User:Adpete/World Chess Championship split of 1993–2006

Between 1993 and 2006, the World Chess Championship was split, with two rival claimants to the title of World Chess Champion: the FIDE World Chess Champion, backed by FIDE; and the PCA World Chess Champion, initially under auspices of the Professional Chess Association (PCA), later called the Classical World Chess Champion after the PCA folded.

In 1993, World Champion Garry Kasparov, and official challenger Nigel Short, split from FIDE, the official world governing body of chess, and played their title match under the auspices of the newly formed Professional Chess Association. In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, and instead held a title match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman. Kasparov defeated Short and became the PCA World Champion; while Karpov defeated Timman and became the FIDE World Champion.

For the next 13 years, there were separate world champions. Kasparov lost his title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik, while the FIDE title changed hands a number of times, with Veselin Topalov winning the title in 2005.

In 2006, a reunification match between Kramnik and Topalov was won by Kramnik. Since then there has been a single world chess championship, although complications of reunification affected the next three world championships in 2007, 2008 and 2010.

Split
Garry Kasparov had been world champion since defeating Anatoly Karpov in 1985, and had successfully defended his title in 1986, 1987 and 1990, each time also against Karpov. Nigel Short won the 1991–1993 Candidates tournament, to qualify as Kasparov's challenger in 1993.

By FIDE regulation, the bids for the World Championship final should have been decided by three parties – FIDE, the World Champion (Kasparov) and the Challenger (Short). According to Kasparov and Short, FIDE president Florencio Campomanes broke these rules by simply announcing the venue of winning bid as being Manchester. FIDE derived a substantial part of its income from the prize fund of the World Championship. According to The Week in Chess, the reduced prize money was Short's main motivation in wanting to hold the match outside of FIDE.

In response to this, Kasparov and Short formed the PCA, appointing Bob Rice as Commissioner. They played their world championship match under its auspices in October 1993. The match took place in the Savoy Theatre in London, under the sponsorship of The Times. Kasparov won the match 12.5–7.5 (+6-1=13) and became PCA World Chess Champion.

FIDE stripped Kasparov of the FIDE World Championship title, and instead held its own world championship match between Karpov and Jan Timman, the two final players Short had defeated to win the 1991–1993 Candidates Tournament. Karpov won that match 12.5–8.5 (+6-2=13), to become FIDE World Chess Champion. For the first time in chess history there were two world champions, the FIDE world champion Karpov and the PCA world champion Kasparov.

Rival champions
Between 1993 and 1996, FIDE and the PCA held rival world championship cycles; each held an interzonal, candidates matches, and a world championship final; with many players playing in both. The PCA cycle culminated in the PCA World Chess Championship 1995, in which Kasparov defeated Viswanathan Anand. The FIDE cycle culminated in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996, in which Karpov defeated Gata Kamsky.

Following their successful title defences, negotiations were held for a reunification match between Kasparov and Karpov in 1996–97, but nothing came of them.

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 match with two wins, thirteen draws, and no losses. At the time the championship was called the Braingames World Chess Championship, but Kramnik later referred to himself as 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). Rapid and blitz games were used to resolve ties at the end of each round. Kasparov refused to participate in these events, as did Kramnik after he won the Classical title in 2000. In the first of these events, in 1998, champion Karpov was seeded directly into the final, but he later had to qualify alongside the other players. Karpov defended his title in the first of these championships in 1998, but resigned his title in protest at the new rules in 1999. Alexander Khalifman won the FIDE World Championship in 1999, Anand in 2000, Ruslan Ponomariov in 2002, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov in 2004.

Reunification
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 agreed that Kasparov would play the FIDE champion (Ponomariov) for the FIDE title, and the winner of that match would face the winner of the Kramnik–Leko match for the unified title. However, the matches proved difficult to finance and organise. The Kramnik–Leko match 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.

Soon after 2005 FIDE tournament, negotiations began for a Kramnik–Topalov match to unify the title.