User talk:Romanstoly

= World Chess Champions =

World Chess Champions
Through the long course of chess, there have been many pioneers in the game. Many players began to introduce new ideas concerning chess tactics, combinatorics, and strategy. However, even though chess is 4,000 years old, an organized system of official and competitive chess play has never been created until only a few hundred years ago. From that time, the greatest chess players became recognized and very active in play. Among them, of course, were the world champions. The following are all of the documented world chess champions throughout history.

1. Wilhelm Steinitz

2. Emanuel Lasker

3. Jose Capablanca

4. Alexander Alekhine

5. Max Euwe

6. Mikhail Botvinnik

7. Vasily Smyslov

8. Mikhail Tal

9. Tigran Petrosian

10. Boris Spassky

11. Robert Fischer

12. Anatoly Karpov

13. Garry Kasparov

14. Vladimir Kramnik --

Wilhelm Steinitz
Born in Prague, Czech Republic and playing from the age of 12, Wilhelm Steinitz dropped out of polytechnic at Vienna to devote himself to chess. From 1862 he settled in London as a professional, supplementing his income as chess editor of The Field. After emigrating to the USA (1883), he worked as a chess writer and editor, and beat Johannes Zukertort in the 1886 match organized to decide the first official championship of the world. He defended his title three times successfully, before losing it in 1894 to Lasker. A nervous breakdown followed, and he died in a New York mental institution.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1886 - 1894) -

Emanuel Lasker
Born in Berlinchen, Germany, Emanuel Lasker won the world chess championship in 1894, retaining it until 1921, when he was defeated by Jose Raul Capablanca. He studied mathematics at Erlangen University, and formulated a theorem of vector spaces which is known by his name. He left Germany in 1933, and finally settled in the USA, continuing to play chess until his late 60s.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1894 - 1921) --

Jose Capablanca
Born in Havana, Cuba, Jose Capablanca, at the age of 4, learned chess by watching his father's games, and within nine years had defeated the Cuban champion, Juan Corzo. He studied engineering at Columbia University, playing chess at the Manhattan Club, New York City, where he achieved a sensational win in a match against US champion Marshall (1909). In 1921 he won the world championship, defeating Emanuel Lasker without losing a game. His defeat by Alexander Alekhine in 1927 was a major surprise, and despite further tournament successes he never regained his title.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1921 - 1927) --

Alexander Alekhine
Born in Moscow, Russia, Alexander Alekhine became addicted to chess from the age of 11 and gained the title of master at St Petersburg in 1909. After the Russian Revolution, he worked as a magistrate in France, and became a French citizen. He defeated Jose Capablanca in 1927 to win the world championship, and defended it successfully (apart from a defeat by Max Euwe in 1935) for nearly 20 years.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1927 - 1935), (1937 - 1946) --

Max Euwe
Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands Max Euwe was world champion from 1935, when he had a surprise victory over Alekhine, until 1937, when Alekhine, who had adopted a regime of rigid self-discipline, won the return match. Being also a mathematician, Euwe then went back to lecturing on mathematics and mechanics, and in 1964–71 taught the methodology of automated information processing in Rotterdam and Tilburg. He was president of FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Echecs), arbitrating over the turbulent Robert Fischer–Boris Spassky world championship match in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1972. He wrote several books on chess, which were translated into several languages.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1935 - 1937) --

Mikhail Botvinnik
Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Mikhail Botvinnik won the 1948 tournament following the death of Alexander Alekhine. After regaining his title twice, from Vasily Smyslov and Mikhail Tal, he lost in 1963 to Tigran Petrosian, and devoted most of his remaining career to training Soviet players and to the development of chess computers.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1948 - 1957), (1958 - 1960), (1961 - 1963) --

Vasily Smyslov
Born in Moscow, Russia, Vasily Smyslov made chess his career after narrowly failing an audition for the Bolshoi Opera in 1950. After drawing a world championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1954, which allowed the holder to retain his title, he beat the same player in 1957, only to relinquish the championship in the 1958 rematch. He was a world championship candidate for a record 33 years. In 1991 he won the first Senior World Championship.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1957 - 1958) --

Mikhail Tal
Born in Riga, Latvia, Mikhail Tal defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960 to become the youngest grandmaster to hold the world title. His withering stares over the board were held by opponents as attempts at hypnotism, but it is more likely that they succumbed to his unusually inventive style of attack. Major kidney problems terminated his reign at the top, but he remained an active tournament player and chess journalist.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1960 - 1961) --

Tigran Petrosian
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Tigran Petrosian won the world championship title from Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963, and made one successful defence before losing it to Boris Spassky in 1969.  World Championship Reign: 

(1963 - 1969) --

Boris Spassky
Born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russia, Boris Spassky learned to play chess in a children's home when he was evacuated during World War 2. He became an international master in 1953, and junior world champion in 1955. He gained the world championship against Tigran Petrosian in 1969, and lost it to Bobby Fischer in Reykjavík (1972). In 1992 they held a rematch in the former Yugoslavia, playing part in Montenegro and part in Serbia; Fischer defeated Spassky in both sections.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1969 - 1972) --

Robert Fischer
Born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, Robert (Bobby) Fischer was raised in Brooklyn. After his parents divorced in 1965, he learned to play chess when he was six and won the US junior and senior titles at age 14. In 1972 he captured the world championship from Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, while competing for what was then the largest purse ($250,000) offered in any sport outside boxing. Amid praise for his ‘classicist’ style, the win set off a short-lived US chess boom. A longtime nemesis of tournament officials for his tantrums and phobias, he failed in 1975 to agree to terms for a title defence against Anatoly Karpov, and was stripped of his crown by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Echecs). Afterwards he refused to compete in public, lived in virtual seclusion in the Los Angeles area, and was briefly active in the fundamentalist Worldwide Church of God. In 1992, he disappeared after breaking international sanctions by going to Yugoslavia to play Boris Spassky. He lived undetected in Europe and Japan until 2004, when he was arrested in Tokyo for passport irregularities and the US requested his extradition. In 2005 he left for Iceland having been granted an Icelandic passport and citizenship.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1972 - 1975) ---

Anatoly Karpov
Born in Zlatoust, Russia and trained by former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, Anatoly Karpov won the world junior championship in 1969. He became world champion by default after Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title, and successfully defended his title until losing to Kasparov in a controversial match. He defeated Jan Timman of The Netherlands in an official world championship match in 1993, though publicity for this event and his victory suffered as a result of the independent championship match being played at the same time between Kasparov and Nigel Short. He successfully defended the FIDE(Fédération Internationale des Echecs) title in 1996 and 1998, but lost it in 1999 when he refused to accept the tournament format.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1975 - 1985) ---

Gary Kasparov
Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, when Gary Kasparov beat Anatoly Karpov for the world title in November 1985, he became the youngest world champion, at the age of 22 years. He had successfully defended his title, and was the highest-ranked active player, with a ranking of 2783 in the Elo Rating System. His 1984–1985 match with Karpov was the longest in the history of chess. Long-term friction between him and the international chess organization, FIDE, resulted in his establishing the Grandmasters' Association in 1987, and arranging a World Championship match in 1993 without FIDE involvement, in which he defeated Nigel Short of Britain. In 1996 he competed against Deep Blue, the world's best chess-playing computer, winning four of the six games, but in a rematch the following year he was decisively beaten by the machine. He lost his title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. At the FIDE(Fédération Internationale des Echecs) Man-Machine $1 million match held in New York City early in 2003, he drew three games all with the Deep Junior program. He announced his retirement from competitive chess in 2005.

 World Championship Reign: 

(1985 - 2000) ---

Vladimir Kramnik
Born in Tuapse, Russia, Vladimir Kramnik has won various strong tournaments and reached many secondand third places as well. His career highlight is his match victory against Garry Kasparov in 2000, which brought him the World Title. Kramnik still carries this title to present day.

 World Championship Reign: 

(2000 - present)