User:ArtDem001/List of World Champions in Chess

Ding Liren has been the 17th, active world champion in chess since 2023. Officially, the first world champion was Wilhelm Steinitz (1886). Since 1948, world championship matches organizing has been the task of the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

In 1993, due to his controversy with FIDE, Garry Kasparov organized the Professional Chess Association (PCA). In response to that, FIDE stripped him of his champion title, having instead organized the match for world championship between two other challengers. As the result, there were now two different world champions, Garry Kasparov by PCA rules and Anatoly Karpov who won the FIDE match.

In 2006, a unification match occured between FIDE champion Veselin Topalov and 'classic chess' champion Vladimir Kramnik, whereafter Kramnik was declared the absolute world champion.

Strongest chess players before 1886
Officially, Wilhelm Steinitz has attained the chess world champion in 1886. However, there were chess players considered the strongest before that as well. It should be noted that the listed chess players, with the exception of the last three, can be considered the strongest only conditionally, as until the middle of the XIX century there were no sufficiently representative tournaments the results of which could make it possible to objectively compare most of the strongest chess players in the world.

The first major international chess tournament that brought together most of the strongest players of the world took place only in 1851 in London, and only there did a real opportunity turn up to compare the performance of the strongest players in many countries in practice. That is why the history of the world champion's title usually begins with Adolf Anderssen who won the aforementioned tournament.

Official world champions (1886—1993)
Apparently, for the first time the expression 'world championship match' was used in the match agreement between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zuckertort. It is customary to count the official title of 'world chess champion' since that moment. However, until 1948, matches were held without any system: the champion themself determined his opponent, the format of the match and the time of its holding.

In 1948, two years after the sudden death of Alexander Alekhine, which left the world without a king of chess, FIDE organized a match tournament of the five strongest grandmasters of that time in which a new champion was determined. From then and until 1993, FIDE completely controlled the course of the world champion title draw. The champion was charged with defending the title every three years in a match with the winner of the challenger cycle. If the champion lost they were given the right to a rematch. Mikhail Botvinnik used it successfully twice after his defeats by Vasily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal. However, in 1963, when Botvinnik lost to Tigran Petrosian, that right was revoked, and Botvinnik did not want to start from scratch.

In 1975, Robert Fischer chose to not defend his title (after FIDE refused to change some of the conditions of the match), and it went to the winner of the challenger cycle, Anatoly Karpov.

The 'split' (1993—2006)
Shortly after Garry Kasparov became champion, the Soviet Union, in which sports activities were clearly regulated, collapsed. This gave the champion more freedom of action. In 1993 Kasparov and Nigel Short, the challenger, accused FIDE of corruption and lack of professionalism, left the organization and founded the Professional Chess Association (PCA) instead, under the auspices of which they played their match. Since Short was an Englishman and the match was held in London, something akin to a chess fever began in England. However, Kasparov convincingly crushed Short, and the interest in chess in the United Kingdom quickly faded.

FIDE announced that Kasparov had been stripped of the title of world champion and drew it between Karpov who lost to Short in the semi-finals of the candidates tournament, and Jan Timman who lost in the finals. Karpov defeated Timman. As a result, there were now two world champions in chess, Karpov of FIDE and Kasparov of PCA.

Kasparov defended his title in 1995 in a match with Viswanathan Anand who passed a selection very similar to that used by FIDE. It was assumed that Kasparov's next opponent would be Alexei Shirov who won the match against Vladimir Kramnik but these plans never got implemented. The second match with Anand did not take place either. The PCA ceased to exist, having lost sponsors, and Kasparov decided that he would defend his title in a match with the contender he deemed most worthy. But over the next two years Kasparov never defended his title. It was only in 2000 that Vladimir Kramnik got the opportunity to play against Kasparov.

Kramnik won the match, thus becoming the next world champion. Since the PCA no longer existed, this version of the title became known as the 'world champion by the classic version', according to which the title of world champion can only be obtained by winning the match against the active world champion.

Meanwhile, FIDE held another championship using the traditional system (Karpov defended his title in a match with Gata Kamsky), but in 1996 decided to change the drawing scheme and organized a large knockout tournament in which a large number of players played short matches with each other. If such a match did not determine the winner, then several additional games with a shortened time were arranged. Many were dissatisfied with such a scheme, primarily due to the fact that the shortened time could not but affect the quality of the games. Kasparov and Kramnik did not want to participate in tournaments of this kind. However, among grandmasters of a lower level, the knockout system enjoyed some support, since it allowed each of them to compete for the title of world champion and provided earnings even when eliminated from the first round.

In the first such knockout tournament, Karpov, as the then-active champion, was admitted to the finals out of order (and defended his title). But later it was decided that the champion could not have any privileges and should participate in the knockout tournament on an equal basis with the contenders. Karpov refused to play by such rules, and in 1999 the FIDE world title went to Alexander Khalifman, in 2000 to Viswanathan Anand, in 2002 to Ruslan Ponomariov, and in 2004 to Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

By 2002, the state of chess was rather complicated. Not only were there two world champions (Kramnik and Ponomariov), many considered Garry Kasparov, who had the world's highest Elo rating and won a number of major tournaments, to be the strongest chess player on the planet. American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan brought up for discussion the so-called Prague Agreements, the purpose of which was to unite the two lines. Kramnik had by this point organized a candidates tournament, won by Hungarian Peter Leko. Seirawan suggested that Kramnik vs Leko and Ponomariov vs Kasparov matches should be held first, and then the title of absolute champion should be played between the winners of those.

However, the holding of the unification matches faced serious financial difficulties. The Kramnik vs Leko match took place only at the end of 2004, and FIDE failed to hold a match between its champion Ponomariov (and later Kasimdzhanov) and Kasparov. Disappointed with the situation in chess, Kasparov quit playing actively in 2005, still having the highest rating in the world at that time.

In 2005, FIDE decided to hold another championship without using the knockout system and arranged a two-round tournament instead. Both Kasparov and Kramnik refused to participate in it, and Veselin Topalov became the winner (and the new FIDE champion).

Taking into account the chronology of awarding the world chess champion title, a number of authors of books on the theory and history of chess favored the world champions according to the PCA ('classical' chess) version. For instance, David Norwood, in his book The Initial Course of Chess, translated into Russian and published in Russia in the early 2000s, indicated both Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik as world champions during the split.

Reunification (since 2006)
Finally, in 2006, an agreement was reached on a unification match between Topalov and Kramnik. The match took place in September 2006 and ended with a victory for Kramnik, who thus became the undisputed world champion. FIDE's monopoly on hosting the World Championship was restored, the next championship was held in September 2007 in Mexico City in the form of a round-robin tournament in which 8 players participated: Kramnik, four candidates tournament finalists and three grandmasters with the highest rating. Kramnik lost the official title of world champion to Viswanathan Anand in it, however, despite the formal end of the 'chaos', part of the chess players still considered Kramnik the world champion in the classical version since he was not defeated in the match. In October 2008, in Bonn, Kramnik lost a World Championship match to Anand with a score of 4½ to 6½, after which his loss of the championship title became indisputable.

Viswanathan Anand defended the title of champion in May 2010 in a match with Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov (score 6.5 to 5.5) and in May 2012 in a match with Israeli challenger Boris Gelfand (6 to 6 in the main match and 2.5 to 1.5 in the tiebreak). In 2013, Viswanathan Anand lost a match in Chennai and lost the title to Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen.

Magnus Carlsen defended his title four times: in 2014 in Sochi against Viswanathan Anand, in 2016 in New York in a match against Sergey Karjakin, in 2018 in London in a match against Fabiano Caruana, in 2021 in Dubai in a match against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Carlsen refused to defend his title once more; the 2023 World Chess Championship match was held without his participation, and Ding Liren, who won the match, became the newest world champion.

Records

 * Emanuel Lasker was the longest-serving champion (27 years, from 1894 to 1921). He also won the largest number of matches for the title of world champion, exactly 7 (including the 1909 match, which is not universally deemed official).
 * The only chess player who died while being the reigning champion was Alexander Alekhine.
 * The world champions who lost their title by refusing to play with the challenger were Robert Fischer and Magnus Carlsen. Subsequently, Robert James Fischer stated that he continues to consider himself a champion, since he was not defeated, and called his commercial 'rematch' with Boris Spassky in 1992, in which he won, a world championship match.
 * The only official world champion who has not played a single game with his predecessor is Anatoly Karpov. He is also the only recognized champion who has never won a single match for this title from another world champion (not counting Wilhelm Steinitz who was the first official champion and therefore had no predecessor).
 * Wilhelm Steinitz was the oldest world champion at the time of winning this title. He attained it at the age of 50, but was unofficially considered the strongest player since he was 30, when he defeated Adolf Anderssen in a match.
 * The youngest chess world champion at the moment of winning the title was Ruslan Ponomariov (18 years old).
 * Mikhail Botvinnik became the world champion the most times, exactly three. He won the title for the first time in 1948, then lost and regained it in rematches twice. At the same time, he did not win a single match for the world championship while in the rank of champion (he ended his matches with D. Bronstein and V. Smyslov in draws and then lost to V. Smyslov, M. Tal and T. Petrosyan).
 * Karpov and Kasparov played the most matches for the title of world chess champion among themselves: these two grandmasters met five times in matches for the chess crown (Kasparov won three matches, one ended in a draw, and yet another one was stopped with Karpov leading (48 games were played in it, the score at the stoppage was 5 to 3)). Following them are Botvinnik and Smyslov, between whom three matches took place (in addition, they met as part of the match tournament of 5 grandmasters in 1948. Botvinnik won one of the matches (as well as the tournament), Smyslov won another one, and yet another one ended in a draw). According to the games, their total score is equal: counting the match tournament in 1948, each of the two won 18 games, and 38 more ended in draws.
 * The world champion to become such in the shortest time span, namely 14 years, was Mikhail Tal (he learned to play chess when he was 10 and became champion at the age of 24). Ruslan Ponomariov, having become champion at the age of 18, is not counted. It is not known exactly how old he was when he learned to play chess but if he was over 4 years old then he most likely holds the record. For comparison, the same feat took Mikhail Botvinnik 25 years, Garry Kasparov 15, and Robert James Fischer 20.
 * The only chess player who has won the title of champion and defended it in competitions of three different formats is Viswanathan Anand. He became the champion in the knockout tournament (2000) and in the round-robin tournament (2007), and also defended the title in matches (in 2008 with Kramnik, in 2010 with Topalov, and in 2012 with Boris Gelfand). In addition, Viswanathan Anand participated in the world championship matches of both versions during the split, as well as for the unanimous title after unification.