World Chess Championship 1990 World Chess Championship 1990 The World Chess Championship 1990 was played between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. It was the fifth and final Kasparov–Karpov championship match, Kasparov winning by a single point. Three Interzonals were held in the summer of 1987, with 16 to 18 players playing in each and the top three scorers from each qualifying. In the first tournament in Subotica, Sax, Short, and Speelman qualified. Lubomir Kavalek withdrew after six rounds; his results are not included in the totals for the other players. Robert Hübner was invited, but declined to participate. As a result, Ribli had a
World Chess Championship in later life, dated his reign from this 1866 match. In 1878, Johannes Zukertort won the Paris 1878 chess tournament (though Steinitz did not play), and later won the London 1883 chess tournament by a convincing 3 point margin, ahead of nearly every leading player in the world, including Steinitz. This tournament established Steinitz and Zukertort as the best two players in the world, and led to the inaugural World Championship match between these two, the World Chess Championship 1886. This match, won by Steinitz, though not held under the aegis of any official body, is generally recognized as the