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FIDE World Chess Championship 1998

Chess match between Anatoly Karpov and Viswanathan Anand

Field	Value
comp1	Anatoly Karpov
comp2	Viswanathan Anand
image1	[[File:Anatoly Karpov in 1993.jpg	center	Anatoly Karpov	140px]]
image2	[[File:Viswanathan Anand 1992 Manila.jpg	center	Viswanathan Anand	140px]]
title1	Defending champion
title2	Challenger
flag1	RUS
flag2	IND
dob1	23 May 1951
age1	46 years old
dob2	11 December 1969
age2	28 years old
qual1	Winner of the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996
qual2	Winner of the Candidates Tournament 1997
elo1	2735
elo2	2770
rank1	6
rank2	3
prev	1996
prev_link	FIDE World Chess Championship 1996
next	1999
next_link	FIDE World Chess Championship 1999
score1	3 (2)
score2	3 (0)

The FIDE World Chess Championship 1998 was contested in a match between the FIDE World Champion Anatoly Karpov and the challenger Viswanathan Anand. The match took place between 2 January and 9 January 1998 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The challenger was determined in a tournament held in Groningen, Netherlands, between 9 December and 30 December 1997. After the championship match ended in a draw, Karpov won the rapid playoff, becoming the 1998 FIDE World Chess Champion.

New World Championship format

Background

From 1948 to 1993, the world chess championship had been administered by FIDE, the international chess federation. In 1993, World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov split from FIDE and formed a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, meaning there were now two rival championships: the FIDE title, held by Anatoly Karpov, and the PCA title, held by Kasparov. Karpov and Kasparov had successfully defended their titles at the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 and PCA World Chess Championship 1995 respectively.

From 1948 until 1996, World Chess Championships had followed a similar pattern: a series of qualifying tournaments and matches were held over more than a year, culminating in the Candidates Tournament. The winner of the Candidates tournament was the official challenger for the world title and would play the incumbent champion in a match for world championship. (The 1996 cycle was an exception. The incumbent world champion participated in the Candidates tournament as a seeded in the Candidates final.)

In 1997, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov proposed a completely new structure: a knockout tournament, consisting of two-game matches (slightly longer in the final rounds), with match tie-breakers using rapid chess and blitz chess if necessary. This format had been done before in tournaments such as Tilburg 1992–94, but never at the world championship level.

In addition to the new format, it was proposed by Ilyumzhinov as a way to unify the two rival world titles. To do this, FIDE champion Anatoly Karpov and PCA champion Garry Kasparov were each to be seeded into the semi-finals.

Kasparov did not want to defend his title under these circumstances and declined his invitation. The format was then modified to have FIDE champion Karpov seeded directly into the final.

Controversies

The advantages of the new format were:

It avoided a long cycle, and was all over in a month or so. This is could all be done in the one venue, it would not have the scheduling problems which had beset some previous world championship cycles. Each round could be played in 3 days (one day for each normal time control game, and one for the tie breaks).
More players (up to 128) could be included.
There were no special privileges for the incumbent champion or seeded players (although some were preserved in the earlier championships, these were eliminated later on).

Opponents pointed out disadvantages of the format:

Short matches (only two games in the earlier rounds) left too much to chance – the stronger player could blunder a game, and it would be difficult to recover from a bad start. (Many world championship and Candidates matches had been won by the player who recovered from an early loss.)
The rapid playoffs were also seen to be left too much to chance: strength in rapid chess is not the same as strength in chess with normal time controls.
These first two considerations, taken together, meant there was a very high chance that the best player would not win, or even that a complete outsider might win, opponents argued.
Some people felt that the tradition of the champion being seeded into the final should be preserved, so that a new champion can only be champion by defeating the old champion.
However, the scheduling of the match caused great controversy regarding the fairness of the contest: Anand was forced to play a fresh and prepared Karpov a mere three days after his exhausting performance at Groningen.

Prominent non-participants

Kasparov did not want to defend his title under these circumstances, and declined his invitation.
Vladimir Kramnik declined to play, in protest against having the final with Karpov shortly after the end of the tournament.

Participants

All players are grandmasters unless indicated otherwise.

Vladimir Kramnik1, 2770
Viswanathan Anand, 2765
Anatoly Karpov, 2745
Veselin Topalov, 2745
Vassily Ivanchuk, 2725
Alexander Beliavsky, 2710
Alexei Shirov, 2700
Boris Gelfand, 2695
Michael Adams, 2680
Valery Salov, 2680
Yevgeny Bareev, 2670
Kiril Georgiev, 2670
Judit Polgár, 2670
Matthew Sadler, 2665
Vladimir Akopian, 2660
Aleksej Alexandrov, 2660
Joël Lautier, 2660
Nigel Short, 2660
Peter Svidler, 2660
Alexander Khalifman, 2655
Loek van Wely, 2655
Zurab Azmaiparashvili, 2650
Sergei Rublevsky, 2650
Alex Yermolinsky, 2650
Michal Krasenkov, 2645
Lembit Oll, 2645
Eduardas Rozentalis, 2645
Ulf Andersson, 2640
Alexander Chernin, 2640
Alexey Dreev, 2640
Rafael Vaganian, 2640
Arthur Yussupov, 2640
Peter Leko, 2635
Vadim Milov, 2635
Ivan Sokolov, 2635
Vadim Zvjaginsev, 2635
Predrag Nikolić, 2630
Jeroen Piket, 2630
Yasser Seirawan, 2630
Giorgy Giorgadze, 2625
Julio Granda, 2625
Jan Timman, 2625
Zoltán Almási, 2615
Boris Alterman, 2615
Vladimir Malaniuk, 2615
Vladislav Tkachiev, 2615
Utut Adianto, 2610
Jaan Ehlvest, 2610
Viktor Korchnoi, 2610
Lajos Portisch, 2610
Jóhann Hjartarson, 2605
Zbyněk Hráček, 2605
Friso Nijboer, 2605
Curt Hansen, 2600
Grigory Kaidanov, 2600
Ivan Morovic, 2600
Gilberto Milos, 2590
Alexander Morozevich, 2590
Emil Sutovsky, 2590
Sergei Tiviakov, 2590
Viktor Bologan, 2585
Miguel Illescas, 2585
Vasilios Kotronias, 2585
Alexander Nenashev, 2585
Andrei Sokolov, 2585
Joel Benjamin, 2580
Boris Gulko, 2580
Kevin Spraggett, 2575
Vladimir Epishin, 2570
Stefan Kindermann, 2570
Konstantin Lerner, 2560
Margeir Petursson, 2555
Paul van der Sterren, 2555
Larry Christiansen, 2550
Andrei Istrățescu, 2550
Roman Slobodjan, 2550
Ashot Anastasian, 2545
Étienne Bacrot, 2545
Bojan Kurajica, 2545
Alexander Fominyh, 2535
Hichem Hamdouchi, 2535
Peng Xiaomin, 2530
Peter Wells, 2530
Gilberto Hernandez, 2525
Thomas Luther, 2525
John van der Wiel, 2525
Wang Zili, 2520
Dibyendu Barua, 2515
Šarūnas Šulskis, 2510
Igor Glek, 2505
Igor Miladinović, 2500
Tal Shaked, 2500, IM
Niaz Murshed, 2490
Gildardo Garcia, 2480
Vasily Smyslov, 2480
Helgi Grétarsson, 2475
Essam Mohammed2, 2460, IM
Hendrik Hoeksema, 2400, IM
Watu Kobese, 2315, IM
Alexander Umgaev, unrated, no title

1 Kramnik (ranked 2nd in the world) declined participation on the grounds that Karpov's direct entry into the final was unacceptable.

2 Mohammed did not appear.

Garry Kasparov (ranked 1st in the world), Gata Kamsky (ranked 7th), and Zsuzsa Polgar (Women's world champion) declined participation in advance.

Karpov as defending FIDE champion was seeded directly into the championship match. Of the 97 remaining participants, 68 entered the tournament in the first round, 28 in the second round and 1 (Gelfand, loser from Round 3 of the previous Candidates match) in the third round.

Results, rounds 1-4

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Section 7

Section 8

Results, rounds 5–7

Championship match

The match was played over 6 games in Lausanne, Switzerland (on January 2-3-4 and 6-7-8) and ended in a 3–3 tie. Two rapid games were then played on January 9. Karpov won both, retaining his FIDE title.

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

+World Chess Championship Match 1998
! !! Rating !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 6 !! R1 !! R2 !! Points
-
1
-
}

References

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