FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 The FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 was held at the Almahary Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, from June 18 to July 13. It was won by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, who beat Michael Adams in the final by a score of 4½–3½. He won about US$100,000 and the title of FIDE World Chess Champion. The intention was that the tournament winner would play world number one Garry Kasparov in a step towards the reunification of the World Chess Championship, which had been split into two separate titles since the World Chess Championship 1993. However, that match never took
World Chess Championship 2010 for the title of FIDE World Chess Champion would be an eight-player tournament. At the time there were two rival World Champions, 2005 FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov, and "Classical" World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. The list of the eight players for the tournament included Topalov, but not Kramnik. To unify the two World Champion titles, FIDE later organised a match between Kramnik and Topalov (the World Chess Championship 2006). Kramnik was to take Topalov's place in the World Chess Championship 2007 if he won the match, which he did. Topalov was hence excluded from the 2007 World Chess Championship, a