The World Chess Championship 1993 was one of the most controversial matches in chess history, with incumbent
World Chess Champion
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 matc ...
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
, and official challenger
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the ...
, splitting from
FIDE, the official world governing body of chess, and playing their title match under the auspices of the
Professional Chess Association The Professional Chess Association (PCA), which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization. The PCA was created in 1993 by Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short for the marketing and organization o ...
. In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, and instead held a title match between
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
and
Jan Timman
Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...
.
The matches were won by Kasparov and Karpov respectively. For the first time in history, there were two rival World Chess Champions, a situation which persisted until the
World Chess Championship 2006
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The title of World Chess Champion had been split for 13 years. This match, played between Septem ...
.
1990 Interzonal Tournament
For the first time, the
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...
was held as a
Swiss system tournament in
Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
in June and July 1990. 64 contestants played 13 rounds; the top 11 qualified for the Candidates Tournament.
:
Salov and Thipsay withdrew after seven rounds.
1991–93 Candidates Tournament
The final four players from the 1988–90 Candidates tournament—Karpov, Timman, Yusupov and Speelman—were seeded directly into the Candidates. They were joined by the top 11 finishers from the
Interzonal
Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by the World Chess Federation FIDE from the 1950s to the 1990s. They were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle and were held after the Zonal tournaments, and before the C ...
. These 15 players played a series of
Candidates matches
The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The win ...
. If matches were tied after the allotted games, extra pairs of
rapid chess
Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, bli ...
games were played until one player had the lead.
The preliminary matches were played in
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
(Timman-Hübner and Gelfand-Nikolić),
Wijk aan Zee
Wijk aan Zee ( literally ''Neighborhood at Sea'') is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Corus ...
(Korchnoi-Sax and Yusupov-Dolmatov),
Riga (Ivanchuk-Yudasin),
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
(Short-Speelman), and
Madras (Anand-Dreev) in January and February 1991. All four quarterfinals were played in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
in August 1991, both semifinals in
Linares in April 1992, and the final in
San Lorenzo del Escorial in January 1993.
1993 PCA match
Before the match could take place, both Kasparov and Short complained of corruption and a lack of professionalism within FIDE and split from FIDE to set up the
Professional Chess Association The Professional Chess Association (PCA), which existed between 1993 and 1996, was a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization. The PCA was created in 1993 by Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short for the marketing and organization o ...
(PCA), under whose auspices they held their match. The event was orchestrated largely by
Raymond Keene. Keene brought the event to London (FIDE had planned it for
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
), and England was whipped up into something of a chess fever:
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
broadcast some 81 programmes on the match, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
also had coverage, and Short appeared in television beer commercials. The Kasparov–Short final was best of 24 games, played in
in September and October 1993.
:
After the actual match, the players filled out the last four days of the playing schedule by playing a series of seven
s (with openings chosen by the arbiter) that Kasparov won 5–2 (+4−1=2). There was also a game in which Kasparov and Short teamed up to play against the commentary team (which lost). In the wake of the decisive victory by Kasparov, interest in chess in the UK soon died down.
As a result of the unauthorized PCA match, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, removed him and Short from their rating lists, and arranged an "official" match between Timman and Karpov, whom Short had beaten in the Candidates final and semifinal respectively. The FIDE match was played in
in September to November 1993.
:
Karpov won the best-of-24 match and thus regained the FIDE championship title that he had previously held from 1975 to 1985 before losing it to Kasparov.