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120-739: In 1993, Nigel Short won the Candidates Tournament and so qualified as challenger to Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Championship . By FIDE regulation, the bids for where the World Championship final is played 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

240-658: A World Chess Championship match, when he qualified to play Garry Kasparov in the PCA world championship in London, where Kasparov won 12½ to 7½. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to chess. Short was born 1 June 1965 in Leigh , Lancashire . He is the second of three children (all boys) of David and Jean Short. His father

360-465: A short tied match against Carl Schlechter , although the exact conditions of this match are a mystery. He then defeated Dawid Janowski in the most one-sided title match in history later in 1910 . Lasker's negotiations for title matches from 1911 onwards were extremely controversial. In 1911, he received a challenge for a world title match against José Raúl Capablanca and, in addition to making severe financial demands, proposed some novel conditions:

480-535: A Master rating with his showing in the 1977 British finals. In 1978 he won his first adult national title when he won the British Lightning Championship aged 13 years 5 months 11 days, a title which he won again in 1980. In 1979, in the British Championship at Chester , Short tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin , earning his first International Master norm; Bellin won

600-586: A championship match between Karpov and Timman. For the first time in history, there were two World Chess Champions: Kasparov defeated Short and Karpov beat Timman . FIDE and the PCA each held a championship cycle in 1993–1996, with many of the same challengers playing in both. Kasparov and Karpov both won their respective cycles. In the PCA cycle, Kasparov defeated Viswanathan Anand in the PCA World Chess Championship 1995 . Karpov defeated Gata Kamsky in

720-648: A match against Johannes Zukertort in 1872 (7–1, 4 draws), winning the Vienna 1873 chess tournament , and decisively winning a match over Joseph Henry Blackburne 7–0 (0 draws) in 1876. Apart from the Blackburne match, Steinitz played no competitive chess between the Vienna tournaments of 1873 and 1882 . During that time, Zukertort emerged as the world's leading active player, winning the Paris 1878 chess tournament . Zukertort then won

840-436: A match to von der Lasa; in 1856, George Walker wrote that "[von der Lasa] and Anderssen are decidedly the two best in the known world". Von der Lasa did not compete in tournaments or formal matches because of the demands of his diplomatic career, but his games show that he was one of the world's best then: he won series of games against Staunton in 1844 and 1853. Anderssen was himself decisively beaten in an 1858 match against

960-767: A playoff to advance past John van der Wiel and Eugenio Torre for the last berth, after the three had tied in regulation play. But the Montpellier Candidates Tournament brought Short little success, as he scored 7/15 to finish in 10th place. In the next cycle, he again qualified by winning the 1987 Subotica Interzonal with Jon Speelman . The Candidates stage had by this time reverted to its traditional match format: Short defeated Gyula Sax (+2=3) in Saint John , Canada, in 1988, but then unexpectedly lost (−2=3) to Speelman in London. Short's next attempt proved his most successful. He defeated Mikhail Gurevich in

1080-527: A project had never been undertaken before), and resulted in the 1889 tournament in New York to select a challenger for Steinitz , rather like the more recent Candidates Tournaments . The tournament was duly played, but the outcome was not quite as planned: Chigorin and Max Weiss tied for first place; their play-off resulted in four draws; and neither wanted to play a match against Steinitz – Chigorin had just lost to him, and Weiss wanted to get back to his work for

1200-483: A proposal put forward by the Soviet Union (authored by Mikhail Botvinnik ). The 1938 AVRO tournament was used as the basis for the 1948 Championship Tournament . The AVRO tournament had brought together the eight players who were, by general acclamation, the best players in the world at the time. Two of the participants at AVRO – Alekhine and former world champion José Raúl Capablanca – had died; but FIDE decided that

1320-429: A similar clause that if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Capablanca should become world champion. On 27 June 1920 Lasker abdicated in favor of Capablanca because of public criticism of the terms of the match, naming Capablanca as his successor. Some commentators questioned Lasker's right to name his successor; Amos Burn raised the same objection but welcomed Lasker's resignation of

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1440-432: A super-tournament (AVRO) of ex-champions and rising stars should be held to select the next challenger. FIDE rejected this proposal and at their second attempt nominated Salo Flohr as the official challenger. Euwe then declared that: if he retained his title against Alekhine he was prepared to meet Flohr in 1940 but he reserved the right to arrange a title match either in 1938 or 1939 with José Raúl Capablanca , who had lost

1560-513: A tie-breaking rule, with Reuben Fine placed second and Capablanca and Flohr in the bottom places; and the outbreak of World War II in 1939 cut short the controversy. Alexander Alekhine died in 1946 before anyone else could win against him in match for the World Champion title. This resulted in an interregnum that made the normal procedure impossible. The situation was very confused, with many respected players and commentators offering different solutions. FIDE found it very difficult to organize

1680-496: A two-year cycle, with championship matches conducted every even year. The 2020 and 2022 matches were postponed to 2021 and 2023 respectively because of the COVID-19 pandemic . The next match returned to the normal schedule and was held in 2024. Emanuel Lasker was the longest serving World Champion, having held the title for 27 years, and holds the record for the most Championship wins with six along with Kasparov and Karpov. Though

1800-643: Is a fairly substantial gap between men and women" and dismissing his repeated defeat by Judit Polgar as "irrelevant". Short resides in Greece and married drama therapist Rhea Argyro Karageorgiou in 1987. The couple have two children. He is an atheist. Most-played openings with the White pieces: With the Black pieces: World Chess Championship Pre-FIDE FIDE: Split titles (Classical): Split titles (FIDE): Reunified (FIDE): The World Chess Championship

1920-427: Is as obvious as theirs". But when Morphy returned to America in 1859, he abruptly retired from chess, though many considered him the world champion until his death in 1884. His sudden withdrawal from chess at his peak led to his being known as "the pride and sorrow of chess". After Morphy's retirement from chess, Anderssen was again regarded as the world's strongest active player, a reputation he reinforced by winning

2040-469: Is no evidence that he was widely acclaimed as such at the time, and no mention of such a status afterwards in the tournament book by Staunton. Indeed, Staunton's tournament book calls Anderssen "after Heydebrand der Laza [Tassilo von der Lasa, another of the Berlin Pleiades], the best player of Germany": von der Lasa was unable to attend the 1851 tournament, though he was invited. In 1851, Anderssen lost

2160-621: Is often engaged for commentary as part of live broadcasts on the Internet. Chess historian Edward Winter has named him one of the top five Internet broadcasters. In the Introduction chapter of his book Winning , published in 2021, Short said "This is my first book, and it has taken a global pandemic for me to write it" and "I must confess that all books with my name on the cover – and with profound apologies to those who bought them – were all ghost-written". An October 2021 blog post on Chess.com made

2280-418: Is played to determine the world champion in chess . The current world champion is Ding Liren , who defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 World Chess Championship after the previous champion Magnus Carlsen had declined to defend his title. Ding is presently defending his title against Gukesh Dommaraju in the 2024 World Chess Championship tournament. The first event recognized as a world championship

2400-544: The 1984 World Chess Championship , Karpov fought against Garry Kasparov . Karpov retained the title after the tournament went for more than five months and was terminated with Karpov leading with five wins to Kasparov's three and 40 draws after 48 matches. Karpov eventually lost his title in 1985 to Kasparov, who won the title by a scoreline of 13–11. The two played three more subsequent championships in World Chess Championship 1986 (won by Kasparov, 12½–11½), World Chess Championship 1987 (drawn 12–12, Kasparov retained

2520-1312: The Amsterdam VSB tournament in 1991, where he tied for first place with Valery Salov ahead of both Kasparov and Karpov. In addition to World Championship cycle results already mentioned above, Short has enjoyed other success as a match player, beating US Champion Lev Alburt in Foxborough, Massachusetts in 1985 by the score of 7–1 (+6=2). He has also defeated Utut Adianto (+3=3) in Jakarta 1995, Étienne Bacrot in Albert 2000 (+3−1=2), Hannes Stefánsson in Reykjavík 2002 (+4−1=1), Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in Tehran 2003 (+2=4) Zahar Efimenko in Mukachevo 2009 (+2−1=3) and Hou Yifan in Hoogeveen 2016 (+2-1=3). Short lost to Joel Benjamin by 2½–1½ at London 1983, drew with Eugenio Torre (+1−1=4) in Manila 1988, drew with Timman (3–3) in an exhibition match at Hilversum in 1989, defeated Boris Gulko in extra games in

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2640-480: The Anderssen vs Steinitz match (London, 1866); Steinitz and Zukertort played their 1886 match for £400 a side. Lasker introduced the practice of demanding that the challenger should provide the whole of the purse, and his successors followed his example up to World War II. This requirement made arranging world championship matches more difficult, for example: Marshall challenged Lasker in 1904 but could not raise

2760-666: The Islamic Republic of Iran from 2006 to 2007. His first assignment led to their unexpectedly capturing a team bronze medal at the Asian Games in Doha , Qatar , in 2006. In the nine chess events at the Asian Indoor Games in Macau 2007, Iran took a silver and two bronze medals. Short was made an honorary Fellow of the then Bolton Institute of Higher Education in 1993, and was admitted to

2880-553: The London 1883 chess tournament by a convincing 3-point margin, ahead of nearly every leading player in the world, with Steinitz finishing second. This tournament established Steinitz and Zukertort as the best two players in the world, and led to a match between these two, the World Chess Championship 1886 , won by Steinitz. There is some debate over whether to date Steinitz's reign as world champion from his win over Anderssen in 1866, or from his win over Zukertort in 1886. The 1886 match

3000-536: The Paris 1867 chess tournament , behind Kolisch and Szymon Winawer ; he placed second at the Dundee 1867 tournament, behind Gustav Neumann ; and he again placed second at the Baden-Baden 1870 chess tournament , which was the strongest that had been held to date (Anderssen came first, and won twice against Steinitz). Steinitz confirmed his standing as the world's leading player by winning the London 1872 tournament, winning

3120-476: The Rothschild Bank . The third prizewinner, Isidor Gunsberg , was prepared to play Steinitz for the title in New York, so this match was played in 1890–1891 and was won by Steinitz. The experiment was not repeated, and Steinitz's later matches were private arrangements between the players. Two young strong players emerged in late 1880s and early 1890s: Siegbert Tarrasch and Emanuel Lasker . Tarrasch had

3240-489: The interregnum . The proposals which led to the 1948 Championship Tournament also specified the procedure by which challengers for the World Championship would be selected in a three-year cycle: countries affiliated to FIDE would send players to Zonal Tournaments (the number varied depending on how many good enough players each country had); the players who gained the top places in these would compete in an Interzonal Tournament (later split into two and then three tournaments as

3360-680: The 1830s, players from Germany and more generally Central Europe were beginning to appear on the scene: the strongest of the Berlin players around 1840 was probably Ludwig Bledow , co-founder of the Berlin Pleiades . The earliest recorded use of the term "World Champion" was in 1845, when Staunton was described as "the Chess Champion of England, or ... the Champion of the World". An important milestone

3480-610: The 1870s, the earliest being after the first Zukertort match in 1872. Later, in 1879, it was argued that Zukertort was world champion, since Morphy and Steinitz were not active. However, later in his career, at least from 1887, Steinitz dated his reign from this 1866 match, and early sources such as the New York Times in 1894, Emanuel Lasker in 1908, and Reuben Fine in 1952 all do the same. Many modern commentators divide Steinitz's reign into an "unofficial" one from 1866 to 1886, and an "official" one after 1886. By this reckoning,

3600-521: The 18th-century French player François-André Danican Philidor was "supposed to be the best Chess-player in the world". Philidor wrote an extremely successful chess book ( Analyse du jeu des Échecs ) and gave public demonstrations of his blindfold chess skills. However, some of Philidor's contemporaries were not convinced by the analysis Philidor gave in his book (e.g. the Modenese Masters ), and some more recent authors have echoed these doubts. In

3720-470: The 1962 Candidates and then defeated Botvinnik in 1963 to become world champion. After the 1962 Candidates, Bobby Fischer publicly alleged that the Soviets had colluded to prevent any non-Soviet – specifically him – from winning. He claimed that Petrosian, Efim Geller and Paul Keres had prearranged to draw all their games, and that Viktor Korchnoi had been instructed to lose to them. Yuri Averbakh , who

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3840-1145: The 1st Stars Cup in Anzali (2016), the British Knockout Championship (2016), the Bacolod Negros Open (2017), the Pre-League Blitz Open in Kampala (2018), the GM Nigel Short Blitz in Lagos (2018), and the Moja GM Tournament, in Kimberley , (2022). Short won the 50th edition of the Canadian Open Chess Championship in Ottawa in 2013, edging Canadian Grandmaster Eric Hansen on tiebreak after both finished with unbeaten 7½/9 scores. Arguably Short's finest tournament performance came at

3960-808: The 2003 European Championship." Azmaiparashvili filed a formal complaint to the FIDE Ethics Commission, which convened in July 2007. While dismissing the main complaints against Short, the commission sanctioned him for a minor violation of the FIDE Code of Ethics for his use of the word "dunderhead". In 2015, Short claimed that men are biologically better suited to chess than women, and that women have other skills, citing his wife's superior emotional intelligence as an example. In response to widespread criticism for these comments, Short reaffirmed his position, claiming in an interview that "it's quite easy to demonstrate there

4080-464: The American Paul Morphy (7–2, 2 draws). In 1858–59 Morphy played matches against several leading players, beating them all. This prompted some commentators at the time to call him the world champion: Gabriel-Éloy Doazan, who knew Morphy, wrote that "one can and...must place [him] in the same bracket" as Deschapelles and La Bourdonnais, who he had played years before, and that "his superiority

4200-574: The British WIM and author Cathy Forbes wrote that at no time in the 1993 bidding process did FIDE actually receive a conforming world championship match bid. In response, Short and Kasparov promptly formed a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association . The resulting match —sponsored by The Times newspaper—was held under the new body's auspices in London from September to October 1993. Kasparov won convincingly (+6−1=13) –

4320-655: The ChessBase website. He wrote a column, "Short Stories", for New in Chess magazine from January 2011 until December 2018. During the World Chess Championship 2013 he wrote a series of articles for The Indian Express . In 2014 he began writing a column for the Financial Times , interviewing Sol Campbell in the first article. He has individually coached young prodigies Pentala Harikrishna , Sergey Karjakin , David Howell and Parimarjan Negi . He worked as national coach of

4440-551: 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, a format which some felt did not necessarily recognize

4560-502: The FIDE World Championship in 1999 , Anand in 2000 , Ruslan Ponomariov in 2002 , and Rustam Kasimdzhanov in 2004 . 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

4680-449: The FIDE World Championship title, and instead held a rival match between Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman , the two final players Short had defeated to win the Candidates Tournament . Karpov won that match, 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. From 1993 to 1995,

4800-654: The PCA Candidates' quarterfinals at New York 1994, lost to Gata Kamsky by (5½–1½) in the PCA semi-finals at Linares 1995, and drew with Anish Giri in Amsterdam 2010 (+1-1=2). In a return to Tehran in March 2013, Short played a second match against the Iranian player Ehsan Ghaem Maghami . Billed as Talking Chess , the contest comprised four games with a classic time control , four games of rapid chess and eight games of blitz . As

4920-565: The PCA held an Interzonal tournament and Candidates matches, in the style of the FIDE world championship qualifiers. FIDE also had its own cycle of qualifiers, with many of the same players playing in both. The PCA candidates cycle was won by the Indian GM Viswanathan Anand . Kasparov defended his PCA World Championship title against Anand in the World Trade Center in a match starting September 11, 1995. Kasparov won

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5040-659: The Politiken Cup (2006), Bazna (2008), the Staunton Memorial (2009), Bangkok Chess Club Open (2011, 2012, 2015, 2017), Luanda (2011), 7th Edmonton International (2012), Bunratty (2012, 2016, 2017, 2020), RA Club Ottawa (2012), Pühajärve Rapid Chess Tournament (2012), Spicenet Tanzania Open (2013), PokerStars Isle of Man (2014), Zaw Win Lay Memorial Yangon (2014), the South African Open (2015)

5160-400: The World Championship, beginning with the 1948 tournament . From 1948 to 1993, FIDE organized a set of tournaments and matches to choose a new challenger for the world championship match, which was held every three years. Before the 1993 match , then reigning champion Garry Kasparov and his championship rival Nigel Short broke away from FIDE, and conducted the match under the umbrella of

5280-526: The World Championship. Fischer won the 1992 Fischer–Spassky rematch decisively with a score of 10–5. After becoming world champion by default, Karpov confirmed his worthiness for the title with a string of tournament successes from the mid 70s to the early 80s. He defended his title twice against ex-Soviet Viktor Korchnoi , first in Baguio in 1978 (6–5 with 21 draws) and in Merano in 1981 (6–2, with 10 draws). In

5400-746: The World Chess Federation (FIDE) in October 2018. He has written chess columns and book reviews for the British newspapers The Sunday Times , The Daily Telegraph , the Daily Mail and The Spectator . He wrote for The Sunday Telegraph for a decade and for The Guardian between 2005 and 19 October 2006. He reported on the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina , for

5520-742: The account. In January 2007, Short gave an interview to the Indian newspaper DNA , in which he called for an inquiry to examine allegations that Veselin Topalov cheated during the World Championship in San Luis. In the same DNA interview, Short was critical of the role of members of the Appeals Committee at the 2005 and 2006 World Championships, in particular FIDE Vice President Zurab Azmaiparashvili , whom he described as "singularly inappropriate for such work having, by his own admission, cheated in winning

5640-422: The best-of-20 game match 10.5 – 7.5. The PCA announced in January 1996 that it had lost its main sponsor, Intel . It was reported at the time that Kasparov said this was partly due to his choice to play a match against IBM 's supercomputer Deep Blue later that year. Kasparov, however, hotly disputes this and has proposed a different history, with Intel dropping sponsorship in November 1995, some weeks prior to

5760-547: The better tournament results at the time, but it was Lasker who was able to raise the money to challenge Steinitz. Lasker won the 1894 match and succeeded Steinitz as world champion. Lasker held the title from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign (27 years) of any champion. He won a return match against Steinitz in 1897 , and then did not defend his title for ten years, before playing four title defences in four years. He comfortably defeated Frank Marshall in 1907 and Siegbert Tarrasch in 1908 . In 1910, he almost lost his title in

5880-419: The breakdown of his first attempt to negotiate a title match against Lasker (1911), Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of future challenges, which were agreed to by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim Congress later that year. The main points were: the champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by

6000-485: The case that the anonymous grandmaster player "honestgirl" was, in fact, Nigel Short, based on their similar preferences for variations of the game, and based on the fact that "honestgirl" is an anagram of "Nigel Short". In 2001, Short told The Sunday Telegraph chess column that he believed he had been secretly playing the reclusive former chess champion Bobby Fischer on the online chess platform Internet Chess Club in speed chess matches. Fischer denied ownership of

6120-402: The challenger or both players, with the assistance of financial backers, would contribute to a purse ; about half would be distributed to the winner's backers, and the winner would receive the larger share of the remainder (the loser's backers got nothing). The players had to meet their own travel, accommodation, food and other expenses out of their shares of the purse. This system evolved out of

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6240-406: The champion must defend his title within one year of receiving a challenge from a recognized master; the champion would decide the date of the match; the champion was not obliged to accept a challenge for a purse of less than US$ 10,000 (about $ 170,000 in current terms); 20% of the purse was to be paid to the title holder, and the remainder being divided, 60% going to the winner of the match, and 40% to

6360-609: The championship should be awarded to the winner of a round-robin tournament in which the other six participants at AVRO would play four games against each other. These players were: Max Euwe , from the Netherlands; Botvinnik, Paul Keres and Salo Flohr from the Soviet Union; and Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky from the United States. However, FIDE soon accepted a Soviet request to substitute Vasily Smyslov for Flohr, and Fine dropped out in order to continue his degree studies in psychology , so only five players competed. Botvinnik won convincingly and thus became world champion, ending

6480-456: The chess Olympiads of Thessaloniki 1984 , Dubai 1986 (where he also took gold medal for the best individual performance on board three) and Thessaloniki 1988. He took a team bronze in the Novi Sad Olympiad of 1990 , and led England to fourth-place finishes in both 1994 and 1996 . He led the English team to victory in the 1997 Euroteams at Pula , and was a member of the bronze winning team in 1992, and of fourth place teams in 1983 and 2001. He

6600-416: The chess world for the next several years. Short won the British Chess Championship in 1984, 1987 and 1998, and the English Championship in 1991 (the only year in which the latter event was held). He was the Commonwealth Champion in 2004 ( Mumbai ), 2006 ( Mumbai ) and 2008 ( Nagpur ). He won the 2006 EU Individual Open Chess Championship in Liverpool and took a share of second place in 2008 when it

6720-557: The classic games progressed, the players gave an intermittent live commentary, aimed at increasing the understanding of the live and television audiences, who could contrast and compare the player's own thoughts and assessments. Short won the classic games (+2=2), the rapid games (+3−1) and the blitz games (+3−2=3). Short made his international team debut in the European Team Chess Championship at age 17 at Plovdiv 1983. He represented England in 17 consecutive Olympiads between 1984 and 2016. Short's main highlights are: team silver medals in

6840-453: The dynasty by placing a fourth Frenchman on the throne of the world? the three last chess chiefs having been successively Philidor, Deschapelles, and De La Bourdonnais." After La Bourdonnais' death in December 1840, Englishman Howard Staunton 's match victory over another Frenchman, Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant , in 1843 is considered to have established Staunton as the world's strongest player, at least in England and France. By

6960-451: The early 1920s but only Alekhine could raise the US$ 10,000 Capablanca demanded and only in 1927. Capablanca was shockingly upset by the new challenger. Before the match, almost nobody gave Alekhine a chance against the dominant Cuban , but Alekhine overcame Capablanca's natural skill with his unmatched drive and extensive preparation (especially deep opening analysis, which became a hallmark of most future grandmasters). The aggressive Alekhine

7080-548: The early 19th century, it was generally considered that the French player Alexandre Deschapelles was the strongest player of the time, though three games between him and the English player William Lewis in 1821 suggests that they were on par. After Deschapelles and Lewis withdrew from play, the strongest players from France and England respectively were recognised as Louis de la Bourdonnais and Alexander McDonnell . La Bourdonnais visited England in 1825, where he played many games against Lewis and won most of them, and defeated all

7200-438: The early discussions on how to resolve the interregnum because problems with money and travel so soon after the end of World War II prevented many countries from sending representatives. The shortage of clear information resulted in otherwise responsible magazines publishing rumors and speculation, which only made the situation more confusing. It did not help that the Soviet Union had long refused to join FIDE, and by this time it

7320-424: The final of the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 . 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

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7440-435: The final venue. Even then Fischer raised difficulties, mainly over money. It took a phone call from United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and a doubling of the prize money by financier Jim Slater to persuade him to play. After a few more traumatic moments Fischer won the match 12½–8½. An unbroken line of FIDE champions had thus been established from 1948 to 1972, with each champion gaining his title by beating

7560-451: The first World Championship match was in 1886 , and Steinitz was the first official World Chess Champion. Following the Steinitz–Zukertort match, a tradition continued of the world championship being decided by a match between the reigning champion, and a challenger: if a player thought he was strong enough, he (or his friends) would find financial backing for a match purse and challenge the reigning world champion. If he won, he would become

7680-441: The first player to win six or eight games (the champion had the right to choose); and the stake should be at least £1,000 (about £120,000 in current terms). Following the controversies surrounding his 1921 match against Lasker, in 1922 world champion Capablanca proposed the "London Rules": the first player to win six games would win the match; playing sessions would be limited to 5 hours; the time limit would be 40 moves in 2½ hours;

7800-419: The first time at the 1983 European Team finals in Plovdiv . He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1984, aged 19—becoming the youngest grandmaster in the world at the time, being later supplanted by Simen Agdestein . Short's arrival on the World Chess Championship title began in earnest in 1985 when he narrowly qualified from the Biel Interzonal to become Britain's first-ever candidate . He needed

7920-436: The highest-quality play: 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

8040-449: The honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the University of Bolton in 2010. In 1999 he was appointed MBE , in recognition of his chess accomplishments. In August 2005, he was unanimously elected secretary general of the Commonwealth Chess Association . He became its president in June 2006, stepping down in January 2008. He was the FIDE delegate for the ECF between 2009 and 2014. During important chess events in recent years, Short

8160-443: The initial planning of the Deep Blue match. The PCA folded soon afterwards, leaving Kasparov unable to organise a proper qualifying cycle for his title. He finally played (and lost) a match to a hand-picked challenger, Vladimir Kramnik , in 2000 ( Classical World Chess Championship 2000 ). This match was played under the auspices of Brain Games. When Kramnik defended his title at the Classical World Chess Championship 2004 , he gave

8280-444: The largest margin of victory in a world title contest since Botvinnik defeated Tal in 1961. The unprecedented rebellion organized by Kasparov and Short resulted in a parallel World Championship cycle organized by FIDE, featuring Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman playing a title match later in 1993, which was won by Karpov. Short and Kasparov were both sanctioned by FIDE, and the situation led to enormous controversy and upheaval in

8400-439: The last century, at least, wielded by a Gallic dynasty. It has passed from Legalle [Philidor's teacher, who Philidor regarded as being a player equal to himself, according to Deschapelles] to La Bourdonnais, through the grasp, successively, of Philidor, Bernard, Carlier [two members of La Société des Amateurs ], and Deschapelles". In 1840, a columnist in Fraser's Magazine (who was probably Walker) wrote, "Will Gaul continue

8520-460: The last round of the Manila Interzonal and finished equal third with Viswanathan Anand , behind Vassily Ivanchuk and Boris Gelfand , qualifying him as a Candidate for the third successive time. Meeting Speelman again in the 8/Final, in London, he tied a close match (+2-2=4) before edging his older opponent 1.5-0.5 in the tie-break. The 1/4 final, against Gelfand, in Brussels, was a bloodthirsty affair in which Short eventually prevailed (+4-2=2). In

8640-518: The late 19th century. Before Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort in the late 19th century, no chess player seriously claimed to be champion of the world. The phrase was used by some chess writers to describe other players of their day, and the status of being the best at the time has sometimes been awarded in retrospect, going back to the early 17th-century Italian player Gioachino Greco (the first player where complete games survive). Richard Lambe, in his 1764 book The History of Chess , wrote that

8760-421: The loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine , Bogoljubow , Maróczy , Réti , Rubinstein , Tartakower and Vidmar promptly signed them. The only match played under those rules was Capablanca vs Alekhine in 1927 , although there has been speculation that the actual contract might have included a "two-game lead" clause. Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch had all challenged Capablanca in

8880-402: The match should be considered drawn if neither player finished with a two-game lead; and it should have a maximum of 30 games, but finish if either player won six games and had a two-game lead (previous matches had been won by the first to win a certain number of games, usually 10; in theory, such a match might go on for ever). Capablanca objected to the two-game lead clause; Lasker took offence at

9000-552: 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

9120-476: The money until 1907; in 1911 Lasker and Rubinstein agreed in principle to a world championship match, but this was never played as Rubinstein could not raise the money. In the early 1920s, Alekhine , Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch all challenged Capablanca , but only Alekhine was able to raise the US$ 10,000 that Capablanca demanded, and not until 1927. Attempts to form an international chess federation were made at

9240-532: The new champion. Steinitz successfully defended his world title against Mikhail Chigorin in 1889 , Isidor Gunsberg in 1891 , and Chigorin again in 1892 . In 1887, the American Chess Congress started work on drawing up regulations for the future conduct of world championship contests. Steinitz supported this endeavor, as he thought he was becoming too old to remain world champion. The proposal evolved through many forms (as Steinitz pointed out, such

9360-419: The newly formed Professional Chess Association . FIDE conducted its own tournament, which was won by Anatoly Karpov , and led to a rival claimant to the title of World Champion for the next thirteen years until 2006. The titles were unified at the World Chess Championship 2006 , and all the subsequent tournaments and matches have once again been administered by FIDE. Since 2014 , the championship has settled on

9480-461: The next cycle, 1963–1966, the round-robin tournament was replaced by a series of elimination matches. Initially the quarter-finals and semi-finals were best of 10 games, and the final was best of 12. Fischer, however, refused to take part in the 1966 cycle, and dropped out of the 1969 cycle after a controversy at 1967 Interzonal in Sousse. Both these Candidates cycles were won by Boris Spassky , who lost

9600-432: The number of Soviet players he might have to meet in the title match. Botvinnik lost to Vasily Smyslov in 1957 but won the return match in 1958, and lost to Mikhail Tal in 1960 but won the return match in 1961. Thus Smyslov and Tal each held the world title for a year, but Botvinnik was world champion for rest of the time from 1948 to 1963. The return match clause was not in place for the 1963 cycle. Tigran Petrosian won

9720-532: The number of countries and eligible players increased ); the highest-placed players from the Interzonal would compete in the Candidates Tournament , along with whoever lost the previous title match and the second-placed competitor in the previous Candidates Tournament three years earlier; and the winner of the Candidates played a title match against the champion. Until 1962 inclusive the Candidates Tournament

9840-567: 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

9960-499: The other English masters despite offering handicaps . He and McDonnell contested a long series of matches in 1834 . These were the first to be adequately reported, and they somewhat resemble the later world championship matches. Approximately 85 games (the true number is up for historical debate) were played, with La Bourdonnais winning a majority of the games. In 1839, George Walker wrote "The sceptre of chess, in Europe, has been for

10080-458: The previous incumbent. This came to an end when Anatoly Karpov won the right to challenge Fischer in 1975. Fischer objected to the "best of 24 games" championship match format that had been used from 1951 onwards, claiming that it would encourage whoever got an early lead to play for draws. Instead he demanded that the match should be won by whoever first won 10 games, except that if the score reached 9–9 he should remain champion. He argued that this

10200-440: The right to challenge Kasparov for the title. However, before the match took place, both Kasparov and Short complained of FIDE's mishandling of the prize pool in organizing the match, corruption in the leadership, and FIDE's failure to abide by their own rules, and split from FIDE to set up the Professional Chess Association (PCA), under whose auspices they held their match. In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title and held

10320-452: The rules very flexibly to enable Fischer to play, as he thought it important for the health and reputation of the game that Fischer should have the opportunity to challenge for the title as soon as possible. Fischer crushed all opposition and won the right to challenge reigning champion Boris Spassky . After agreeing to play in Yugoslavia, Fischer raised a series of objections and Iceland was

10440-405: The same conditions that governed their match in 1927. Although FIDE wished to set up a match between Alekhine and Bogoljubow, it made little progress and the title "Champion of FIDE" quietly vanished after Alekhine won the 1929 world championship match that he and Bogoljubow themselves arranged. While negotiating his 1937 World Championship rematch with Alekhine, Euwe proposed that if he retained

10560-584: The semifinal, in 1992, the Englishman overcame former World Champion Anatoly Karpov (+4−2=4) in a match that was described as "the end of an era". In the final, in San Lorenzo de El Escorial , Short defeated Dutchman Jan Timman (+5−3=5) to earn the right to meet defending World Champion Garry Kasparov. The King walk , perhaps the most famous in recent history, where Nigel Short defeated Jan Timman in Tilburg in 1991,

10680-435: The strong London 1862 chess tournament . Louis Paulsen and Ignatz Kolisch were also playing at a comparable standard to Anderssen in the 1860s: Anderssen narrowly won a match against Kolisch in 1861, and drew against Paulsen in 1862. In 1866, Wilhelm Steinitz narrowly defeated Anderssen in a match (8–6, 0 draws). However, he was not immediately able to conclusively demonstrate his superiority. Steinitz placed third at

10800-426: The terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations. Further controversy arose when, in 1912, Lasker's terms for a proposed match with Akiba Rubinstein included a clause that, if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Rubinstein should become world champion. When he resumed negotiations with Capablanca after World War I , Lasker insisted on

10920-455: The time of the 1914 St. Petersburg , 1914 Mannheim and 1920 Gothenburg Tournaments. On 20 July 1924 the participants at the Paris tournament founded FIDE as a kind of players' union. FIDE's congresses in 1925 and 1926 expressed a desire to become involved in managing the world championship. FIDE was largely happy with the "London Rules", but claimed that the requirement for a purse of $ 10,000

11040-415: The title match to Petrosian in 1966, but won and became world champion in 1969. In the 1969–1972 cycle Fischer caused two more crises. He refused to play in the 1969 US Championship, which was a Zonal Tournament. This would have eliminated him from the 1969–1972 cycle, but Benko was persuaded to concede his place in the Interzonal to Fischer. FIDE President Max Euwe accepted this maneuver and interpreted

11160-767: The title on tiebreak. Later in 1979, Short tied for first place in the World Championship for players under age 16, the World Cadet Championship, at Belfort , France, but lost to Argentinian Marcello Tempone on tiebreak. He became (at the time) the youngest International Master in chess history by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80, breaking Bobby Fischer's record from 1958. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–83), Short achieved his best result during his first attempt, when he placed second to Garry Kasparov in 1980 at Dortmund . Short represented England in international team play for

11280-567: The title the name "Classical", to emphasise the continuity that his title had with the tradition of defeating the previous titleholder. Since this is the same title as the Kasparov's PCA World title, the PCA World title is sometimes retrospectively called the "Classical" title. The PCA split from FIDE was finally healed with the FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 , a re-unification match between Kramnik and 2005 FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov , which

11400-522: The title to Alekhine in 1927; if Euwe lost his title to Capablanca then FIDE's decision should be followed and Capablanca would have to play Flohr in 1940. Most chess writers and players strongly supported the Dutch super-tournament proposal and opposed the committee processes favored by FIDE. While this confusion went unresolved: Euwe lost his title to Alekhine; the AVRO tournament in 1938 was won by Paul Keres under

11520-402: The title), and World Chess Championship 1990 (won by Kasparov, 12½–11½). In the five tournaments, Kasparov and Karpov played a total of 144 World Championship games with 104 draws, 21 wins by Kasparov and 19 wins by Karpov. In 1993, Nigel Short broke the domination of Kasparov and Karpov by defeating Karpov in the candidates semi-finals followed by Jan Timman in the finals, thereby earning

11640-494: The title, FIDE should manage the nomination of future challengers and the conduct of championship matches. FIDE had been trying since 1935 to introduce rules on how to select challengers, and its various proposals favored selection by some sort of committee. While they were debating procedures in 1937 and Alekhine and Euwe were preparing for their rematch later that year, the Royal Dutch Chess Federation proposed that

11760-407: The title. Capablanca argued that, if the champion abdicated, the title must go to the challenger, as any other arrangement would be unfair to the challenger. Lasker later agreed to play a match against Capablanca in 1921, announcing that, if he won, he would resign the title so that younger masters could compete for it. Capablanca won their 1921 match by four wins, ten draws and no losses. After

11880-422: The two Soviet representatives in FIDE, who were personal friends of reigning champion Mikhail Botvinnik . A defeated champion would have the right to a return match. FIDE also limited the number of players from the same country that could compete in the Candidates Tournament , on the grounds that it would reduce Soviet dominance of the tournament. Averbakh claimed that this was to Botvinnik's advantage as it reduced

12000-632: The venue of the winning bid as being Manchester . FIDE derived a substantial part of its income from the prize fund of the World Championship. 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 September and October 1993. The match took place in the Savoy Theatre in London , under the sponsorship of The Times . Kasparov won clearly 12.5–7.5 and became PCA World Chess Champion. FIDE stripped Kasparov of

12120-432: The wagering of small stakes on club games in the early 19th century. Up to and including the 1894 Steinitz–Lasker match, both players, with their backers, generally contributed equally to the purse, following the custom of important matches in the 19th century before there was a generally recognized world champion. For example: the stakes were £100 a side in both the second Staunton vs Saint-Amant match (Paris, 1843) and

12240-452: The world championship is open to all players, there are separate championships for women , under-20s and lower age groups , and seniors . There are also chess world championships in rapid , blitz , correspondence , problem solving , Fischer random chess , and computer chess . The game of chess in its modern form emerged in Spain in the 15th century, though rule variations persisted until

12360-406: Was 13 years old. Short left school at age 17, having completed four O-levels , to focus on chess full-time. Short learned chess at age five from his father. A chess prodigy , Short first attracted significant media attention as a 10-year-old by defeating Viktor Korchnoi , then ranked No. 2 in the world, in a simultaneous exhibition in London over 31 boards, where Short was the only victor. He

12480-569: Was a journalist and his mother was a school secretary. He grew up in Atherton , going to St Philip's Primary School on Bolton Old Road. He studied at the independent Bolton School and Leigh College . Short began playing chess at the age of five after watching his father teach his older brother Martin. He was a member both of Atherton Chess Club, which was founded by his father, and later of Bolton Chess Club, which had initially rejected him (aged seven) for being too young. His parents divorced when he

12600-473: Was a member of three English teams in the World Team Chess Championships of 1985 (team bronze), 1989 (team bronze), and 1997 (team fourth). His complete log when representing England in major international team events follows. Olympiad: European Team Championship: World Team Championship: World Senior Team Championship: Short was appointed to serve as one of several Vice Presidents of

12720-531: Was a multi-cycle round-robin tournament – how and why it was changed are described below. The FIDE system followed its 1948 design through five cycles: 1948–1951, 1951–1954, 1954–1957, 1957–1960 and 1960–1963. The first two world championships under this system were drawn 12–12 – Botvinnik-Bronstein in 1951 and Botvinnik-Smyslov in 1954 – so Botvinnik retained the title both times. In 1956 FIDE introduced two apparently minor changes which Soviet grandmaster and chess official Yuri Averbakh alleged were instigated by

12840-469: Was clear that about half the credible contenders were Soviet citizens. But, realizing that it could not afford to be excluded from discussions about the vacant world championship, the Soviet Union sent a telegram in 1947 apologizing for the absence of Soviet representatives and requesting that the USSR be represented on future FIDE Committees. The eventual solution was very similar to FIDE's initial proposal and to

12960-425: Was clearly agreed to be for the world championship, but there is no indication that Steinitz was regarded as the defending champion. There is also no known evidence of Steinitz being called the world champion after defeating Anderssen in 1866. It has been suggested that Steinitz could not make such a claim while Morphy was alive (Morphy died in 1884). There are a number of references to Steinitz as world champion in

13080-407: 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. Kasparov's frustration at the situation played a part in his decision to retire 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

13200-454: Was head of the Soviet team, confirmed in 2002 that Petrosian, Geller and Keres arranged to draw all their games in order to save their energy for games against non-Soviet players. Korchnoi, who defected from the USSR in 1976, never confirmed that he was forced to throw games. FIDE responded by changing the format of future Candidates Tournaments to eliminate the possibility of collusion. Beginning in

13320-996: Was held there again. He has finished outright first, or tied for first, in dozens of other international tournaments, including Geneva (1979), Belfort , World Under 16 (1979), the BBC Master Game (1981), Amsterdam OHRA (1982), Baku (1983), Esbjerg (1984), British Rapidplay Chess Championship (1986), Wijk aan Zee (1986, 1987), Reykjavík (1987), Amsterdam VSB (1988, 1991, 1992, 1993), Hastings (1987/88, 1988/89), Pärnu (1996), Groningen (1996), Tallinn /Pärnu (1998), Isle of Man Monarch Assurance 1998, Dhaka United Insurance (1999), Shymkent (1999), Pamplona (1999/2000), Linares Open (2000), Tan Chin Nam Cup, Beijing (2000), Sigeman and Co. Malmö (2002, 2009, 2013 joint first shared with Richárd Rapport and Nils Grandelius ), Gibraltar (2003, 2004, 2012), Budapest Hunguest Hotels (2003), Samba Cup, Skanderborg (2003), Taiyuan (2004),

13440-429: Was helped by his tactical skill, which complicated the game. Immediately after winning, Alekhine announced that he was willing to grant Capablanca a return match provided Capablanca met the requirements of the "London Rules". Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight. Alekhine easily won two title matches against Efim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934 . In 1935 , Alekhine

13560-503: Was impracticable and called upon Capablanca to come to an agreement with the leading masters to revise the Rules. In 1926 FIDE decided in principle to create a title of "Champion of FIDE" and, in 1928, adopted the forthcoming 1928 Bogoljubow – Euwe match (won by Bogoljubow) as being for the "FIDE championship". Alekhine agreed to place future matches for the world title under the auspices of FIDE, except that he would only play Capablanca under

13680-456: Was more advantageous to the challenger than the champion's advantage under the existing system, where the champion retained the title if the match was tied at 12–12 including draws. Eventually FIDE deposed Fischer and crowned Karpov as the new champion. Fischer privately maintained that he was still World Champion. He went into seclusion and did not play chess in public again until 1992, when Spassky agreed to participate in an unofficial rematch for

13800-533: Was the 1886 match between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort , which was won by Steinitz, who became the first world champion. From 1886 to 1946, the champion set the terms, requiring any challenger to raise a sizable stake and defeat the champion in a match in order to become the new world champion. Following the death of reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) took over administration of

13920-507: Was the London 1851 chess tournament , which was the first international chess tournament, organized by Staunton. It was played as a series of matches, and was won convincingly by the German Adolf Anderssen , including a 4–1 semi-final win over Staunton. This established Anderssen as the world's leading player. In 1893, Henry Bird retrospectively awarded the title of first world chess champion to Anderssen for his victory, but there

14040-511: Was unexpectedly defeated by the Dutch Max Euwe , an amateur player who worked as a mathematics teacher. Alekhine convincingly won a rematch in 1937 . World War II temporarily prevented any further world title matches, and Alekhine remained world champion until his death in 1946. Before 1948 world championship matches were financed by arrangements similar to those Emanuel Lasker described for his 1894 match with Wilhelm Steinitz : either

14160-529: Was virtually self-taught. In 1977, he became the youngest-ever participant in the British Chess Championship by qualifying through the North West Zonal three days before his 12th birthday. In the event itself, he defeated ten-time British champion Jonathan Penrose , and finished with 5/11, an excellent showing for a debutant. Short dominated British youth chess during this period, and earned

14280-464: Was voted as one of the hundred greatest chess games in a list compiled by FM Graham Burgess, and GMs John Nunn and John Emms. According to Short and Kasparov, the head of the chess world's governing body FIDE, Florencio Campomanes , in breach of FIDE rules, decided the location of the match (Manchester) and the prize fund without consulting them. In her book Nigel Short: Quest for the Crown (Cadogan 1993),

14400-474: Was won by Kramnik. Nigel Short Nigel David Short MBE (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster , columnist, coach and commentator who has been the FIDE Director for Chess Development since September 2022. Short earned the title of grandmaster at the age of 19 and was ranked third in the world by FIDE from July 1988 to July 1989. In 1993, he became the first English player to play

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