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New format for the FIDE World Championship
First of all, I wish everyone watching this video all the best for the coming year—Happy New Year!
Now that we’ve covered all the world champions who won the title at classical time controls, we cannot ignore the existence of a sort of "shadow list" of so-called "FIDE world champions." This list emerged during the infamous split caused by Kasparov and Short’s rogue chess organization, the PCA (Professional Chess Association).
During this period, the World Chess Federation (FIDE) was completely opposed to the idea of the PCA hosting its own world championship. In response, FIDE decided to rebrand its World Cup—a tournament with short knockout matches—as the "official World Chess Championship." However, in 1993, this transition had not yet occurred because the chess world split that same year.
While Kasparov and Short competed in their PCA World Championship match in London, FIDE held its own World Championship match between two players who had already been eliminated in the original Candidates Tournament: Anatoly Karpov and Dutch Grandmaster Jan Timman.
The first 12 games of their match were held in the Netherlands (in the cities of Zwolle, Arnhem, and Amsterdam), after which the "chess circus" moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, for the remaining 12 games. Karpov ultimately emerged victorious with a score of 12½–8½. From that moment on, the chess world had two world champions: Karpov and Kasparov.
At the time, the championship matches were still decided using the traditional 24-game format. However, FIDE sought to modernize the championship format and quickly launched its first new cycle to determine the world champion.
In 1993, an Interzonal Tournament consisting of 13 rounds produced eight players who advanced to six-game knockout matches to decide the challenger. The winner of this cycle was Russian Grandmaster Gata Kamsky, who, in 1996, faced Karpov in a 20-game World Championship match. Kamsky lost the match 10½–7½.
Two years later, the format underwent a significant change. FIDE held a massive knockout tournament where the reigning world champion, Karpov, was exempt from all preliminary rounds. Most of the top players participated—except for Vladimir Kramnik, who refused to play, citing Karpov’s privileged status as unfair.
To summarize, after seven grueling knockout rounds (each consisting of two classical games, followed by rapid and blitz tiebreaks if necessary), Indian Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand earned the right to challenge Karpov for the FIDE World Championship at the start of 1998. The match ended in a 3-3 tie, leading to rapid tiebreak games. An exhausted Anand lost the tiebreak 2-0 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 1999, the next knockout tournament was held in Las Vegas, USA. Kasparov, who had been removed from FIDE’s official rating list, refused to participate. Anand, who was negotiating a potential World Championship match against Kasparov (a match that never materialized under FIDE’s auspices), also skipped the tournament.
The events that unfolded in Las Vegas will be discussed in the next video.
Meanwhile, here’s a puzzle for you: In one of their games, Timman made a serious mistake in the opening and faced an unexpected move from Karpov. Can you find Karpov’s brilliant move in this position? And can you support your answer with concrete variations?
Key Concepts of Chess - Pawn Structures Vol.1 and 2
In this two-part course the emphasis will be on typical pawn-structures.
This week’s show (for Premium Members only)
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