FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 The FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 was held in Moscow, Russia. The first six rounds were played between 27 November and 14 December 2001, and the final match started on 16 January and ended on 23 January 2002. The Ukrainian Grandmaster Ruslan Ponomariov, aged 18, won the championship and became the youngest FIDE World Champion. At the time of this championship, the World title was split. The Classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, did not participate, as well as the previous Classical Champion and world's highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov. However, all other strongest players of the
World Chess Championship 1948 World Chess Championship 1948 The 1948 World Chess Championship was a quintuple round-robin tournament played to determine the new World Chess Champion following the death of the previous champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946. The tournament marked the passing of control of the championship title to FIDE, the International Chess Federation which had been formed in 1924. Mikhail Botvinnik won the five-player championship tournament, beginning the era of Soviet domination of international chess that would last over twenty years without interruption. Previously, a new World Champion had won the title by defeating the former champion in a match. Alekhine's death created