58 Fun Facts About World Chess Championship

Whom did Wilhelm Steinitz beat in the 1886 match recognised as the first world championship?

Johannes Zukertort won four of the first five games in New York, then wilted as the match moved on to St. Louis and New Orleans, losing by ten wins to five.

Which champion held the world chess title longest, for 27 years?

Emanuel Lasker reigned from 1894 to 1921. After beating Steinitz again in 1897 he went ten years without a title match, then faced four challengers in four years.

Which reigning champion died in 1946, leaving the title vacant and prompting FIDE to take over?

Alexander Alekhine was found dead in a hotel room in Portugal while arranging a title match with Botvinnik. He is the only champion to have died holding the title.

The 1948 tournament for the vacant world chess title began in The Hague and finished in which city?

Moscow. Five players took part after Reuben Fine declined his place, and Botvinnik won by three clear points, the first of the Soviet champions who held the title until 1972.

Under which new body did Kasparov and Short play their 1993 match after breaking from FIDE?

Professional Chess Association. FIDE answered by stripping Kasparov of its title and staging a rival match, which left chess with two world champions at once.

The 2006 World Chess Championship match nearly collapsed in a row over one player's frequent visits to where?

His private bathroom was the one place not under surveillance, so the rival camp voiced suspicion; when officials closed it, he forfeited game five in protest, yet still won the match in tiebreaks.

What forced the defending champion into a 40-hour road trip to reach the 2010 World Chess Championship in Sofia?

A volcanic ash cloud from Iceland grounded Europe's flights, so the champion's team drove from Frankfurt to Sofia; granted just one extra day, he lost the first game but still kept his title.

Who defeated Ding Liren in the 2024 match to become world chess champion?

Gukesh Dommaraju had earned the match in Toronto, where his final-round draw won the Candidates only because a rival let a winning position slip.

An 18-year-old became the youngest undisputed world chess champion in 2024 after the title-holder did what in game 14?

Blundered a drawn endgame: Ding Liren offered a rook swap that let his challenger force a winning pawn ending, losing the title in a game he could have held to reach tiebreaks.

Which city hosted the 2024 World Chess Championship match?

Singapore was chosen by FIDE over two rival bids from India, New Delhi and Chennai, so the Indian challenger had to chase the title away from home.

Which country gained its first open world chess champion in 2023?

China got its first open world champion the hard way: after a 7–7 tie, Ding Liren turned down a draw by repetition in the last rapid tiebreak game and won it with Black.

Why was the 2023 world championship contested by the top two Candidates finishers?

The title-holder declined to defend it: Magnus Carlsen, champion since 2013, said he had no inclination to play another title match, so he gave up the crown without ever losing it.

Magnus Carlsen, who first won the world chess title in 2013, represents which country?

Norway's Carlsen took the title at 22, three years after walking out of the previous championship cycle, which he said was not "sufficiently modern and fair".

Who won the eight-player double round-robin tournament in Mexico in 2007 to become world champion?

Viswanathan Anand finished a full point clear without losing a game, then defended the title head-to-head in 2008 against the champion he had displaced.

What was unprecedented about the classical portion of the 2018 championship match in London?

All twelve games were drawn, so the title came down to a rapid tiebreak, where Carlsen won three straight games to stay champion.

Which American challenged Carlsen for the title in London in 2018?

Fabiano Caruana was the first American to challenge for the undisputed title since Bobby Fischer in 1972, though he had spent a decade representing Italy before switching back in 2015.

Who won the eighth game of the 2016 match in New York to take a lead over Carlsen?

Sergey Karjakin won it with Black, and a rattled Carlsen left the press conference before it began, earning a fine; the champion levelled in game ten and won the rapid tiebreak.

Who lost a 136-move game to Carlsen in 2021, the longest in World Chess Championship history?

Ian Nepomniachtchi never recovered from the defeat: after five straight draws to open the match, he lost three of the next five games.

The 2021 championship match was staged inside which international event?

Expo 2020 in Dubai was itself running a year late because of the pandemic, which had also pushed the title match back from 2020, so the two ended up under one roof.

In the 1978 World Chess Championship match, the challenger accused a man on the champion's team of trying to do what?

Hypnotise him: the champion's delegation included a Soviet psychologist and hypnotherapist, Dr Zukhar, who sat near the front and stared at the challenger during play.

In which city did Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky in the 1972 'Match of the Century'?

Reykjavík almost hosted no match at all: Fischer skipped the opening ceremony and landed in Iceland only hours before he would have been forfeited.

A phone call from which US official helped persuade Fischer to play the 1972 match?

Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's national security adviser, made the call as Fischer held out, a sign of the Cold War stakes: Soviet players had held the title without a break since 1948.

How did financier Jim Slater get Bobby Fischer to the board in 1972?

He doubled the prize fund by adding $125,000 of his own money, lifting it to $250,000, and Fischer, who had been holding out for more, finally agreed to play.

After losing game six of the 1972 world title match, what did Boris Spassky famously do?

Applauded his opponent: Spassky joined the audience in clapping the win that put Fischer ahead for the first time in a match he went on to take 12½–8½.

Which American grandmaster did Bobby Fischer call in at the last minute as his second for the 1972 world title match?

William Lombardy, a Catholic priest as well as a grandmaster, did more than analyse: he is credited with persuading a wavering Fischer to play on.

FIDE accepted Bobby Fischer's ten-win format but refused which other demand in 1975?

The title at 9–9 would have stayed with Fischer, forcing a challenger to win 10–8, so FIDE said no; he refused to play and Karpov became champion without moving a pawn.

Karpov's stormy 1978 world title defence was held in which mountain resort city in the Philippines?

Baguio saw Karpov lead 5–2, watch the challenger win three of the next four games to level at 5–5, then take game 32 to keep his title.

Which defector from the USSR twice challenged Karpov for the title, in 1978 and 1981?

Viktor Korchnoi defected in 1976 and came to the 1978 match as a man without a country: when the Soviets objected to him using the Swiss flag, the jury banned flags from the table altogether.

What did Karpov's team send him mid-game in 1978 that rivals called a possible coded message?

A blueberry yogurt reached Karpov during game two, and the rival camp protested that it could be a coded instruction; they later called the protest a joke, but it was taken seriously at the time.

Garry Kasparov, world chess champion at 22 in 1985, was born in which Soviet city?

Baku-born as Garri Weinstein to a Jewish father and an Armenian mother, he took his mother's family name, Kasparov, as a boy, years before he became world champion.

How many world championship games did Kasparov and Karpov play across their five matches?

144 games across six years, yet only two wins separated them at the end: Kasparov won 21, Karpov 19, and the other 104 were drawn.

Who took the Classical title from Kasparov in London in 2000 with two wins and thirteen draws?

Vladimir Kramnik went through the match unbeaten, blunting Kasparov's white pieces with the Berlin Defence, a queenless endgame line the champion never managed to break down.

Which Bulgarian won the 2005 San Luis tournament to become FIDE world champion?

Veselin Topalov went unbeaten and finished a point and a half clear of the field, a win that set up the 2006 match to reunify the two rival world titles.

Garry Kasparov's 1995 chess title defence was staged on the observation deck of which New York landmark?

The World Trade Center hosted it on the 107th floor, where eight straight draws ended with the challenger striking first in game nine, only for Kasparov to win four of the next five.

Which American grandmaster led the 2002 'Prague Agreement' to reunite the split world title?

Yasser Seirawan's plan called for two matches feeding a unification final, but only one of them was ever played, and the title stayed split until 2006.

Nigel Short earned his 1993 world title shot by beating which player in the Candidates final?

Jan Timman lost that final but still played for a world title: when Short and Kasparov broke away from FIDE, it put the Dutchman up against Karpov for its own crown.

Which German master, famed for the 'Immortal Game', did Steinitz beat in an 1866 match?

Adolf Anderssen was the leading active player of his day, so Steinitz later dated his own reign from this win, twenty years before the first official title match.

Which American, who retired abruptly at his peak in 1859, became known as 'the pride and sorrow of chess'?

Paul Morphy beat Europe's best in 1858, then would play only at odds and found no takers; he turned to the law instead and never played serious chess again.

Which English master was hailed as 'Champion of the World' in an 1845 speech?

Howard Staunton did not design the standard chess pieces named after him: Nathaniel Cooke registered the pattern in 1849, and Staunton's endorsement gave it his name.

Who took the world title from Emanuel Lasker in 1921?

José Raúl Capablanca could have had the title for nothing: Lasker resigned it to him in 1920, but he insisted on a match and won it in Havana with four wins and no defeats.

Which opening was played in 32 of the 34 games of the 1927 World Chess Championship match in Buenos Aires?

The Queen's Gambit, in its Declined form, opened every game but the first and third, and the champion who had demanded a $10,000 purse from any challenger lost his title.

Which Dutch amateur, a mathematics teacher by profession, won the world title in 1935?

Max Euwe granted his beaten rival an immediate rematch and lost it in 1937, then returned decades later as FIDE president, overseeing the Fischer–Spassky match.

Who beat Botvinnik for the title in 1957, only to lose the return match a year later?

Vasily Smyslov was champion for just one year: the rules of the day gave a beaten champion an automatic return match, and Botvinnik won it in 1958 after starting with three straight wins.

Who ended the Botvinnik era by defeating him in the 1963 title match?

Tigran Petrosian was the first challenger to beat Botvinnik for good: the return-match rule had been scrapped, so Botvinnik retired from title play rather than try to qualify again.

After Fischer's 1962 Candidates collusion claim, FIDE replaced the round-robin with what format?

A series of elimination matches replaced the tournament after Fischer charged collusion: the three Soviets who finished on top had not won a single game against one another.

Which challenger led Botvinnik with two games left in 1951, only to finish level at 12–12?

David Bronstein needed only one point from the last two games, but he lost the 23rd and drew the 24th, and a tied match left the title with the champion.

Who became the first Women's World Chess Champion by winning a 1927 tournament in London?

Vera Menchik won every women's championship held in her lifetime, and also beat leading men in open tournaments, a future world champion among them.

The first women's world chess champion died in 1944 when her south London home was hit by what?

A V-1 flying bomb scored a direct hit, killing her with her mother and sister; she was still champion, and the women's title stayed vacant until a 1949–50 tournament.

Which Chinese player won her fifth Women's World Chess Championship title in 2025?

Ju Wenjun beat Tan Zhongyi 6½–2½ to win it, seven years after taking the title from the very same opponent in her first championship match.

Which Soviet republic produced Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, women's world chess champions?

Georgia's Nona Gaprindashvili reigned for 16 years until a 17-year-old from the same republic, Maia Chiburdanidze, took the title from her in 1978 and held it until 1991.

FIDE was founded on 20 July 1924 by participants at a tournament in which city?

Paris was hosting the 1924 Olympics, and delegates at a chess tournament held alongside them signed the federation into being on its last day; it still goes by the initials of its French name.

Which tech company was the title sponsor of the 2024 World Chess Championship match?

Google signed on as title sponsor, a natural fit: its DeepMind lab built AlphaZero, the neural-network program that mastered chess, shogi and Go.

Who in 2005 became the only woman ever to play in the final stage of the open World Chess Championship?

Judit Polgár finished last of the eight players in San Luis, but over her career she beat a string of world champions, Kasparov and Karpov among them.

In the 1971 Candidates, Fischer beat Mark Taimanov and which other grandmaster by identical 6–0 scores?

Bent Larsen lost all six games in Denver soon after Taimanov's whitewash, part of a run of 20 straight wins, one by forfeit, that ended only in the Candidates final.

Where was game three of the 1972 Fischer–Spassky world title match played, at Fischer's insistence?

In a small room backstage, Fischer beat Spassky for the first time in his life; by agreeing to the move, Spassky kept alive a match that Fischer had been ready to abandon.

Whom did Lasker crush in 1910 in what is described as the most one-sided title match in history?

Dawid Janowski failed to win a single game, a stark contrast to Lasker's defence earlier that year, when Carl Schlechter led until the very last game.

Which Latvian took the title from Botvinnik in 1960, only to lose the return match in 1961?

Mikhail Tal, the 'Magician from Riga', was 24 and troubled by kidney disease in the rematch, while Botvinnik, more than twice his age, came back with a new approach and won 13–8.

Which American gave up his place in the 1970 Interzonal so that Bobby Fischer could enter the world title cycle?

Pal Benko stepped aside because Fischer had skipped the US Championship that served as the qualifier; Fischer then won the Interzonal by 3½ points on his way to the title.