Kasparov used some of openings from his DB while coaching Magnus Carlsen. In 2009. Under Kasparov’s tutelage, Carlsen became the youngest ever to achieve FIDE rating higher than 2800, and the youngest ever world number one. Carlsen 2014:
https://chess24.com/en/read/news/magnus-carlsen-on-reddit-ask-me-anything Particularly impressed by the 1994 Candidates match between Anand and Kamsky.

2014 Candidates by Anand’s win against Aronian in the first round – It’s not often that you beat the number 2 player in the world purely by technique.

https://chess24.com/en/read/news/candidates-round-1-the-tiger-is-back .
His favorite chess book is Kramnik: My Life & Games. Carlsen : In order to become a Master or an International Master, I think you can start later and it’s more about putting in the time and hard work rather than talent. Anand, Kramnik, Topalov and Svidler. I prefer to give mainstream openings my own spin.

What’s your favorite non-chess book? Close race between several Donald Duck comics (seriously).

The chess games of Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais

Something resembling (Appear like; be similar,  corresponding, matching) a world championship match was the La  Bourdonnais – McDonnell chess matches in 1834, in which La Bourdonnais played a series of six matches – and 85 games – against the Irishman Alexander McDonnell, with La Bourdonnais winning a majority of the games.The idea of a chess world champion goes back at least to 1840, when a columnist in Fraser’s Magazine wrote, “Will Gaul continue 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.”

The chess games of Howard Staunton

A letter quoted in The Times on 16 November 1843, but probably written before that, described the second Staunton vs Saint-Amant match, played in Paris in November–December 1843, as being for “the golden sceptre of Philidor.”[1] The earliest recorded use of the term “World Champion” was in 1845, when Howard Staunton was described as “the Chess Champion of England, or
… the Champion of the World”.[5]Howard Staunton is considered to have been the strongest chess player in the world during 1840s.The first known proposal that a contest should be defined in advance as being
for recognition as the world’s best player was by Ludwig Bledow in a letter to Tassilo von der Lasa, written in 1846 and published in the Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1848: “… the winner of the battle in Paris [in 1843, when Staunton defeated St. Amant] should not be overly proud of his special position, since it is in Trier that the crown will first be awarded.” This was in reference to a proposed tournament to be held in Trier, where von de Lasa resided; but Bledow died in 1846 and the proposed tournament did not take place.[1] Similarly, the London 1851 chess tournament was described beforehand by some contemporary commentators as being for the world championship,[6] but there is no mention afterwards in the tournament book by Staunton.[7]

The chess games of Paul Morphy

Morphy  at twelve years of age defeated visiting Hungarian master Johann Loewenthal in a three game match.Morphy played matches against several leading players, crushing them all.[11][12]Morphy’s sudden withdrawal from chess at his peak led to his being known as
“the pride and sorrow of chess“

Dominated all of his opposition during his brief chess career. Due to his astounding achievements, an official World Championship match was only held after his death.Rich child, greatest natural chess talent. 1858 defeated Anderssen and many other Europeans and retited when was 22 years old (declined to play or discuss chess).
Article in Harper’s Weekly (9 October 1858; by C.H. Stanley) was uncertain
about whether Morphy vs Harrwitz match was being for the world championship.[6] Soon after, Morphy offered pawn and move odds to anyone who played him. Finding no takers, he abruptly retired from chess the following year, but many considered him the world champion until his death in 1884.Brilliancy and accuracy of combinations, radical innovator. It was he who introduced the innovation which proved to be a death-knell (smrtno zvono) of romantic type of chess in which brilliancy was the be-all and end-all of every game. Correctness of his moves instead useless sacrifices.
Intuitive with the logical as only the great artist can.  Note how quickly
Morphy made converts.Many report that he was able to recite from memory nearly the entire Civil Code of Louisiana (3,500 articles). Fischer  and Viswanathan Anand ranked Morphy among the ten greatest chess players of all time. Fischer described him as “perhaps the most accurate player who ever lived“. Morphy learned to play chess by watching games between his father and uncle.
Morphy was a player who intuitively knew what was best, and in this regard he has been likened to Jose Capablanca. He was, like Capablanca, a child prodigy; he played quickly, would draw or even win games despite getting into bad positions. Anderssen said that, after one bad move against Morphy, one might as well resign. Garry Kasparov said that Morphy realized quarter-century before Wilhelm Steinitz had formulated principles :

1. fast development of the pieces
2. domain of the centre
3. opening lines – verticales, diagonales, horizontales

Reuben Fine : “[Morphy’s] glorifiers went on to urge that he was the most
brilliant genius who had ever appeared But if we examine Morphy’s record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. He was so far ahead of his rivals that it is hard to find really outstanding examples of his skill.”

Born to a wealthy and distinguished (ugledna) family in New Orleans 1837, died on July 10. 1884 at the age of 47 by stroke brought on by entering cold water in his bathtub after a long walk in the midday heat. The Morphy mansion 417 Royal Street which backs up to Bourbon Street, sold by the family in 1891, became the site of the well-known restaurant Brennan’s.  In accord with the prevailing sentiment of the time, Morphy esteemed chess only as an amateur activity, considering the game unworthy of pursuit as a serious occupation. Chess professionals were viewed in the same light as professional gamblers.  Morphy was never able to establish a successful law practice – 1861 outbreak of the American Civil War, suffered from delusions of persecution (chasing, progon). He lived a life of idleness, living off his family’s fortune, was cared by his sister and mother.

1851 new age :  first International Chess Tournament in London, Adolph
Anderssen of Berlin won – Another great player, almost as great as Morphy, and in the opinion of some capable judges even superior to him. Anderssen was best about ten years before Morphy’s appearance. Also brilliancy and accuracy of combinations. Anderssen died of a heart attack at the age of 60.Morphy  vs Anderssen 1858  7-2, 2 draws, after which Morphy was toasted across the chess-playing world as the world chess champion.Anderssen is seen as the world’s leading player from 1851, until he was defeated by Paul Morphy in 1858. After Morphy’s retirement from chess, Anderssen was regarded as the strongest active player, especially after winning the London 1862 chess tournament.
The 1851 London tournament was won by Adolf Anderssen, establishing
him as the world’s leading player.[8] Anderssen has been described as the
first modern chess master.[9] However, there is no evidence that he was widely acclaimed at the time as the world champion, although in 1893 Henry Bird retrospectively awarded the title to Anderssen for his victory.[10]

Age of Steinitz 10 years till 1890

Against Johannes Zukertort in 1872 (7-1, 4 draws).
Vienna 1873 chess tournament
Against Joseph Henry Blackburne by a crushing 7-0 (0 draws) in 1876.
Zukertort  1886, won by Steinitz.
Mikhail Chigorin in 1889,
Isidor  Gunsberg in 1891, and Chigorin again in 1892.

Steinitz was genius accused “destroyed brilliancy in chess” – not true.

Steinitz the first master of positional chess, was a strikingly (impressing, hitting, prominent) brilliant player, not only as a mettlesome (spirited, proud and unbroken spirit) youngster, but even as a feeble (lacking in force, effectiveness, strength, vigour, strength, vitality, dynamism, energy) old man.

L1: Game No. 73 shows us how Steinitz played at the beginning of his career –
enthusiastic disciple of the attacking school. Very shortly thereafter he
experienced a thoroughgoing conversion. He became obsessed with the
deeply-rooted carelessness, flashiness (exhibitionism, immodesty, tasteless
showiness) and frequent unsoundness of attacking school oposed to
combinations of Morphy, with their :

1. natural development
2. logical preparation
3. accurate execution

A pervasive interest in the defense became his life-time passion (desired
intensely); he was fascinated by the idea of refuting (prove to be false or
incorrect)  an unsound attack, of demonstrating to the opponent that one
cannot lightly toss away pawns, or worse pieces, without retribution, that
hit-or-miss and helter-skelter attacks should not be permitted to achieve their
goal. All have absorbed fundamentals of his theories,  whether they have
agreed with him or agreed to disagree also poets of the chessboard as Zukertort, Tchigorin and Blackburne – their attacking play was purified and raised to finer artistic levels by Steinitz’s probing and fruitful criticism.

In the classical period (say, from Steinitz till 1935 Nimzowitsch’s death)
most players were technicians, with Capablanca as the most famous example.

Apart from the Blackburne match, Steinitz played no  competitive chess from 1874 to 1882. During that time, Zukertort emerged as the world’s leading active player, winning the Paris 1878 chess tournament. Zukertort then won the London 1883 chess tournament by a convincing 3-point margin, ahead of nearly every leading player in the world, with Steinitz finishing second.[13][14] 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,[14][15] won by Steinitz.

Official champions before FIDE (1886–1946)
The reign of Wilhelm Steinitz (1886–1894) –
Wilhelm Steinitz dominated chess from 1866 to 1894. Some commentators date his time as World Champion from 1866; others from 1886.

1889 tournament in New York to select a challenger for Steinitz, rather like the more recent  Candidates Tournaments. 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 the Rothschild Bank. The third prizewinner Isidor Gunsberg was prepared to play Steinitz.

The chess games of Emanuel Lasker

Lasker was the World Champion for 27 years consecutively from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of a World Champion.During that period, he played 7  one-sided World Championship matches against Steinitz, Frank Marshall, Siegbert Tarrasch and Dawid Janowski, and was only seriously threatened in a tied 1910 match against Carl Schlechter..Two young strong players emerged in late 1880s and early 1890s: Siegbert
Tarrasch and Emanuel Lasker.[28] Tarrasch had the better tournament results at the time, but it was Lasker who was able to raise the money to challenge Steinitz.[28]

Modern Chess 15 years 1890 till 1905

Era of what is called, occasionally in rather a disdainful (insulting) tone,
“modern chess” –  great Lasker and Tarrasch, Schlechter and Maroczy, of the attacking geniuses Pillsbury (lived 34 years, seem to be adequately appreciated 1956 first ed.) and Marshall and Janowski. Positional chess begins to be pre-eminent; before the opponent can be finished off with a brilliant combination.

It is generally necessary to outplay him positionally, in order to create
favorable conditions for sacrificial play. That is why Emanuel Lasker once wrote: “If you play well positionally, the combinations will come of
themselves.”

Lasker: endgame mastery, the first chess psychologist, greatest defensive (save lost positions) player ever, World Champion 27 years. Lasker calculated extremely deeply, seeing things that others would never find resulting in great
combinations, just like all the other great tacticians. Chaotic tactical tidal
waves (like Tal did), which drowned one opponent – defensive setups that even modern computers are incapable of seeing.

Lasker was the first champion after Steinitz; although he did not defend his title in 1897–1906 or 1911–1920, he did string together an impressive run of tournament victories and dominated his opponents. His success was largely due to the fact that he was an excellent practical player. In difficult or objectively lost positions he would complicate matters and use his extraordinary tactical abilities to save the game.

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: 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 the terms in which Capablanca  criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations.[29]

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 (American Chess Bulletin, October 1913).[30]

Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe (1921–1946)

i010 José Raúl Capablanca World Champion 1921 to 1927.

Moderns, Hypermoderns and Eclectics 37 years 1905 till 1942

Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Bernstein, Capablanca, Duras, Tartakower, Spielmann, Vidmar… They  applied in their games what they had learned from the reigning gods of the chessboard, but they also rebelled, as is the way of youth, and made their own additions and corrections.  Nimzovich and his young countryman Alekhine were evolving a new school of chess thought, whose effect, if not always its objective, was to turn the current chess theories upside down.
During and after the World War I, these players were joined by such masters as Reti, Bogolyubov and Breyer,  still younger players, such as Euwe,
Flohr, Kashdan, Fine, Reshevsky, Botvinnik and Keres. It is an age where
“anything goes”, older masters were rarely capable of such elasticity and
objectivity.

Steinitz: the first master of positional chess. Alekhine: dynamic,
combinative genius. Capablanca: endgame mastery and positional elegance. Tal:  attack and tactics.

Russia’s  
Alexander Alekhine (later baturalized French), Kasparov’s main early
influence,  took the world title from Cuba’s Capablanca in a  legendary
World Championship match held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1927 – 34 games, the longest until Garry’s first match with Karpov lasted a record 48.  31 game was mostly quin’s gambit, most draw, both Alekhine and Capablanca said “no advance in chech“.

He proposed the short-lived “London Rules” for future World
Championship matches.

1914 Saint Petersburg tournament – champion must be prepared to defend his title once a year; the match should be won by whichever player first won six or eight games (the champion had the right to choose); and the stake should be at least £1,000 (about £100,000 in current terms).[29]

When Lasker resumed negotiations with Capablanca after World War I, Lasker insisted on a similar clause that if Lasker should resign the title after a date had been set for the match, Capablanca should become world champion.[29] On 27 June 1920 Lasker abdicated in favor of Capablanca because of public criticisms of the terms for the match, naming Capablanca as his successor (American Chess Bulletin, July August 1920). Nonetheless Lasker 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 easily.[20]

Following the controversies surrounding his 1921 match against Lasker, in 1922 world champion Capablanca proposed “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; 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 $140,000 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 the loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Maróczy, Réti, Rubinstein, Tartakower and Vidmar promptly signed them.[31]

The chess games of Alexander Alekhine

He is the only World Champion to die while holding the title.Alekhine easily won two title matches against Efim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934.Alekhine agreed to place future matches for the world title under the auspices of FIDE, except that he would only play Capablanca under the same conditions that governed their match in 1927 – “London Rules”.[32] . Negotiations dragged on for several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight.[20].The only match played under those rules was Capablanca vs Alekhine in 1927.[32] Alekhine, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch had all challenged Capablanca in the early 1920s but only Alekhine could raise the US$10,000 Capablanca demanded and only in 1927.[33]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 was helped by his tactical skill, which complicated the game.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.[43]

Financing

Before 1948 world championship matches were financed by  arrangements similar to those Emanuel Lasker described for his 1894 match with Wilhelm Steinitz: either 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.[34] This system evolved out of the wagering of small stakes on club games in the early 19th century.[35]

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. 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.[33][39]

FIDE title (1948–1993)
FIDE, Euwe and AVRO

Birth of FIDE’s World Championship cycle (1946–1948)

Before 1946 a new World Champion had won the title by defeating the former champion in a match. Alexander Alekhine’s death in 1946 created an interregnum that made the normal procedure impossible. The situation was very confused.

Period of Russian Hegemony and Fischer 27 years 1942 till 1972

Russian government, acting as sponsors – Botvinnik, Smyslov, Bronstein,
Keres, Geller, Tal… – peak of technical perfection, great emphasis on
openings. Hordes of analysts finecomb existing ideas extensively and
occasionally produce interesting innovations.

Ukrainian-Soviet Grandmaster David Bronstein (200 Open Games) came as close as one can get to becoming world champion without achieving the highest title. He drew a world championship match against the mighty Mikhail Botvinnik  in 1951, but the champion retained the title with a draw. Bronstein would remain one of the strongest and most creative players in the world for many years.

Drawn 12–12 – Botvinnik-Bronstein in 1951 and Botvinnik-Smyslov in 1954 – so Botvinnik retained the title both times.

The eventual solution was very similar to FIDE’s initial proposal and to 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.

FIDE system (1949–1963)

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 the 1962 Candidates and then defeated Botvinnik in 1963 to become world champion.

Vasily Smyslov, World Champion 1957-1958.

The chess games of Mikhail Tal

The chess games of Tigran V Petrosian

The chess games of Robert James Fischer

Fischer won the 1992 Fischer–Spassky rematch decisively with a score of
10–5 (Yugo dollars). 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 Korchnoi had been instructed to lose to them. Yuri Averbakh, who
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.[50] Korchnoi, who defected from the USSR in 1976, has never alleged he was forced to throw games. FIDE responded by changing the format of future Candidates Tournaments to eliminate the possibility of  collusion.

Karpov and Kasparov (1975–1993)

i019 Anatoly Karpov became World Champion after Fischer refused to
defend his title. He was world champion from 1975 to 1985, and FIDE World
Champion from 1993 to 1999 when the world title was split.

Last 50 years ~1970 – 2020

English Grandmaster Mickey Adams has been England’s top player for two decades, he never reached a World Championship match like his countryman Nigel Short, who faced Garry in 1993.

Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan is a four-time US champion who became one of America’s top international players in the post-Fischer era.

Karpov, and especially the 9th World Champion, Tigran Petrosian,
were brilliant at playing quietly until their opponents slipped up. – said
Garry Kasparov. Garry once called Ukraine’s Vassily Ivanchuk
the player who has most surprised me over the board.

Karpov defended his title twice against ex-Soviet Viktor Korchnoi, first in
Baguio, the Philippines, in 1978 (6–5 with 21 draws) then in Merano in 1981 (6–2, with 10 draws).

An unbroken line of FIDE champions had thus been established from 1948 to 1972, with each champion gaining his title by beating the previous incumbent.
This came to an end when Anatoly Karpov won the right to challenge Fischer in 1975.

Karpov eventually lost his title to Garry Kasparov, whose aggressive tactical style was in sharp contrast to Karpov’s positional style. The two of them fought five incredibly close world  champ matches, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990. In the five matches Kasparov and Karpov played 144 games with 104 draws, 21 wins by Kasparov and 19 wins by
Karpov.

   13. i020 Garry Kasparov defeated Karpov 1985.

The chess games of Garry Kasparov

He was undisputed World Champion from 1985 to 1993, and held the split title until 2000. Garry is by many as the greatest chess player of all time,  youngest World Chess Champion in history in 1985 at the age of 22 by beating Anatoly Karpov. Winning remarkable 16th game gave Garry a big lead in his 1986 World Championship title defense against Karpov. He’d won four games against only one loss. Incredibly, Garry then lost the next three games in a row and the match was tied with five games remaining. Garry retook the lead by winning game 22 and the final two games were drawn.Garry lost the 2000 World Championship match in London to Russia’s Vladimir Kramnik with a score of 6.5-8.5, with two losses and thirteen draws, no wins – 2nd time in chess history.  Garry retired from professional chess in 2005. Garry won
Linares a record 9 times, including his last official event before retiring in 2005.In February 1996, he defeated IBM’s chess computer Deep Blue
(Computer) with three wins and two draws and one loss. 1997 Deep Blue
defeated Kasparov 3½-2½ in a highly publicised six-game match. The match was even after five games but Kasparov lost Game 6 – Deep Blue vs
Kasparov, 1997 – to lose the match. This was the first time a computer had
ever defeated a world champion in match play.Kramnik – Deep Fritz (for million dolars Bahrein, Oct. 2002) was 3 : 1 but ended 4 :4. Kramnik – Deep Fritz (fond half million dolars) Bonn 2006, 2 : 4.Since his retirement 2005, Kasparov has concentrated much of his time and energy in Russian politics. He is also a prolific author, most famously his My
Great Predecessors series.

The chess games of Vladimir Kramnik

Vladimir Kramnik defeated Garry Kasparov in 2000, and then after much controversy became the undisputed world champion by beating Topalov in World Chess Championship 2006 reunification match, late 2006. This match, and all subsequent championships, have been administered by FIDE.

The chess games of Viswanathan Anand

Viswanathan Anand, famed for his ultra-rapid play, Indian, held the FIDE title from 2000 to 2002, and the unified title from 2007 to 2013.Kramnik played to defend his title at the World Chess Championship 2007 in Mexico. This was an 8-player double round robin tournament, the same format as was used for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. This tournament was won by Viswanathan Anand, thus making him the World Chess Champion. Because Anand’s World Chess Champion title was won in a tournament rather than a match, a minority of commentators questioned the validity of his title.[61] Kramnik also
made ambiguous comments about the value of Anand’s title, but did not claim the
title himself.[62] Subsequent world championship matches returned to the format
of a match between the champion and a challenger.The following two championships had special clauses arising from the 2006
unification. Kramnik was given the right to challenge for the title he lost in a
tournament in the World Chess Championship 2008, which Anand won. Then Topalov,
who as the loser of the 2006 match was excluded from the 2007 championship, was
seeded directly into the Candidates final of the World Chess Championship 2010.
He won the Candidates (against Gata Kamsky). Anand again won the championship
match.[63][64]The next championship, the World Chess Championship 2012, had short knock-out
matches for the Candidates Tournament. This format was not popular with
everyone, and world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen withdrew in protest. Boris Gelfand won
the Candidates. Anand won the championship match again, in tie breaking rapid
games, for his fourth consecutive world championship win.[65]

Split title (1993–2005)

Alexander Khalifman, FIDE World Champion 1999-2000.
Ruslan Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion 2002-2004.
Rustam Kasimdzhanov, FIDE World Champion 2004-2005.
Veselin Topalov, FIDE World Champion 2005-2006.
Reunified title (2006)

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 the right to challenge Kasparov for the title.

However, before
the match took place, both Kasparov and Short complained of corruption and a
lack of professionalism within FIDE in organizing the match, 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 a
championship match between Karpov and Timman. Kasparov defeated Short while
Karpov beat Timman, and for the first time in history there were two World Chess
Champions.

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 the final of the FIDE
World Chess Championship 1996. Negotiations were held for a reunification match
between Kasparov and Karpov in 1996–97,[59] but nothing came of them.[60]

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 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 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 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 straight into the final, but subsequently
the champion had to qualify like 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 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
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 decided that Kasparov play the
FIDE champion (Ponomariov) for the FIDE title, and the winner of this match play
the winner of the Kramnik–Leko match for a unified title. However, the matches
proved difficult to finance and organise. The Kramnik–Leko match did not take
place until late 2004 (it 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. Partly due to his frustration at
the situation, Kasparov retired 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 the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005, a double round robin
tournament to be held in San Luis, Argentina between eight of the leading
players in the world. However Kramnik insisted that his title be decided in a
match, and declined to participate. The tournament was convincingly won by the
Bulgarian Veselin Topalov, and negotiations began for a Kramnik–Topalov match to
unify the title.