as the basis for the
1948 Championship Tournament. The
AVRO tournament had brought together
the eight players who were, by general
acclamation, the best players in the world
at the time. Two of the participants at
AVRO – Alekhine and former world
champion José Raúl Capablanca – had
died; but FIDE decided that the
championship should be awarded to the
winner of a round-robin tournament in
which the other six participants at AVRO
would play four games against each other.
These players were: Max Euwe, from the
Netherlands; Botvinnik, Paul Keres and
Salo Flohr from the Soviet Union; and
Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky from
the United States. However, FIDE soon
accepted a Soviet request to substitute
Vasily Smyslov for Flohr, and Fine dropped
out in order to continue his degree studies
in psychology, so only five players
competed. Botvinnik won convincingly and
thus became world champion, ending the
interregnum.[46]

The proposals which led to the 1948

Championship Tournament also specified
the procedure by which challengers for the
World Championship would be selected in
a three-year cycle: countries affiliated to
FIDE would send players to Zonal
Tournaments (the number varied
depending on how many good enough
players each country had); the players who
gained the top places in these would
compete in an Interzonal Tournament
(later split into two and then three
tournaments as the number of countries
and eligible players increased[47]); the
highest-placed players from the Interzonal
would compete in the Candidates
Tournament, along with whoever lost the
previous title match and the second-
placed competitor in the previous
Candidates Tournament three years
earlier; and the winner of the Candidates
played a title match against the
champion.[46] Until 1962 inclusive the
Candidates Tournament was a multi-cycle
round-robin tournament – how and why it
was changed are described below.

FIDE system (1949–1963)

The FIDE system followed its 1948 design

through five cycles: 1948–51, 1951–54,
1954–57, 1957–60 and 1960–63.[48][49]
The first two world championships under
this system were drawn 12-12 - Botvinnik-
Bronstein in 1951 and Botvinnik-Smyslov
in 1954 - so Botvinnik retained the title
both times.
In 1956 FIDE introduced two apparently
minor changes which Soviet grandmaster
and chess official Yuri Averbakh alleged
were instigated by the two Soviet
representatives in FIDE, who were
personal friends of reigning champion
Mikhail Botvinnik. A defeated champion
would have the right to a return match.
FIDE also limited the number of players
from the same country that could compete
in the Candidates Tournament, on the
grounds that it would reduce Soviet
dominance of the tournament. Averbakh
claimed that this was to Botvinnik's
advantage as it reduced the number of
Soviet players he might have to meet in
the title match.[50] Botvinnik lost to Vasily
Smyslov in 1957 but won the return match
in 1958, and lost to Mikhail Tal in 1960 but
won the return match in 1961. Thus
Smyslov and Tal each held the world title
for a year, but Botvinnik was world
champion for rest of the time from 1948 to
1963.

The return match clause was not in place

for the 1963 cycle. Tigran Petrosian won
the 1962 Candidates and then defeated
Botvinnik in 1963 to become world
champion.

FIDE system (1963–1975)

After the 1962 Candidates, Bobby Fischer
publicly alleged that the Soviets had
colluded to prevent any non-Soviet –
specifically him – from winning. He
claimed that Petrosian, Efim Geller and
Paul Keres had prearranged to draw all
their games, and that Korchnoi had been
instructed to lose to them. Yuri Averbakh,
who was head of the Soviet team,
confirmed in 2002 that Petrosian, Geller
and Keres arranged to draw all their games
in order to save their energy for games
against non-Soviet players,[50] and a
statistical analysis in 2006 backed this
up.[51] Another contestant, Pal Benko,
claimed that towards the end of the
tournament Petrosian and Geller, who
were friends, helped Benko with
adjournment analysis of his game against
Keres, who was the main threat to
Petrosian.[52] Korchnoi, who defected from
the USSR in 1976, has never alleged he
was forced to throw games. FIDE
responded by changing the format of
future Candidates Tournaments to
eliminate the possibility of collusion.

Beginning in the next cycle, 1963–66, the

round-robin tournament was replaced by a
series of elimination matches. Initially the
quarter-finals and semifinals were best of
10 games, and the final was best of 12.
Fischer, however, refused to take part in
the 1966 cycle, and dropped out of the
1969 cycle after a controversy at 1967
Interzonal in Sousse.[53] Both these
Candidates cycles were won by Boris
Spassky, who lost the title match to
Petrosian in 1966, but won and became
world champion in 1969.[54][55]

In the 1969–72 cycle Fischer caused two

more crises. He refused to play in the 1969
US Championship, which was a Zonal
Tournament. This would have eliminated
him from the 1969–72 cycle, but Benko
was persuaded to concede his place in the
Interzonal to Fischer.[56] FIDE President
Max Euwe accepted this maneuver and
interpreted the rules very flexibly to enable
Fischer to play, as he thought it important
for the health and reputation of the game
that Fischer should have the opportunity to
challenge for the title as soon as
possible.[57] Fischer crushed all opposition
and won the right to challenge reigning
champion Boris Spassky.[54] After agreeing
to play in Yugoslavia, Fischer raised a
series of objections and Iceland was the
final venue. Even then Fischer raised
difficulties, mainly over money. It took a
phone call from United States Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger and a doubling of
the prize money by financier Jim Slater to
persuade him to play. After a few more
traumatic moments Fischer won the
match 12½–8½.[58][59]

An unbroken line of FIDE champions had

thus been established from 1948 to 1972,
with each champion gaining his title by
beating the previous incumbent. This
came to an end when Anatoly Karpov won
the right to challenge Fischer in 1975.
Fischer objected to the "best of 24 games"
championship match format that had been
used from 1951 onwards, claiming that it
would encourage whoever got an early
lead to play for draws. Instead he
demanded that the match should be won
by whoever first won 10 games, except
that if the score reached 9–9 he should
remain champion. He argued that this was
more advantageous to the challenger than
the champion's advantage under the
existing system, where the champion
retained the title if the match was tied at
12–12 including draws. Eventually FIDE
deposed Fischer and crowned Karpov as
the new champion.[60]

Fischer privately maintained that he was

still World Champion. He went into
seclusion and did not play chess in public
again until 1992, when he offered Spassky
a rematch, again for the World
Championship. The Fischer–Spassky
(1992 match) attracted good media
coverage, but the chess world did not take
this claim to the championship seriously.

Karpov and Kasparov (1975–

1993)

Karpov dominated the 1970s and early

1980s with an incredible string of
tournament successes. He convincingly
demonstrated that he was the strongest
player in the world by defending his title
twice against ex-Soviet Viktor Korchnoi,
first in Baguio City in 1978 (6–5 with 21
draws) then in Meran in 1981 (6–2, with 10
draws). His "boa constrictor" style
frustrated opponents, often causing them
to lash out and err. This allowed him to
bring the full force of his Botvinnik-learned
dry technique (both Karpov and Kasparov
were students at Botvinnik's school)
against them, grinding his way to victory.

He eventually lost his title to Garry

Kasparov, whose aggressive tactical style
was in sharp contrast to Karpov's
positional style. The two of them fought
five incredibly close world championship
matches, the World Chess Championship
1984 (controversially terminated without
result with Karpov leading +5 −3 =40),
World Chess Championship 1985 (in
which Kasparov won the title, 13–11),
World Chess Championship 1986
(narrowly won by Kasparov, 12½–11½),
World Chess Championship 1987 (drawn
12–12, Kasparov retaining the title), and
World Chess Championship 1990 (again
narrowly won by Kasparov, 12½–11½). In
the five matches Kasparov and Karpov
played 144 games with 104 draws, 21
wins by Kasparov and 19 wins by Karpov.

Split title (1993–2005)

In 1993, Nigel Short broke the domination

of the two K's (Kasparov and Karpov) by
defeating Karpov in the candidates
semifinals followed by Jan Timman in the
finals, thereby earning the right to
challenge Kasparov for the title. However,
before the match took place, both
Kasparov and Short complained of
corruption and a lack of professionalism
within FIDE in organizing the match, and
split from FIDE to set up the Professional
Chess Association (PCA), under whose
auspices they held their match. Affronted
by the PCA split, FIDE stripped Kasparov of
his title and held a championship match
between Karpov and Timman. Kasparov
defeated Short while Karpov beat Timman,
and for the first time in history there were
two World Chess Champions.
FIDE and the PCA each held a
championship cycle in 1993–96, with
many of the same challengers playing in
both. Kasparov and Karpov both won their
respective cycles. In the PCA cycle,
Kasparov defeated Viswanathan Anand in
the PCA World Chess Championship 1995.
Karpov defeated Gata Kamsky in the final
of the FIDE World Chess Championship
1996. Negotiations were held for a
reunification match between Kasparov and
Karpov in 1996–97, but nothing came of
them.[61]

Soon after the 1995 championship, the

PCA folded, and Kasparov had no
organisation to choose his next challenger.
In 1998 he formed the World Chess
Council, which organised a candidates
match between Alexei Shirov and Vladimir
Kramnik. Shirov won the match, but
negotiations for a Kasparov–Shirov match
broke down, and Shirov was subsequently
omitted from negotiations, much to his
disgust. Plans for a 1999 or 2000
Kasparov–Anand match also broke down,
and Kasparov organised a match with
Kramnik in late 2000. In a major upset,
Kramnik won the Classical World Chess
Championship 2000 match with two wins,
thirteen draws, and no losses, thereby
becoming the Classical World Chess
Champion. Meanwhile, FIDE had decided
to scrap the Interzonal and Candidates
system, instead having a large knockout
event in which a large number of players
contested short matches against each
other over just a few weeks (see FIDE
World Chess Championship 1998). Very
fast games were used to resolve ties at
the end of each round, a format which
some felt did not necessarily recognize the
highest quality play: Kasparov refused to
participate in these events, as did Kramnik
after he won Kasparov's title in 2000. In
the first of these events, champion Karpov
was seeded straight into the final, but
subsequently the champion had to qualify
like other players. Karpov defended his
title in the first of these championships in
1998, but resigned his title in anger at the
new rules in 1999. Alexander Khalifman
took the title in 1999, Anand in 2000,
Ruslan Ponomariov in 2002 and Rustam
Kasimdzhanov won the event in 2004.

By 2002, not only were there two rival

champions, but Kasparov's strong results
– he had the top Elo rating in the world
and had won a string of major
tournaments after losing his title in 2000 –
ensured even more confusion over who
was World Champion. In May 2002,
American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan
led the organisation of the so-called
"Prague Agreement" to reunite the world
championship. Kramnik had organised a
candidates tournament (won later in 2002
by Peter Leko) to choose his challenger. It
was decided that Kasparov play the FIDE
champion (Ponomariov) for the FIDE title,
and the winner of this match play the
winner of the Kramnik–Leko match for a
unified title. However, the matches proved
difficult to finance and organise. The
Kramnik–Leko match, now renamed the
Classical World Chess Championship, did
not take place until late 2004 (it was
drawn, so Kramnik retained his title).
Meanwhile, FIDE never managed to
organise a Kasparov match, either with
2002 FIDE champion Ponomariov, or 2004
FIDE champion Kasimdzhanov. Partly due
to his frustration at the situation, Kasparov
retired from chess in 2005, still ranked No.
1 in the world.

Soon after, FIDE dropped the short

knockout format for a World
Championship and announced the FIDE
World Chess Championship 2005, a
double round robin tournament to be held
in San Luis, Argentina between eight of the
leading players in the world. However
Kramnik insisted that his title be decided
in a match, and declined to participate.
The tournament was convincingly won by
the Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, and
negotiations began for a Kramnik–Topalov
match to unify the title.

Reunified title (2006–present)

The FIDE World Chess Championship

2006 reunification match between Topalov
and Kramnik was held in late 2006. After
much controversy, it was won by Kramnik.
Kramnik thus became the first unified and
undisputed World Chess Champion since
Kasparov split from FIDE to form the PCA
in 1993.
Anand's Reign

Kramnik played to defend his title at the

World Chess Championship 2007 in
Mexico. This was an 8-player double round
robin tournament, the same format as was
used for the FIDE World Chess
Championship 2005. This tournament was
won by Viswanathan Anand, thus making
him the World Chess Champion. Because
Anand's World Chess Champion title was
won in a tournament rather than a match,
a minority of commentators questioned
the validity of his title.[62] Kramnik also
made ambiguous comments about the
value of Anand's title, but did not claim the
title himself.[63] Subsequent world
championship matches returned to the
format of a match between the champion
and a challenger.

The following two championships had

special clauses arising from the 2006
unification. Kramnik was given the right to
challenge for the title he lost in a
tournament in the World Chess
Championship 2008, which Anand won.
Then Topalov was seeded directly into the
Candidates final of the World Chess
Championship 2010. He won the
Candidates (against Gata Kamsky). Anand
again won the championship match.[64][65]
The next championship, the World Chess
Championship 2012, had short knock-out
matches for the Candidates Tournament.
This format was not popular with
everyone, and world #1 Magnus Carlsen
withdrew in protest. Boris Gelfand won the
Candidates. Anand won the championship
match again, in tie breaking rapid games,
for his fourth consecutive world
championship win.[66]

Carlsen's Reign

Since 2013, the Candidates have been an

8 player double round robin tournament,
with the winner playing a match against
the champion for the title. These have
followed a 2-year cycle: qualification for
the Candidates in the odd year, the
Candidates tournament early in the even
year, and World Championship match late
in the even year.

Magnus Carlsen defeated Anand in the

World Chess Championship 2013.[67][68]
Carlsen has successfully defended his title
thrice, against Anand in the World Chess
Championship 2014,[69] against Sergey
Karjakin in the World Chess Championship
2016,[70] and against Fabiano Caruana in
the World Chess Championship 2018. His
last two defences were decided by tie-
break in rapid games.[71]

Financing
Before 1948 world championship matches
were financed by arrangements similar to
those Emanuel Lasker described for his
1894 match with Wilhelm Steinitz: either
the challenger or both players, with the
assistance of financial backers, would
contribute to a purse; about half would be
distributed to the winner's backers, and the
winner would receive the larger share of
the remainder (the loser's backers got
nothing). The players had to meet their
own travel, accommodation, food and
other expenses out of their shares of the
purse.[72] This system evolved out of the
wagering of small stakes on club games in
the early 19th century.[73]

Up to and including the 1894 Steinitz–

Lasker match, both players, with their
backers, generally contributed equally to
the purse, following the custom of
important matches in the 19th century
before there was a generally recognized
world champion. For example: the stakes
were £100 a side in both the second
Staunton vs Saint-Amant match (Paris,
1843) and the Anderssen vs Steinitz
match (London, 1866); Steinitz and
Zukertort played their 1886 match for
£400 a side.[73] Lasker introduced the
practice of demanding that the challenger
should provide the whole of the purse, and
his successors followed his example up to
World War II. This requirement makes
arranging world championship matches
more difficult, for example: Marshall
challenged Lasker in 1904 but could not
raise the money until 1907;[74] in 1911
Lasker and Rubinstein agreed in principle
to a world championship match, but this
was never played as Rubinstein could not
raise the money.[75][76] In the early 1920s,
Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch all
challenged Capablanca, but only Alekhine
was able to raise the US $10,000 that
Capablanca demanded, and not until
1927.[39][77]

World champions
Leading players before the
World Chess Championships
 Name Year Country Age

Ruy López de Segura 1559–1575  Spain 29–45

Leonardo di Bona c.1575 Naples 33

Paolo Boi c. 1575 Sicily 47

Alessandro Salvio c. 1600 Naples c. 30

Gioachino Greco c. 1620–1634 Naples c. 20–34

Legall de Kermeur c. 1730–1755  France c. 28–53

François-André Danican Philidor 1755–1795 France 29–69

Alexandre Deschapelles 1815–1821 France 35–41

Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais 1821–1840 France 26–45

Howard Staunton 1843–1851  England 33–41

Adolf Anderssen 1851–1858  Prussia 33–40

Paul Morphy 1858–1862  United States 21–25

Adolf Anderssen 1862–1866  Prussia 44–48

Wilhelm Steinitz 1866–1886  Austria-Hungary 30–50

Johannes Zukertort 1878–1886  Germany 36–44

Undisputed world champions

(1886–1993)
# Name Year Country Age

 Austria-Hungary
1 Wilhelm Steinitz 1886–1894 50–58
 United States

2 Emanuel Lasker 1894–1921 Germany 26–52

3 José Raúl Capablanca 1921–1927  Cuba 33–39

France
4 Alexander Alekhine 1927–1935 35–43
White émigré

5 Max Euwe 1935–1937  Netherlands 34–36

France
(4) Alexander Alekhine 1937–1946 45–53
White émigré

6 Mikhail Botvinnik 1948–1957    Soviet Union 37–46

7 Vasily Smyslov 1957–1958  Soviet Union 36

(6) Mikhail Botvinnik 1958–1960  Soviet Union 47–49

8 Mikhail Tal 1960–1961  Soviet Union 24

(6) Mikhail Botvinnik 1961–1963  Soviet Union 50–52

9 Tigran Petrosian 1963–1969  Soviet Union 34–40

10 Boris Spassky 1969–1972  Soviet Union 32–35

11 Bobby Fischer 1972–1975  United States 29–32

12 Anatoly Karpov 1975–1985  Soviet Union 24–34

 Soviet Union
13 Garry Kasparov 1985–1993 22–30
 Russia

Classical (PCA/Braingames)
world champions (1993–2006)
Name Year Country Age

Garry Kasparov 1993–2000  Russia 30–37

Vladimir Kramnik 2000–2006  Russia 25–31

FIDE world champions (1993–
2006)
Name Year Country Age

Anatoly Karpov 1993–1999  Russia 42–48

Alexander Khalifman 1999–2000  Russia 33

Viswanathan Anand 2000–2002  India 31–33

Ruslan Ponomariov 2002–2004  Ukraine 19–21

Rustam Kasimdzhanov 2004–2005  Uzbekistan 25

Veselin Topalov 2005–2006  Bulgaria 30

Undisputed world champions

(2006–present)
# Name Year Country Age

14 Vladimir Kramnik 2006–2007  Russia 31–32

15 Viswanathan Anand 2007–2013  India 38–43

16 Magnus Carlsen 2013–till present  Norway 22–27

Timeline
World Champions by
number of title match
victories

The table below organises the world

champions in order of championship wins.
(For the purpose of this table, a successful
defence counts as a win, even if the match
was drawn.) The table is made more
complicated by the split between the
"Classical" and FIDE world titles between
1993 and 2006.
 Years as Years as undisputed
Champion Total Undisputed FIDE Classical
champion champion

Emanuel Lasker 6 6 27 27

Garry Kasparov 6 4 2 15 8

Anatoly Karpov 6 3 3 16 10

Mikhail Botvinnik 5 5 13 13

Viswanathan
5 4 1 8 6
Anand

Alexander Alekhine 4 4 17 17

Wilhelm Steinitz 4 4 8 8

Magnus Carlsen 4 4 5 5

Vladimir Kramnik 3 1 2 7 1

Tigran Petrosian 2 2 6 6

José Raúl
1 1 6 6
Capablanca

Boris Spassky 1 1 3 3

Bobby Fischer 1 1 3 3

Max Euwe 1 1 2 2

Vasily Smyslov 1 1 1 1

Mikhail Tal 1 1 1 1

Ruslan Ponomariov 1 1 2 0

Alexander
1 1 1 0
Khalifman

Rustam
1 1 1 0
Kasimdzhanov

Veselin Topalov 1 1 1 0

See also
List of world chess championships
Development of the World Chess
Championship
Candidates Tournament
Chess Olympiad
Comparison of top chess players
throughout history
List of world championships in mind
sports

My Great Predecessors
Fast chess
Women's World Chess Championship
World Junior Chess Championship
 World Chess Solving Championship
World Correspondence Chess
Championship
Chess World Cup

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Gelo, James H. (2006). Chess World
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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to

World Chess Championship.

Mark Weeks' pages on the

championships – Contains all results
and games
Graeme Cree's World Chess
Championship Page (archived) –
Contains the results, and also some
commentary by an amateur chess
historian
Kramnik Interview: From Steinitz to
Kasparov – Kramnik shares his views
on the first 13 World Chess Champions.
 Chessgames guide to the World
Championship
History of the World Championship .

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