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 the winner playing a match against the champion for the title. These have followed a 2-year cycle: qualification for the Candidates in the odd year, the Candidates tournament early in the even year, and World Championship match late in the even year. Magnus Carlsen defeated Anand in the World Chess Championship 2013. Carlsen has successfully defended his title thrice, against Anand in the World Chess Championship 2014, against Sergey Karjakin in the World Chess Championship 2016, and against Fabiano Caruana in the World Chess Championship 2018. His last two defences were decided by tie-break in rapid games. Before 1948 world