World Champions

The World Championship of Chess is recognised to have started in 1886 with German Wilhelm Steinitz taking victory. He was succeeded by Emanuel Lasker (Germany) in 1894 who reigned until 1921, which remains the longest period for a World Champion and is unlikely to be surpassed. 

Lasker was beaten by Jose Raul Capablanca (Cuba) who was thought invincible for a period. But Alexander Alekhine (Russia) tore the title from his grasp in 1927. Alekhine reigned until his death in 1946, apart from a two-year period when Dr Max Euwe (the Netherlands) held the title.

When Alekhine died, the title was vacant and was played for as a 5 player round-robin in 1948. This was under the control of FIDE, Federation Internationale des Echecs, the world's ruling body of the game.  The title was won by Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR), the only player to ever hold the world title on three separate occasions. Botvinnik was the first in a line of Soviet World Champions.

Vassily Smyslov (USSR) who is still alive, won the title from him in 1957, but lost it back the next year in the return match. Similarly Mikhail Tal (USSR) beat Botvinnik very convincingly in 1960 only to lose the return match equally convincingly in 1961. Finally Tigran Petrosian (USSR) wrested the title from Botvinnink in 1963.

Boris Spassky (USSR) overcame Tigran in 1969. Then Bobby Fischer (USA) burst onto the scene and beat Spassky convincingly. This was regarded as a microcosm of the Cold War and attracted huge attention. Indeed, it is said that this match contributed to the downfall of the entire Soviet system. Sadly Bobby did not defend his title and died in 2008. Spassky is still with us, although he no longer plays competitively. Thus Anatoly Karpov (USSR) ascended the thrown without actually playing a match for the title. Even so, he was a very worthy champion and defended his title successfully in 1978 and 1981.

Karpov then had an epic series of matches with Garry Kasparov (USSR) who had an aborted match with Karpov in 1984, won in 1985 and won all subsequent matches. Both Karpov and Kasparov are now of course Russian citizens. Kasparov is widely recognised as the strongest and most famous chess player of all time. He was World Champion from 1985 - 2000 and still holds numerous records. Kasparov's fame was escalated by his match with the IBM computer Deep Blue in 1997, in which he lost twice but won the final three games to take victory.

There was an unfortunate period from 1993 where FIDE lost control of the World Championship and there were two titles, neither gaining absolute credence. This started with the Kasparov Nigel Short (England) match held in London in 1993, where Short was beaten rather easily. Kasparov lost his title to Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) in London in 2000. Garry retired some years later, still the highest rated player of all time. There has been a confusion of World Champions since 1993. But the list does include Alexander Khalifman (Russia), Viswanathan Anand (India), Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine), Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzbekistan), Veselin Topalov (Ukraine). The current undisputed Champion is once again Anand who will defend his title in 2010 against Topalov. 

The Young Ones

The age at which players become grandmasters (GM) continues to drop. Bobby Fischer, for example, was just 15 when he became a GM and it was thought that record would never be beaten. But Sergey Karjakin achieved the title well before his 13th birthday.

It is now much easier to become a strong chess player rapidly. There are several reasons for this: there are many more international tournaments in which players can hone their skills. The strength of chess computers has grown exponentially, giving players easy access to chess analysis of the highest level. And chess is now played on the internet throughout the globe.

Women's chess

Women's chess has always lagged behind the male game. This is mainly because of the sheer statistical weight of numbers: nine men to every woman. The reasons for this are mainly social. Who wants to go to a chess club and find oneself the only female there? But this is changing rapidly. Judit Polgar has been the top woman player in the world for many years, but she has never thought of herself in those terms. She is one of the world's leading players. At the Chess Olympiad in Dresden in 2008, there were nearly as many female players as male.